Sheltered Semantics

Isla Rhys has a PhD in Linguistics, a perfectly organized bookshelf, and a color-coded life. She definitely does not have a plan for being evicted by a cardboard cutout named Angus.

Displaced by her landlady's sudden pivot to "Highland Immersive Tourism," Isla is left with one option: moving into the chaotic, grease-stained, sawdust-covered home of her boyfriend, Frank Hollis.

Frank is the town's mechanic. He speaks in grunts, keeps spark plugs in the fruit bowl, and believes that "organization" is just a fancy word for hiding your tools.

As Isla tries to translate her Oxford sensibilities to Frank's garage logic, they stumble upon a century-old mystery hidden in the walls of a rotting shack on the Salt Flats—a love story written in whiskey labels and marginalia that mirrors their own.

But when a prestigious job offer arrives from Oxford, and a "vehement" storm bears down on Bracken Cove, Isla must decide: Does she retreat to the safety of clear definitions, or is she brave enough to live in the messy, unedited margins of a life with Frank?