Sophie’s sweet plan is about to get complicated.

Bad things come in threes, right? Apparently not for Sophie. It seems like everything in her life is turning sour. Her family’s crumbling, her creative spark has fizzled, and school’s unbearable now that her ex-boyfriend and best friend are sweet on each other.

So when Sophie lands a summer job at Seaside Candy Co, she doesn’t mind swapping beach days for lollipops and jellybeans. She has a plan: earn enough for a plane ticket to her dad in New Zealand and reboot her sixteenth year somewhere new.

But the Sweetest Store on the Coast soon becomes a mixed bag of complications. Like Simon, the buttoned-up work rival she can’t seem to get out of her head. Like trying to figure out if her boss’s extra attention is professional or inappropriate. And what exactly does a co-worker know about Sophie’s family that might just upend everything?

Welcome to the Australian coastal town of Leftover Bay, where residents are navigating friendships and family, first love, and figuring out where they fit in the world.

The Leftovers is a series of contemporary YA companion novels from multi award-winning Australian author Sarah Epstein. These standalone stories can be read in any order, though reading them in sequential order may be preferred for the storylines of some recurring characters.

For ages 13+