Us in Ruins

Margot Rhodes wants to find the cursed Vase of Venus Aurelia, which no one has seen since 1932, and she hopes it will help her get over a broken heart. Her school's archaeological trip to Pompeii gives her the chance.

She carries the poetic journal of Van Keane, a teenage explorer who vanished long ago. The entries double as a map to the vase's missing shards, and Margot starts to fall for the boy who wrote them a century earlier.

Then a statue that looks exactly like Van comes to life. The real Van is prickly and guarded, and he wants the relic for reasons very different from hers.

Venus has set deadly challenges to protect the vase. To get through them, Margot and Van have to work together, digging up the treasure along with the pasts each of them has buried.

The stand-alone adventure rom-com moves through double-crosses and triple-crosses, with a comic tone and banter fed by constant irritation. If they fail, their story ends in ruins.