Hate Me Sweetly

​She didn't choose this life. She certainly didn't choose him.

​Anastasia Middleton had a plan for her senior year in California: graduate, stay under the radar, and keep her nose in her Shakespeare books. But when her mother marries a man from halfway across the world, Anastasia is uprooted from everything she knows and dropped into the sun-drenched, stone-cold reality of Italy. She's an outsider in a house that isn't hers, trying to navigate a stepfather she barely knows and a language she can't speak.

​Then there's Niccolo Bianchi.

​The boy next door doesn't offer a "welcome to the neighborhood" smile. Instead, he offers a sneer and a warning. Forced by his mother to be Anastasia's reluctant shadow, Niccolo makes it clear that the "American girl" is a burden he didn't ask for. He's arrogant, brooding, and speaks fast Italian insults that Anastasia doesn't need a translator to understand.

​When a "study group" turns into a high-stakes villa party, Niccolo is forced to take her along. It's there, amidst the neon lights and the thrum of Italian rap, that Anastasia meets Luca, the charming, wealthy "Prince" who actually seems to want her there.

​But as the summer heat rises, the lines between enemies and allies begin to blur. Niccolo is supposed to be her babysitter, her annoyance, her enemy. So why is he the only one who looks at her like he's actually seeing her? And why does his hatred feel more like a shield than a weapon?

​In a world of blended families and broken promises, Anastasia is about to learn that the boy who wants her gone might be the only one willing to make her stay.