OVERDUE

A 29-year-old librarian in a small North Carolina town creates a new life for herself.

Ingrid Dahl has been dating her boyfriend, Cory, for 11 years, ever since their first week of college. When Ingrid’s younger sister announces her engagement after only two years of dating, Ingrid and Cory realize that their relationship has become stale, and on January 1, they agree to take a break and try dating other people. Ingrid immediately assumes she’ll have the opportunity to date her longtime co-worker and friend Macon Nowakowski. When Ingrid clumsily makes her move, Macon’s horrified refusal puts their friendship on ice and an embarrassed Ingrid can’t figure out how to fix it. Her one-month break with Cory stretches into three and Ingrid throws herself into the joys and humiliations of modern romance: creating app profiles, dating and sleeping with other men, and accidentally breaking a nice man’s heart. Eventually, the breakup with Cory becomes permanent. For the first time, Ingrid is on her own and able to make her own choices about where she wants to live and work. Ingrid’s relationship with Macon remains chilly and distant until she helps him during a personal emergency. Over the next several months, they rebuild their friendship and eventually find love, all while Ingrid opens her own bookstore, coyly named Bildungsroman. Perkins’ first adult novel is billed as a slow-burn romance while reading like a coming-of-age story, but for a character three decades into her life. Readers might not buy that Ingrid’s lackluster life skills can be blamed on her relationship with Cory, nor will they believe that underdeveloped, milquetoast Macon is the love of her life.

The plot waffles between coming-of-age and romance, and as a result does neither particularly well.