The In-Between Bookstore

By Edward Underhill

Publishes January 14, 2025.

Notes from Cole:

This book would be a great companion for anyone navigating a reframing of your own personal history. So many grievers, who find themselves returning back home after a loss, end up revisiting the places that shaped them. And in doing so, end up revisiting themselves. If you are revisiting parts of yourself, this book might be a perfect fit.

I really enjoyed this novel and found it to be beautifully paced, friendly, and earnest.

A separate note of appreciation: The queer experiences and love stories in this novel are told just as you would any non-queer experience or non-queer love story—which, brava. I think this novel is a safe place for any LGBTQIA+ folks, too.

I received a galley of this book from Avon Books/Harper Collins. Thank you!

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A whimsical and healing novel about a trans man in New York who—almost 30, laid off, broke—moves back to his small Illinois hometown, walks into the bookstore he worked at in high school. . . and slips through time to come face-to-face with his pre-transition, teenage self.

If you had one chance to talk to your younger self…would you? What would you say?

When Darby left Oak Falls for college in NYC, all he wanted was to get as far away as possible, find a community where he could start fresh—and finally forget about his childhood best friend Michael, and just how painfully their friendship ended.

Now, about to turn thirty, Darby suddenly finds himself unemployed. With no better alternative, and questioning where he really belongs, he moves back to his hometown. But the changes in Oak Falls—the planned community with his mother’s new town home, the trendy coffee shop—make him feel off balance. And Michael’s still here, their relationship still distant and strained. Even though they’ve both changed.

One thing is familiar: In Between Books, Darby’s refuge growing up and eventual high school job. When he walks into the bookstore now, Darby feels an eerie sense of déjà vu—everything is exactly the same. Even the newspapers are dated 2009. And behind the register is a teen who looks a lot like Darby did at sixteen. . . who just might give Darby the opportunity to change his own present for the better—if he can figure out how before his connection to the past vanishes forever.

The In-Between Bookstore is a stunning novel of love, self-discovery, and the choices that come with both, for anyone who has ever wondered what their life might be like if they had the chance to go back and take a bigger, braver risk.