Twenty-four-year-old Welsh Canadian poet Reg is struggling to finish his MFA while in the grips of writer’s block. His best friend, Martin, attempting to get him out of his head and needing a wingman, convinces him to come to his crush’s party. What Reg doesn’t anticipate is meeting the crush’s eighteen-year-old brother, Joel, a first-year premed student whose perfect self-possession gets right up Reg’s nose.

But, like sand in an oyster, Joel’s irritating presence has a productive effect on Reg, and suddenly, he’s writing poetry again (still irritated, but writing). Joel’s self-assurance, however, is an act; the pressure of school and family expectation have rendered him so tightly wound he’s about to snap, and when Joel finally comes apart, there’s no one to help put him back together. Except Reg.

If Reg were any further up himself, he’d disappear, but he finds that he can’t stand by and watch his muse suffer. And he discovers that this more vulnerable Joel opens his heart.

But this new relationship threatens Reg’s friendship with Martin, as Martin’s crush (now girlfriend) believes Reg is taking advantage of her baby brother.

Reg must choose: Give up Joel or lose Martin, his best and only friend.

For fans of Alexis Hall’s Spires series.