DON'T GO NORTH

She can read a river. He can repair almost anything. Neither knows what to do with the other.

Lena has never wanted to leave Selka. At eighteen, she knows its river, the plants along its banks, and the people who have known her all her life.

But when she is chosen for a season of work in distant Talun, saying no somehow feels harder than going.

Aren doesn't want to leave home either. He has an unfinished boat waiting in his father's workshop and very little interest in strangers, crowded docks, or changing plans. But when his brother is injured, Aren takes his place-and ends up working beside the most talkative, stubborn girl he has ever met.

They disagree about knots. River channels. Repairs. Decisions.

Almost everything.

Then a landslide destroys the main route home.

There may be another way: an abandoned passage through flooded forest, the ruins of a settlement no one uses anymore, and a mountain trail nobody can promise still exists.

Talun tells them not to take it.

Lena and Aren go anyway.

And the farther they travel, the more survival depends on learning when to argue, when to listen-and when to trust the person beside them.

Because eventually the road divides.

And the homes they love lie in opposite directions.

DON'T GO NORTH is a slow-burn romantic adventure about two stubborn travelers, an impossible road home, and discovering that loving a place-or a person-doesn't have to mean standing still.