When a total stranger knows what eats you, maybe they are your one true love. Even if you don't know it yet. || On Friday the 13th, two twenty-something, Daya and Mike, end up in a mutually beneficial arrangement: she is his caregiver after he breaks his foot; he provides room&board to help her out with a teeny-tiny cash flow problem. Not a whiff of a romance, strictly business. And for a while, all is good... for about five minutes, that is. What can an overweight man, a video game obsessed librarian, know about her quitting a challenging sport of figure skating, Daya scoffs. He needs to get off her case and sort out his binge eating! What does a celery-chewing skating diva care about his failure as a PhD candidate, Mike wonders. She is just replacing her dreams with his non-existing problems instead of pursuing her one true passion! With the two already teetering on the brink of mutually assured destruction, oil splashes onto the flames when Daya resumes her never-ending quest for skating triumph at Canadian Nationals. (Well, that should make Mike happy, right? Right?) But isn't there *something* worth fighting for *together*? Like, you know, love? COMPLETED. First Published: August 19, 2019 Trigger warning: This story contains themes of eating disorders and body image insecurity (male).

Cages aren't made of iron or steel; they're made up of the lies and half-truths we build our realities upon. Sixteen-year-old Caterina Donati's life appears ridiculously perfect on the outside. She's rich, beautiful, and top of her class and continues to maintain this facade until an old classmate's return to Ashton Wellesley Academy turns her world upside down. With ink, piercings, and attitude to match, Zachary Mazur is no longer the boy everyone used to bully in seventh grade. They become rivals from day one. Chaos ensues as egos clash and sparks fly. Cate soon discovers there's much more to Zac than meets the eye, and the two of them embark on a quest for truth and justice. The dark and wrenching journey brings Cate and Zac closer than ever even while it unravels everything the young lovers know about themselves and the smiling sharks around them. "Gilded Cage" is the first book in my "Gilded" series. Be sure to check out the sequel, "Gilded Hearts," after reading this one.