In this dramatic, unpredictable, romance-gone-awry companion novel to Breathless (2009), Warman only improves as she revisits the boarding-school scene. At the elite Stonybrook Academy in Connecticut, Emily Meckler routinely suffers inexplicable nightmares about fire and water, but compared to her classmates saddled with various neuroses and fighting, absent or strung-out parents, she considers herself lucky to have stable parents and her father as the headmaster. The high-school junior finds herself ready for a change, though, when sexy, mysterious Del Sugar transfers in and soon craves her attention. Despite everyone’s warnings about Del’s erratic behavior, Emily’s once-normal life becomes a series of lies when she tries to hide her relationship and the pregnancy that ensues. As she confronts painful decisions that will affect her forever, the teen also faces newly discovered mysteries of her past, learns the complex nature of relationships, truth and family and finds the resiliency to look toward the future. Emily’s unflinching, multilayered narration and realistic dialogue capture the wishes and fears that drive teens. A page-turner to the bittersweet ending. (Fiction. YA)
