The Familiar Stranger | Michael Jackson | Off the Wall Era

[Slow Burn] [Young Romance]
Los Angeles, 1979.
A ruined tourist map drops her into the path of Michael Jackson, about to turn twenty-one, restless, and standing on the edge of the Off the Wall era.

Raised in a world where Western pop music rarely reached her, Annika has no idea who he is. To her, he is simply Michael: a shy young musician who talks too fast when excited, laughs when he forgets to be guarded, and longs for somewhere he can be ordinary.

What begins with a late-night ride and a cup of chai becomes a private world of music, sketches, secret outings and stolen hours-and a messy, tender, very twenty-one-year-old romance filled with missed calls, bruised egos, impulsive choices and feelings neither of them quite knows what to do with.

But as Michael's fame grows and Annika's time in America begins to run out, the world they have created together may be the one thing neither of them can keep.