Rainbow Rowell’s latest romance for adults opens in January 2006. Thirty-three-year-old Shiloh, a divorced mother of two, is attending the second wedding of Mikey, one of her two best friends from high school. An artist who has been living in New York City for the past decade, Mikey has returned home to Omaha to marry a fellow high school classmate. Getting ready for the wedding, Shiloh takes extra care with her appearance and dress. But she soon realizes that she’s going to be late to the event thanks to the unreliability of her mom, who’s offered to watch the kids --- replaying a dynamic that’s been going on for years.

"SLOW DANCE is a determinedly grownup romance novel --- not because it’s particularly spicy (though it does have its moments), but because it shows two adults, who haven’t always had it easy, trying to figure out how to make their budding love story work..."

At the reception, Shiloh is both eager and scared to see one person who she’s not even sure will be there. Cary was her other best friend in high school. Even though they constantly bickered and (if you asked Mikey) were maybe a little too much alike, they also were inseparable --- until a misunderstanding during Shiloh’s first year of college and Cary’s early naval training derailed their friendship, perhaps permanently.

When Shiloh and Cary finally reunite that evening, things feel both the same and different --- only to be thrown off the rails again. But they’re older now and more mature. Perhaps by talking things over, they can figure out not only how to make up for lost time but also how to take their relationship farther along the path that they were always meant to travel together.

Rowell’s achingly romantic novel follows Shiloh and Cary through the months following Mikey’s wedding, as they tentatively explore a relationship across distance (Cary is deployed on a naval destroyer) and as the adults they have become. This narrative is also interspersed with scenes labeled “Before,” which not only highlight what went wrong between them 14 years earlier, but give readers glimpses into the foundation of a friendship that might develop into something more.

SLOW DANCE is a determinedly grownup romance novel --- not because it’s particularly spicy (though it does have its moments), but because it shows two adults, who haven’t always had it easy, trying to figure out how to make their budding love story work amid family crises, professional demands, financial struggles, aging parents and custody arrangements. In this context, the slow progression of their romance makes total sense, and readers will feel lucky to get to spend time with these characters --- to see them try hard, and fail sometimes, and finally embrace the imperfections of their lives and the incipient joy they’ve rediscovered in one another.

“I was always heading your way,” Shiloh says to Cary near the end of the book. Their story traces that arc both tenderly and beautifully.