The Standby List

About this book

Flight attendant Jules Nakamura has built her life so that she always leaves first: no lease, no plants, just the route that feels like home. Then she falls for Declan Vance, the airline consultant whose job is to cut that route. A warm, witty, slow-burn contemporary romance.

Flight attendant Jules Nakamura has built her whole life so she always leaves first — no lease, no plants, no fixed address, just two hundred crossings and a route that feels more like home than any place ever has. Then she falls for Declan Vance, the airline consultant whose job is to cut exactly the route that holds her together.

He runs on data; she runs on instinct. He hides behind spreadsheets; she disappears into the sky. For one impossible month — a mechanical delay in Halifax, a snowstorm in Reykjavik, a salted disaster of a dinner in Lisbon — they forget to run their oldest programs and let themselves land.

Then the report leaks, with his name on it, dated weeks before he ever told her he loved the place she loves. The version of Jules who finally called about a lease books a red-eye instead. And somewhere in a dozen crew rooms, an anonymous stranger keeps leaving letters that seem to know exactly how this ends.

A warm, witty, achingly tender contemporary romance about the bravery of staying, the difference between distance and freedom, and the thirty-five chapters it can take two people to say three small words. For readers who love airport meet-cutes, dual-POV slow burn, and an earned happily-ever-after that lands the plane.

If you love Emily Henry, Christina Lauren, and slow-burn opposites-attract with real emotional stakes, book your seat on The Standby List.