Little Pieces of Light

Estranged friends find love while contending with drug dependency, suicide, and grief in this heavy romance by Scott (Full Tilt). In a prologue set in Watch Hill, R.I., popular 10-year-old Emery introduces herself to loner Xander. When Xander moves away, he promises he’ll write to Emery; unbeknownst to the friends, his letters never reach her. Following his divorced father’s mental breakdown, Xander—now 17—returns to Watch Hill, where he must care for his father while attending Emery’s school. Emery is nothing like Xander remembers. She’s adopted a mean girl attitude and is even dating Xander’s childhood bully. Still, Xander and Emery form a tentative bond after Emery approaches Xander for tutoring. While opening up about the years they were apart, Emery reveals her brother’s death by suicide and that she’s seeking emancipation from her domineering father. The teens agree on a plan: they’ll enter a marriage of convenience. As real romantic feelings make their pretend marriage feel more real, tumultuous school and home lives threaten to tear them apart. Moments of tender first love buoy the complexly layered social dynamics featured throughout the white-cued protagonists’ melancholy alternating first-person narration. Ages 16–up. Agent: Georgana Grinstead, Seymour Agency. (Oct.)