MILES OF SURRENDER STEPMOTHER AND STEPSON ACROSS AMERICA by Lexa Swin

When the rain falls on a Seattle cemetery, it washes away the last threads of a family’s composure, leaving Marcus and his stepmother, Isabel, standing on opposite sides of a grave—and a forbidden line. Marcus is twenty-seven and numb; Isabel is forty-three and devastating in her grief. For eight years, they lived under the same roof, maintaining a cold, polite distance to mask a tension that threatened to incinerate them both. Now, with the only man who bound them together gone, the silence between them has become a vacuum waiting to be filled.

To escape the suffocating weight of their shared past, they embark on a cross-country journey in a converted van, trading the rainy Pacific Northwest for the open, sun-scorched highways of America. But within the cramped, intimate confines of their rolling sanctuary, the pretense of "family" finally shatters. Every mile driven is a step deeper into a raw, visceral passion that defies every social taboo. From the neon-lit motels of the Midwest to the starlit isolation of the desert, Marcus and Isabel discover that some roads don't lead to a destination—they lead to a total, unapologetic surrender to the person you were never supposed to want.