A complicated—and often hilarious—love story about a Black high schooler’s experience with friends, family, and identity.

LOVE TIMES INFINITY
by Lane Clarke
Poppy/Little, Brown BFYR, July 2022
(via Park & Fine)

Navigating junior year, Michie is struggling to answer the question of who she is for her scholarship essays, the only chance she has at making it into Brown as a first-generation college student. Or maybe it’s not so much that Michie doesn’t know who she is as it is that she doesn’t like who she is: having been estranged from her mother from the age of five and surrendered to her grandmother, Michie has made an art of hiding, especially from herself. After all, if her own mother doesn’t think she’s worthy of love, who will?
Then a new student—basketball superstar Derek de la Rosa—enrolls in her school and enlists Michie as a tutor to catch up in Spanish class, turning Michie’s life upside down. Because, Derek? He is very cute, very talented, very popular, and very much has his eye on Michie, no matter how invisible she thinks she is.
When Michie’s mother reaches out to make amends, and with her scholarship essay deadline looming, Michie will have to decide if she wants to reopen old wounds or close the door on her past once and for all. And as she spends more time with Derek, she will have to figure out how close she can risk getting to him, and how much of her heart she is willing to share. Because while Michie may not know who she is, she’s starting to realize who she wants to become—if only she can take the chance: on Derek, on herself, and on her future.

Lane Clarke received her Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Virginia Tech, where she received an honorable mention in the 2015 Steger Poetry Prize, administered by Nikki Giovanni. She got her J.D. from Chicago University and now lives in Northern Virginia and practices law in Washington D.C. LOVE TIMES INFINITY is her debut novel.