One Day, Hard and Clear

A poignant novel about two best friends sharing yearning, rejection, and lip gloss in a close-knit blue-collar town.

It’s 2004 and childhood friends Sami and Lucy are on the edge of adulthood. Lucy knows what she is going to do — she’s going to school and getting out. But Sami, caught in an endless loop with a boy, True, who is from a troubled family, can’t seem to get unstuck.

“I’d used to feel, when I was with True, that I was safe, that he would take care of me, that he wouldn’t let anythi...