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A poignant novel about two best friends sharing yearning, rejection, and lip gloss in a close-knit blue-collar town.
It’s 2004 and childhood friends Sami and Lucy are on the edge of adulthood. Lucy knows what she is going to do — she’s going to school and getting out. But Sami, caught in an endless loop with a boy, True, who is from a troubled family, can’t seem to get unstuck.
“I’d used to feel, when I was with True, that I was safe, that he would take care of me, that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen. But now I wasn’t sure what I had constructed that from. His easy way with words, his confidence, maybe, his height. I was tall but he was bigger than me; in my mind he was bigger than anyone. Or maybe it was the surprisingly gentle way he’d touch your hair, your face. But in reality, he’d offered no more protection than a child’s night light against monsters, a tender deception we fall for, easily, before we grow up and know better.”
The further Sami drifts from Lucy, the harder it is to not be guided and bound by her heartbreak for True, whose destructive presence continually interferes with Sami’s hope for stability and connection. As their paths begin to diverge, Sami must learn to navigate life in their small town — and the universe — without the one person she’s always counted on.
“If soulmates were real, she was mine.”
It’s 2004 and childhood friends Sami and Lucy are on the edge of adulthood. Lucy knows what she is going to do — she’s going to school and getting out. But Sami, caught in an endless loop with a boy, True, who is from a troubled family, can’t seem to get unstuck.
“I’d used to feel, when I was with True, that I was safe, that he would take care of me, that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen. But now I wasn’t sure what I had constructed that from. His easy way with words, his confidence, maybe, his height. I was tall but he was bigger than me; in my mind he was bigger than anyone. Or maybe it was the surprisingly gentle way he’d touch your hair, your face. But in reality, he’d offered no more protection than a child’s night light against monsters, a tender deception we fall for, easily, before we grow up and know better.”
The further Sami drifts from Lucy, the harder it is to not be guided and bound by her heartbreak for True, whose destructive presence continually interferes with Sami’s hope for stability and connection. As their paths begin to diverge, Sami must learn to navigate life in their small town — and the universe — without the one person she’s always counted on.
“If soulmates were real, she was mine.”
Price: $18.99
Pages: 240
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Imprint: Rare Machines
Publication Date:
30 June 2026
Trim Size: 8.50 X 5.50 in
ISBN: 9781459756359
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
FICTION / Coming of Age, Narrative theme: coming of age, FICTION / Women, FICTION / Small Town & Rural, FICTION / Romance / Contemporary, Modern and Contemporary romance, Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general
In One Day, Hard and Clear, Anne Baldo offers a world in which hearts pound to Hole basslines and brilliant girls are dimmed by damaged boys. This book is a raw and heartfelt exploration of the secret, idiosyncratic rituals of female friendship and the lifelong grasp of first loves.
One Day, Hard and Clear is a story which breathes in all the right places. It’s a book of exquisite, living, sincere detail which feels less like words in a book and more like a secret confided between childhood friends over a hot drink ... Anne Baldo is, in my opinion, a quiet virtuoso of Canadian literature.
One Day, Hard and Clear is a story which breathes in all the right places. It’s a book of exquisite, living, sincere detail which feels less like words in a book and more like a secret confided between childhood friends over a hot drink ... Anne Baldo is, in my opinion, a quiet virtuoso of Canadian literature.
Anne Baldo takes us back to an era that's not so much rose-tinted as spray-tanned — a time of car-crash TV and ruthless aggression. Baldo shows us love (or what passes for it) in spray paint aliens, shared lip gloss, MySpace pages, and flip-phone texts. This novel is for anyone who's ever loved a fixer-upper and admired the flaws in what's deeply flawed. We've all known a True. Few of us have ever been so blessed as to have a Sami in our lives.
Anne Baldo is the author of the story collection Morse Code for Romantics. One Day, Hard and Clear is her debut novel. Her writing has appeared in Grain, Stanchion, and Riddle Fence. She lives in Windsor, Ontario.