If your twenties are supposed to be the best years of your life, Bennet Taylor is failing miserably…with a big emphasis on the miserable. Where’s that zest she keeps hearing about? She’s a temp worker in New York City with no direction, no future, and no social life. And at the painful center of this listlessness is grief over the death of her first love.

When Bennet runs into Henry Adams just hours after standing him up for a first date, she makes an alcohol-fueled confession: She’s not ready to date. In fact, it’s been years since she felt passion for something. Not even pottery, or organized sports—not anything. Rather than leaving her to ruminate, Henry jumps at the opportunity for adventure: Bennet needs to find a passion for life, and Henry will help her find it. Every Saturday, they’ll try something new in New York City. As friends, of course.

As their “passion project” continues, the pair tackle everything from carpentry to tattooing to rappelling off skyscrapers, and Bennet feels her guarded exterior ebbing away. But as secrets surface, Bennet has to decide what she wants, and if she’s truly ready to move on.

Are you struggling to find your passion in life? Do you live in a city that you hate–but want to love? Is online dating destroying your soul? Unfortunately, I can’t actually help you with any of those problems—but you should read Passion Project anyway. This book brilliantly balances the darker side of life as a floundering twenty-something with one of the most sparkling, joyful romances I’ve read in years.

Passion Project follows Bennet Taylor, a young temp worker in New York City. Still mired in grief and hopelessness after her ex-boyfriend’s death several years earlier, she feels like she’s lost her passion for life—but when an online dating misadventure brings Henry Adams into her life, he offers to help her get to know the city and herself a little better. As friends, they try everything from rappelling to tattooing in an attempt to discover Bennet’s real passion. But in the end, it will be up to Bennet herself to decide if she’s willing to go after what she truly wants…

If you like your romance novels with a side of real-world emotional depth, Passion Project is absolutely the book for you—and it certainly doesn’t hurt that Henry is exactly the sort of sweet-yet-sexy book boyfriend I would bring to life in a heartbeat! I can promise this book will be your new passion in no time at all.