Ataraxia

Halo Dyer is a high school senior whose home life is in turmoil, and he struggles to keep his feelings from boiling over. His friendships keep shifting, and he is haunted by the death of a student, an event he cannot be sure he caused. Over one school year, he moves through a series of messy choices, including an unplanned slide into selling drugs and a long-delayed admission to his mother that he is gay. The novel follows his slow, uneven search for some peace, with the support of a small circle of close friends and the sense that better days may still be ahead.

Abby Jaquint is a full-time student and writer. Her hobbies include writing, watching serial killer documentaries, and staying up late with friends from college. Ataraxia is a stand-alone novel, and the author has described it as similar in feel to her earlier novel Nightmare and her novella Shortstop.

Abby has moved between five different states and does not name a single hometown, though she considers West Virginia her home.