WHAT GIVES YOU AWAY

An unlikely pair finds modern love on a Massachusetts campus in this debut romance.

Pia Sandstrom, a 44-year-old administrative assistant at a Boston-area university registrar’s office, falls for 23-year-old Jeremy Ronan, a graduate student studying aerospace engineering. Their relationship is against the rules, but Pia can’t help her feelings despite the professional distance required by her position—and despite her marriage vows. Gordon,her aging husband, hardly pays her any attention, and she longs to be with the sensitive, artistic Jeremy with his “big eyes” and “nice smile.” Rossow gives readers Pia’s perspective as romantic tension builds in a series of serendipitous campus encounters. Here and there, Pia’s passionate, observant nature bursts forth in a lyrical way: “Beneath the streetlamps, Pia noticed that the wind had cleared the sidewalk of many oak leaves, and their tannin had left impressions on the light concrete surface after a heavy rain bled them.” She finds her match in Jeremy’s attentive, all-encompassing love. Aside from the slightly taboo edge of their relationship, it soon becomes a relatively standard campus fling. They enjoy spending time together outside, reading poetry to each other, going to protests, museums, and art galleries. The accounts of campus bureaucracy are somewhat tedious and extraneous to the central love story. However, there are enough sparks between Jeremy and Pia to keep the story simmering along. An unintentional disclosure from Jeremy, though, leaves Pia reeling and ready to pull away from him and return to the predictability of a life with Gordon. After Jeremy survives a terrible trauma, she must decide whether she can be at his side. The final sections present her solution, although it’s one that feels unresolved and unsatisfying.

An unevenly executed romance that also reflects on contemporary campus issues.