In this evocative debut collection by arts and culture journalist Deirdre Mendoza, Los Angeles provides the untamed landscape for spare, intimate stories of women discovering their position and power while falling in and out of love. A young writer learns more than craft when she lands a job as an assistant to an aging screenwriter; a brilliant architect with a special child loses faith in what she’s built; a once-thriving marriage is tested by Hollywood’s temptations; a daughter struggles to save her marriage and ambitions as her father lies dying; an English teacher sets herself free after a cringey realization about her married lover.