If Only

A group of sixteen and seventeen-year-old friends find themselves in a complete mess when a young Vietnamese man is shot trying to stop the theft of something as trivial as a slab of Coke in a service station.

Cara, the main character, has fallen into a relationship with Fly, a troubled and difficult guy who seems to have no friends at all. One day she asks him about himself, he confides in her, and suddenly because this has never happened with any other girl, Fly becomes dependent on her and they’re in a relationship.

They hang out with Cara’s best friend Jessica and her boyfriend Danny, and apart from Fly’s being difficult, the main complication to this quadrilateral friendship is that Cara is really attracted to Danny.

Then the devastating news comes that this student, whom they all know, has been killed.When it finally surfaces that both Fly and Danny were at the scene, the barely repressed tensions within the group erupt.

And, although everyone tries to replay events “If only…”, the fact is that what’s done is done, and they all have to deal with the consequences—separately and together.

A powerful novel about the consequences of a thoughtless act from the award-winning author of Camphor Laurel and Water Colours.