Out of Step, into You

Mari is the captain of Westfield’s high school cross-country team, while her former best friend, Taylor, captains a rival team at Jefferson. The two teens haven’t spoken since Mari moved from Jefferson to Westfield three years ago, a result of her financially struggling single mother’s efforts to keep the family afloat. Feeling abandoned in a time of need, as her father had been going through kidney failure, Taylor cut all ties with Mari. But when Mari moves back to Jefferson, she’s forced to join Taylor on the Jefferson cross-country team. As tension builds, the team suffers, and the duo’s coach assigns them to community service at an animal rescue, hoping they can work out their issues off the track. While reconnecting, they get to know each other once again, learn about the other’s personal struggles, cope with their feelings of mutual betrayal, and evaluate their relationship with the sport that brought them back together. All the while, the memory of a kiss they shared years prior looms. Burch (Something Kindred) excites in this fun and heartfelt enemies-to-lovers romance that’s ripe with engaging conflict, personable characters, and captivating interpersonal relationships. Mari and Taylor have brown skin. Ages 12–up. (May)