The Boy and His Ribbon

Ren is sold by his mother as a child and spends years in servitude. When he finally runs, he takes Della with him, the little girl of the family that owned him. The two hide and survive in the woods.

At first Ren treats her with hostility. That hardens into fierce protection, and then into a bond that means one thing to him and another to her. Ren loves Della in one way, and she loves him in another.

The story covers more than fifteen years, from childhood into adulthood. Abuse, survival, loyalty and sacrifice mark every stage of it. Ren and Della take turns narrating, so the reader sees both sides of a bond that neither reads the same way.

Della keeps a secret, and it slowly pushes the two apart. Dark contemporary romance, this is the first book of the Ribbon Duet, and it closes on a cliffhanger that leads straight into The Girl and Her Ren.