When Esmerelda Harlow steps into the musty halls of Winston High as the new history teacher, with a reputation for being a bitter and arrogant professor, whispers of her arrival ripple through the school. Students are wary, until the reckless student Cameron Monroe allows her interest to morph. Cameron, the school's untouchable rebel with a reputation for detention and carelessness, with a game of causing disturbances. To her, Esmerelda Harlow is just another target-a seemingly uptight woman with strict rules and an aura of authority begging to be challenged. But when Cameron tries her usual antics, she's met with something entirely unexpected: resistance. Esmerelda is not an easy mark. In fact, she's more than Cameron bargained for. Cool-headed and emotionless. Every sarcastic remark is met with calm but devastating wit. Every act of defiance earns a punishment so perfectly tailored, it leaves Cameron seething-and strangely fascinated. Esmerelda sees through Cameron's rebellious exterior to the restless mind beneath it. Cameron, for all her bravado, finds herself caught in Esmerelda's gravitational pull-her intelligence, her poise, and her charm. But Esmerelda isn't here to play games. She's here to teach Cameron a lesson she'll never forget, one that will leave them both questioning the boundaries of power, desire, and control. In the end, it's not just Cameron's life that Esmerelda will upend, -it's her own. In a town where reputations are everything, what happens when two unstoppable forces collide in one university?

Norah Cook knows nothing about love, about romance, about affection. Nor does she understand it. But after a few teenager years without it all, she meets Mio Reed, the woman who unintentionally changes everything. The woman who is also her best friend's mother. All of her classmates and friends are experiencing teenage affection and relationships, all while Norah has always found she's had no interest. But in an unlikely turn, her first feelings end up being pointed towards a woman who's married and far older. But over time, something begins to change in that woman too and both their lives are changed forever.