Slow Dance: A Novel

A bright, beaming power ballad of a novel from Rainbow Rowell—the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Landline, Fangirl, and Eleanor & Park—Slow Dance tells the humorous and heartbreaking love story of best friends Shiloh and Cary from their inseparable teen years to their far-flung adulthoods as they try to figure out what their relationship is, where it went wrong, and how to finally make it right.

Growing up on the wrong side of Omaha, all Shiloh could think about was getting away. At least she had Cary in the meantime. Cary to put up with her, Cary to make her laugh. Cary at sixteen, built like a stick of gum and driving his mom’s beat-up station wagon. He had it worse than Shiloh did. Only their friendship got Cary through high school and when Shiloh went off to college, he joined the Navy.

That was fourteen years ago. Now Shiloh’s thirty-three and feeling like she never did get away. She’s back living in the same house she grew up in. She’s working in a theater, but not onstage like she’d planned. And she’s divorced, a single mom just like her own mother (minus the revolving door of boyfriends).

When a high school friend invites Shiloh to his wedding, the last thing she wants is to catch up with the old gang. But she buys a new dress, puts on some makeup, and pins a silk flower over her heart, hoping—and also worrying— that she might see Cary, the boy she never realized she loved until he was lost.