Alone with You in the Ether

Two strangers meet by chance at the Art Institute: Regan, a bipolar counterfeit artist in court-ordered therapy, and Aldo, a doctoral student who copes with intrusive thoughts through obsessive calculations about time travel. From the outside, their lives appear vastly different—but beneath the surface, both are grasping for meaning in a world that feels either too chaotic or too painfully predictable.

Regan drifts through life on impulse, imagining each reckless choice as a portal to an alternate reality. Aldo clings to structure and repetition, convinced that logic is the only thing keeping his world from crumbling. Neither expects their paths to change—but over the course of six conversations, something shifts.

New York times bestselling author of The Atlas Six, Olivia Blake gives us an intimate and contemporary story not about love in the traditional sense, but about the electric space between people—the charged possibilities of connection, and the fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, someone else might understand you exactly as you are. Tender, cerebral, and quietly shattering, this is a novel that invites you to step outside time and see what happens when two minds collide.