NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this “raw and bittersweet” (Publishers Weekly) queer coming-of-age companion novel to Last Night at the Telegraph Club, a high school senior gets shipped off to grandma for a party gone wrong, but what should have been a forgettable summer becomes anything but.

“Full of yearning, ponderances about art, and what it means to be an artist.”—NPR

“Queer in the best of ways—messy, raw, heartbreaking, freeing, and imperfect.”—Autostraddle

Aria Tang West was looking forward to a summer on Martha’s Vineyard with her best friends—one last round of sand and sun before college. But after a graduation party goes wrong, Aria’s parents exile her to California to stay with her grandmother, artist Joan West. Aria expects boredom, but what she finds is Steph Nichols, her grandmother’s gardener. Soon, Aria is second-guessing who she is and what she wants to be, and a summer that once seemed lost becomes unforgettable—for Aria, her family, and the working-class queer community Steph introduces her to. It’s the kind of summer that changes a life forever.

And decades after the end of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, this companion novel also offers a glimpse into Lily and Kath’s lives since 1955.