Eighteen-year-old Vida Maxwell takes her coffee black, her shoes comfortable and her bookshelves alphabetized. She’s always been the girl with a plan, one that includes medical school and after it, a career saving lives. But her attempts to keep her head down and her eyes on the proverbial prize are foiled by a boy named Pete who bursts into her life like a force of nature. Because he is one, literally.

Even under ordinary circumstances, dating can be tricky. But when you discover you’re a novo— a person with the ability to prolong the lives of others by staving off death, and the boy you’re falling for is a psychopomp charged with guiding souls into the afterlife, things get complicated. Particularly when a gatekeeper of the underworld comes sniffing around, hoping to use Vi and her abilities as a bargaining chip in his own quest for power.

But outwitting the gatekeeper might actually be the “easy” part. For Vi and Pete, the true challenge will be determining what happens when life and death fall in love… with each other.