Games: The smart and sexy debut literary romance perfect for fans of Normal People and Fifty Shades of Grey

Anna Maria Volkova

'A complex, beautiful coming-of-age novel...a love story unlike any I've ever read' Ali Hazelwood

'A soulful book about the politics of labor and submission' Raven Leilani

When Lili Marwan, a brilliant economics graduate student, has an intense one-night stand with Aleksandr Petrov, a Wall Street banker two decades her senior, her restless mind finally goes calm.
At twenty-two, Lili is opinionated beyond her years: whether it's astrology, democratic socialism, veganism, or the ravages of late-stage capitalism. But when a tall, dark stranger buys her a drink in a FiDi bar, she meets her match. Aleksandr is fiercely intelligent, and infuriatingly disarming. He's also two decades older than her, a Capricorn, a neoliberal capitalist, and a strong believer in free markets, having escaped the Soviet Union in its dying days. He challenges her at every turn. And she can't stay away.

Over the course of a heady New York City summer, Lili and Aleksandr reach across the divide of their differences, discovering startlingly shared experiences. Their casual arrangement-rough sex, hours where Lili does not need to think-gives way fast to an unexpected intimacy, by turns breathtaking, then devastating.

As Lili struggles to understand herself and the complicated threads of her ambition, pain, and desire, she will have to decide: is the risk of loss worth the chance of something more?