Not Exactly What I Had in Mind: A Novel

An irresistible, funny, sharply observed debut novel in which two roommates, and two sisters, will learn that sometimes family–and love-find you in the most unexpected places

Hazel and Alfie have just moved in together as roommates. They’ve also just slept together, which was either a catastrophic mistake or the best decision of their lives–they aren’t quite sure yet. Whatever happens, they need to find a way to keep living together without too much drama or awkwardness, since neither of them can afford to move out of the apartment.

Then Hazel’s sister, Emily, and her wife, Daria, come for a visit, and Hazel’s and Alfie’s feelings about each other are pushed to the side in the whirlwind of their arrival. Recently returned from abroad, Emily and Daria are excited for a new life in a new town, and ready to start a family of their own.

As the lives of Hazel, Alfie, Emily, and Daria collide, a complicated chain of events begins to bind them all together, bringing joy and heartache, hope and anxiety, and reshaping their relationships in ways that no one quite predicted. Warm, clever, and devastatingly relatable, Not Exactly What I Had in Mind is by turns funny, heartbreaking, and a painfully true-to-life story about family, friends, and everything in between.