Ashley Owens

Her Leaves Remain Ashley Owens

"C'mon, Lyv. How bad can going home really be?" Lyv McDowell has spent the entirety of her freshman year of college avoiding home as much as possible. For Lyv, "home" lost its allure and safety long ago, and up until now she'd successfully avoided going back to the source of her worst nightmare. But with summer rolling in, Lyv has to return home and face all the demons that come with it. Max McDowell has two goals for the summer: Spend as much time with his girlfriend as possible and play as much football as he can. But with his older sister, Lyv, coming home from college he's forced to admit that the strong bond they once shared growing up isn't much of a bond anymore. The sever in their relationship brings to light a darkness to his sister's past that he'd never noticed before, and it threatens to flip his carefree summer completely upside down. Tilly Ward has been best friends with Lyv since they were in kindergarten. Their friendship has stood the test of time, even the test of college, and it's that lifelong friendship that Tilly leans on when her family struggles start to take a toll on her. But the more Tilly leans on Lyv, the more she notices there are deep-rooted secrets in their friendship that even a lifetime of knowing each other cannot erase. Asher Brooks has always had a pretty blissful life, that is until his dad died from cancer and pushed Asher to grow up much faster than he ever anticipated. He takes life a little more serious and takes risks he never would've before his dad's death. So when he sets his eyes on Lyv, a friend of a friend he grew up with, he is more than ready to fully commit to her and their budding relationship. In that commitment, Asher is unknowingly opening himself up to a past that Lyv herself struggles to get away from. In this coming-of-age story, an unruly group of friends are all hold together by one tiny, fragile thread: Lyv. But as the summer unfolds they find a stain in Lyv's life even the people closest to her never knew of, and it becomes their mission to figure out how to put the pieces of her back together.