Season of the Sticks

When Amelia flees her heartbreak in Germany for a single semester at a Vermont university, she expects nothing more than a quiet distraction amidst the golden, haunting beauty of leaf-peeping season. Instead, she finds herself trapped in a tense roommate standoff with Sage. Reserved, prickly, and seemingly more comfortable with woodland creatures than her fellow humans, Sage is the direct opposite of everything Amelia thought she wanted. As the air turns crisp and the acoustic melodies of the mountain towns mirror the ache of transition, the initial friction between the two becomes impossible to ignore. Sage guards her own vulnerabilities behind a wall of solitude, but as the autumn leaves fall and the first snows of December approach, the distance in their cramped dorm room begins to melt away. What starts as a series of sharp disagreements slowly unravels into an undeniable, magnetic pull. Set against the rugged backdrop of Vermont and the icy shores of coastal Maine, Season of the Sticks is a slow-burn journey through grief, the warmth of unexpected connection, and the bittersweet beauty of letting go. This is a story for anyone who has ever found home in the least likely of people.