Clementine Orange

Angelica has fallen hard for John, a prisoner with whom she exchanges letters and phone calls that have sparked her fantasies of a dangerous, tattooed criminal lover. When John is released on a 24-hour parole, they finally meet face-to-face, and her illusion shatters—the real John could not be further from what he made himself out to be. Despite the utter betrayal, Angelica reluctantly accompanies him on his parole, and if only for those fleeting 24 hours, she opens herself up to the tentative chance that this connection might be real.

Lisa Forslund’s sun-drenched debut deftly navigates a day-long journey with the expansive complexity of human connection. Contrasting the awkward discomfort of in-person betrayal with the deep, intimate phone calls between the two lost souls—conversations that illuminate the bond they both thought they had—Clementine Orange deconstructs a fantasy to paint an honest and unique portrait of love in the modern age.