Perfect Tides Series

It's the year 2003. You once lived on an island. Now, you spend your days in high-speed transit. You are a writer, but what does that mean? You're on a search that has barely begun. You're not just looking for information. You're looking to understand... to know the truth. To tell the truth. At the age of 18, your great works are still ahead of you, at a distance yet unknown. But make no mistake: it's happening. Every day your skills and knowledge seem to double or even triple, leaving your previous attempts at writing - at being alive - in the dust. The present moment envelops you. You will go where the people are. You will be where it's all happening. You will find the kind of love worth writing about. And if you squint, you will see your future self: the one who has overcome all the fragmentary incoherence of youth. For all you know, that future is already upon you -- if you can catch it. With destinations so lofty, you find it harder than ever to look back, into the sparkling abyss of childhood folly and shame. In order to advance, you must cast off these prototypical forms. And yet the past follows you, bedraggled, creeping and moaning from station to station.

It's the year 2000. You live on an island, with your family, a virus-free computer and a 56k modem. And with gorgeous rolling dunes, free-roaming deer and no cars in sight, the landscape is basically paradise. But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Three seasons out of the year, the island is practically abandoned. And with school going badly on the mainland, sometimes the internet is your only company. Not that you’ve minded, lately: your online life is taking you to wild new places. You feel acceptance, creative empowerment… and for the first time, something very close to how you imagined love would be. The seasons carry you mercilessly, from one revelation to another. As summer approaches, the island pulsates with nervous anticipation, and so do you. Your life is about to change in irreversible ways — in undreamed-of directions. You may soon discover what lies beyond the island, and perhaps more mysteriously, in the depths of your own heart.