Showing results for "Bittersweet" in Coming of Age

From the outside, I live a charmed life: hockey legend for a father, my own promising future in the league, a great family, awesome friends. It’s not untrue, but it’s not quite that simple either. My dad’s advice has always been to make hockey my number-one priority—at least until I make it to the pros. So going into my senior year of college, I have a plan. I’ll put in the effort required to pass my classes, play hockey like my life depends on it, and avoid relationships. All I have to do is stay focused on the end game. It should be easy.

The lake in the middle of her father’s kitchen is only the first in a series of disasters in Zeina’s life. Nassar’s recent health crisis has seen his well-established community restaurant, Casablanca, losing ground and customers to trendier competition. Casablanca’s deterioration is not the only chaos in Zeina’s world but, unlike her husband who won’t speak to her, her best friend who is sliding towards self-destruction, and her cousin who is stealing Zeina’s life story for content, the restaurant is something she can fix. And Zeina, lonely and adrift, needs something she can fix.

Twenty-nine-year-old Charlotte Rosen has a secret: she’s a widow. Ever since the fateful day that leveled her world, Charlotte has worked hard to move forward. Great job at a hot social media analytics company? Check. Roommate with no knowledge of her past? Check. Adorable dog? Check. All the while, she’s faithfully data-crunched her way through life, calculating the probability of risk - so she can avoid it. Yet Charlotte’s algorithms could never have predicted that her late husband’s ashes would land squarely on her doorstep five years later.