Ugly Love

Nursing student Tate Collins moves into her brother's San Francisco apartment and meets Miles Archer, an airline pilot who lives across the hall. Their attraction is immediate, but Miles refuses a conventional relationship. He sets two rules: Tate cannot ask about his past, and she cannot expect a future with him.

The novel alternates Tate's present-day narration with Miles's life six years earlier. Those chapters explain the relationship that made him equate love with damage, while Tate tries to accept an arrangement that repeatedly asks more of her than she admits. The two timelines meet once the reason for Miles's grief becomes clear.

Ugly Love is an explicit contemporary romance with a heavy trauma plot. It includes bereavement, pregnancy, and the death of a child. Tate and Miles do not begin with a balanced relationship; much of the conflict comes from his refusal to share either his history or any promise of commitment.