Fans of Morgan Matson and Sarah Dessen will fall in love with this contemporary coming of age story set at a picturesque Virginia boarding school.

ANY PLACE BUT HERE
by Sarah Van Name
Sourcebooks, May 2021
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

That’s what Jess was to me. I was the ground; she was the rain. I wasn’t anything until she woke me up. Seventeen-year-old June is completely wrapped up in her best friend Jess. The two are inseparable and June feels so lucky that they found each other. Even if everyone else around her thinks Jess is a bad influence. Even if June is starting to question if she likes Jess as more than just a friend. But after June is expelled from school at the end of her first semester of junior year, she’s forced to move to Virginia, to live with her grandmother and attend an all-girls boarding school. She’ll be miles away from her home, from her family, and from Jess. June is miserable at first and counts down the days until she can come back home for the summer. But when she befriends two new girls and meets a boy named Sam, who she is instantly drawn to, life in Virginia starts to feel more real. Except Jess is always on her mind, and she can’t deny her feelings anymore, even as Jess starts to pull away from her. June can’t let Jess go―but she needs to figure out how to move forward, and how to find the place she really belongs.

Sarah Van Name grew up in North Carolina and attended Duke University twice, once for a teenage creative writing camp and once as an undergraduate. She lives and works in Durham with her husband, Ben, and her dog, Toast. She is the author of The Goodbye Summer.