Seventeen-year-old London Mendes is the son of a Cuban mother and Seattle-native bookseller, and he knows exactly what he wants: to be the first in his middle class family to reach the Ivy Leagues. Specifically Princeton, alma mater of his favorite author Mia Merkley, a local mystery writer whose national fame and recent suicide have put her in the news again. Luckily for London, his own fiction and high grades put him on the radar of Birmingham Academy, a prep school that offers him a scholarship to leave public school and study with the most competitive students in the country. There London meets Aria: the captivating, mysterious daughter of Mia Merkley. Her grief and darkness draw him in further than any of her mother's novels. But soon, London learns that Aria is off limits-her blue-blooded boyfriend Dillon Astor is London's newest friend and the one who decides London's acceptance into the academy's elite. When Aria and London become partners in a creative writing class, their friendship grows and an undeniable attraction threatens to blow London off course. London knows he has to work harder than ever for a shot at Princeton. He knows he should stay away from drugs, parties, and Dillon's girlfriend. But as Dillon slowly reveals his true nature and Aria's secrets, London fails to see what is underneath it all. Now London can't help playing hero, and he'll have to decide what he loves more: Aria, or his own dreams.