Excerpt from Make Your Way Home by Carrie R. Moore, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

As they eat, he wants to ask: So, am I what you thought? Perhaps he is shorter than she wanted, too hairy in the face and arms. But he lets her chat about the wildflowers on the ride in. She isn't as smooth faced or curvy as she'd seemed online. The version of her in his mind becomes less imagined, more real. Forehead wrinkles. Smaller breasts. All this, he's discovering.

"What?" she asks. "You changing your mind about me?" Before he can answer, she goes, "No, wait. I'll change my mind about you, right?"

He doesn't laugh. Above them, the grackles keep squawking, those birds forever in thirst.

Excerpted from Make Your Way Home by Carrie R. Moore. Reprinted with permission from Tin House/Zando. Copyright © 2025 by Carrie R. Moore