The Red Mug

Sometimes the hardest part of leaving is learning how to stay.

After a semester in Prague, Ben returns to Boston expecting to pick up where he left off. He has a degree to finish, a future to plan, and a girlfriend waiting for him.

But home no longer feels quite like home.

The distance has changed his relationship with Casey, and the life he remembers seems increasingly difficult to recover. As he tries to rebuild his routines, find a place of his own, and establish himself in the working world, new people enter his life. Some offer friendship, some offer affection, and some leave him questioning what he really wants.

There is Steph, a mysterious fellow passenger he meets on the flight back across the Atlantic. There is Maya, whose kindness offers a glimpse of something different. And there is Casey, whose presence continues to pull him toward a past he cannot quite leave behind.

From Boston to Chicago, through awkward encounters, missed opportunities, unexpected intimacies and ordinary moments that carry more weight than they seem to, Ben tries to work out what it means to move forward.

The Red Mug is a quietly ironic, emotionally observant novel about love, belonging, and the lives we imagine for ourselves versus the ones we actually live.