Thighs Wide Shut by Hayley Fleming

'Hayley Fleming has such a fresh, fun voice and is sure to become an auto-buy author for romance fans after they read Thighs Wide Shut . . . I loved it!' - Alicia Thompson, author of The Art of Catching Feelings

When Emma hits her quarter-life crisis and moves back to the city where she went to college, she finds herself neighbours with the boy whose heart she broke five years earlier in this heartfelt and witty second-chance debut romcom for fans of Hannah Bonham-Young and Sex Education.

Emma thought her late twenties couldn't get more complicated after she quit her teaching job and moved across the country to figure out what comes next. Her new life in Boston is filled with more than enough to worry about: a basement apartment full of disorganized boxes, a resistance to finding love, a medical condition, vaginismus, that holds her back from putting herself out there, and on top of it all she hears a familiar voice from the apartment above . . . Harrison.

Emma hasn't seen Harrison since an explosive fight ended their college friendship and closed the door on anything more between them - and now she can hear the details of his active dating life one floor above her. Emma only has herself to blame; her inability to be vulnerable with Harrison drove him away, and now, he's a guinea pig-owning paediatric nurse in a well-decorated apartment. Harrison has grown into someone else, but those old feelings are, somehow, stronger than Emma remembers.

Despite the opportunity of a second chance with Harrison, Emma remains wary of romance until she figures out how to manage the painful and involuntary pelvic floor contractions caused by her condition, so she doesn't have to fear physical intimacy. She hopes to avoid ever having to open up emotionally about the condition - but can she learn to let her loved ones in?

Equal parts humour and heart, Thighs Wide Shut is a love letter to anyone who's ever felt their body is a barrier to their happiness and a charming exploration of the beauty of allowing vulnerability to take the lead.