The Art of Playing Dumb

Tressalia Branth has perfected the art of the vacuous smile. At her cousin's obscenely lavish engagement party, playing the champagne-guzzling ditz is the only way to hide her writer's block and protect her introverted younger brother, Kip, from their family's relentless social climbing. Desperate to finish her satirical masterpiece, Tress spontaneously whisks Kip away to the anonymous, neon-drenched metropolis of Oshkora. Told in alternating third-person perspectives, the story follows Tress as she navigates the deafening canals and meets Maddock - a scruffy, wandering traveler with a vintage camera and an equally cynical sense of humor. As they bond over mocking pretentious tourists, a slow-burn romance blossoms, and Tress finally finds her creative spark. Her breakthrough earns her the legendary Oshkoran Laurel, the city's ultimate artistic reward. But the prize is a trap, a legally binding snare designed to enslave brilliant minds into ghostwriting for untalented aristocrats. Escaping the city by the skin of her teeth, Tress assumes her fleeting romance is lost forever. That is, until she attends a stifling high-society wedding back home and accidentally spills wine on a groomsman - Maddock, completely out of his traveler's disguise. Will their Oshkoran connection survive the ridiculous reality of their real lives?