A slow burn wasn’t on the agenda…

Flora and Mark are both professors, both mid-career, and both unlucky in love. As the new year starts, they're assigned to serve on the dreaded Budget committee at Astor College, the small liberal arts school where they both teach. The catch? In the decade they've worked together, their animosity has only deepened. Flora thinks Mark is a performative tryhard, while Mark sees Flora as the frontwoman for a snotty Mean Girls clique on campus.

A mystery soon falls into their laps, foisted on them by an anonymous informant. As they investigate possible wrongdoing, they end up having to work together, and despite some undisguised derision, some woefully awful dates with other people, and unknown forces threatening their careers, they pick apart the web of mystery surrounding Astor. In the process, they start to see the good in each other. Or, at least, they each start to find each other slightly less annoying. Most of the time.

Best, is a romantic comedy with a mystery at its heart. Deeply tongue-in-cheek, the book is full of the quirky, rewarding, and deplorable aspects of academic life.

Content warnings: clean romance but with a ton of coarse language. Like, a lot.