Tracking the Understudy

Talia Okonkwo has been the understudy for eleven days when the leading lady's ankle gives out on a Tuesday matinee. Talia is not stupid. She knows who noticed the star's knee, who mentioned the loose spike mark, and who has been sending opening-night lilies to her dressing room since she was nineteen years old. Ronan is the fight choreographer now. He was the boy in the front row before that. He has a locker full of ticket stubs, a key to her building, and a very simple explanation for all of it that he offers without being asked. She should call someone. Instead she hands him a problem: the box office ledger doesn't balance, the producer is asking questions about her, and she needs someone who has been watching this building longer than anyone. Tracking the Understudy is a dark stalker romance about a woman who casts her stalker in a role of her own choosing — and discovers he's been rehearsing it for eight years.