ISBN: 979-8-950930-03-4
UKnIreland Magazine - Emerging Art 'n Artists News
“This is a novel written by someone who understands exactly how it feels to be young, gifted, and unwilling to surrender to the world. But it is also clear that Marks went down that road far enough to understand its limits, and its costs.
You don’t close Somewhere Beautiful thinking about what the title means. You recognize the place. And you understand why it’s a place you want to stay.”
Romantic Comedy / Coming of Age
Somewhere Beautiful
2019
Genre: Voice-driven literary fiction
Sub-label: Campus / romantic existentialism
A post-millennial teenager meets a girl on a family vacation in Paris the summer before college. Love, and a death-defying event back home, reshape his sense of the world and his place in it.
Synopsis: Somewhere Beautiful
Author: Gary Marks
A teenager named Mayor has no idea what he wants to do with his life. College feels wrong. Careers sound like traps. The future looks like a long series of obligations he has no interest in fulfilling.
Then he meets Ruth.
Mayor wants Ruth to ditch her plans of going to college so they can run off together. He dreams of adventure and escape.
But Ruth refuses to leave with him. She wants to go to college and find her own path. Mid-semester, Mayor comes to her college unannounced and tries to convince her to leave. She turns him down again, but doesn't turn down his love for her. She comes up with a challenge he will have to fulfill if he wants them to stay together.
At home, Mayor's closest ally is his younger sister Darcy, whose faith in him has never wavered. When a devastating accident leaves Darcy fighting to recover, Mayor abandons his plans to seek adventure with the last of his money and dedicates himself to helping her recover.
While at the hospital, Darcy challenges him to be the person she believes him to be. She hands him a gift that feels like just a thoughtful present, but will eventually change his life.
Somewhere Beautiful is the name of the gift, and the name of the story he writes.
This romantic comedy is the story of a teenage boy trying to discover what kind of life is worth living, and of the two people who believe in him before he learns how to believe in himself.