The Year We Hid Away
The Ivy Years • Book 2
by Sarina Bowen
Why You'll Love This
Two college kids carrying secrets too heavy for their age fall for each other — and the weight only doubles from there.
- Great if you want: emotionally loaded romance where both leads carry real burdens
- The experience: fast-moving but emotionally heavy — a collegiate romance with genuine stakes
- The writing: Bowen balances warmth and tension without letting either feel cheap
- Skip if: darker family trauma themes feel too heavy for your romance reads
About This Book
Some secrets protect the people we love most—and some secrets slowly hollow us out. In The Year We Hid Away, Sarina Bowen places two college students together who are both hiding painful truths, both holding themselves together with sheer willpower, and both desperately in need of someone who actually sees them. The result is a romance with genuine emotional weight: the kind where falling in love doesn't solve anything, it just raises the stakes higher.
What sets this book apart is how Bowen balances warmth with real consequence. The Harkness campus feels lived-in and specific, but the story never gets lost in collegiate atmosphere—the focus stays tight on two characters whose inner lives are rendered with care and honesty. Bowen writes dual perspectives that feel authentically distinct, and her pacing is confident enough to let tension build without manufactured drama. This is a book that trusts its characters to carry the story, and they do.
