Two Across

TWO ACROSS is a funny and poignant debut novel about trust, forgiveness, and the wisdom of listening to your heart.

Stanley and Vera, academically precocious but awkward teenagers, form a bond when they tie for first place in the National Spelling Bee. Though their mothers have big plans for them-Stanleywill become a senator, Vera a mathematics professor-neither wants to follow these pre-determined paths. So Stanley hatches a plan to marry Vera in a sham wedding for the financial freedom to pursue his one true love: crossword puzzle construction. In enlisting Vera to marry him, he neglects one variable: she's secretly in love with him, a fact that dooms his plan to disaster. Once he's lost her, Stanley tries to atone for his mistakes and win her back using coded messages in crossword puzzles-but can he find her again before it's too late?

Jeff Bartsch is an award-winning copywriter who has worked on campaigns for many major brands, received the D&D Young Guns Award, and been featured twice inAdweek's Spot of the Week. He studied creative writing at the University of Wisconsin, and held the Katey Lehman Fellowship in the MFA program at Penn State University. He lives in New York.