“Vivid and moving. I loved it.” —Rebecca Stead, Newbery-winning author of When You Reach Me Julia and Eliza are best friends, so when Julia’s mom is sent to serve in Iraq, it makes perfect sense for her to spend the summer with Eliza and her parents. Any other time, Julia would be thrilled to be there. But on top of worrying about her mom, Julia develops her first real crush. The gap between Julia and Eliza keeps widening—until Eliza does something drastic to win back her best friend. In her follow-up to the award-winning Anything But Typical , Nora Baskin Raleigh has written a powerful, touching story about friendship, first love, and how the people who are farthest away from us are sometimes the ones we need the most.

“Unusual, fascinating examination of human intersection and the myriad, imperceptible ways we relate to one another.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) When Natalie was eleven, her mother walked out mid-sentence and never came back. Now Natalie is almost sixteen and struggling with a toxic relationship, so she sets out on a bus trip to find her mother and figure out love. To her surprise, she meets people with stories like her own, stories about giving love and getting lost in the desire to be wanted. Acclaimed middle-grade novelist Nora Raleigh Baskin makes her young adult debut with a deeply resonant novel about secrets held and secrets shared, about having the courage to uncover all we know — and don’t know — of love.