A story of three expats making a mess of things abroad. Harper lands in Toronto. His plan? To make himself a respectable adult life and stop being such a screw-up. Adrian arrives in Rome. He's a 21-year-old bundle of insecurity and Presbyterian inhibition who wants to trick a handsome Italian into being his boyfriend. Natalie, a habitual escape artist, flees to London. Behind her, and catching up fast, is a tsunami of past missteps and misdeeds. Far from home, these three New Zealanders are free to start over. The question is, how will they keep their fragile new lives from imploding? Only Forward, Never Back is a darkly comedic novel. It’s part expat travelogue, part comedy of errors, and part reminder of what life was like before social distancing became part of our lexicon (and what it will be like again). Most importantly, it’s about not letting the pain of the past go wasted while using it to move your life forward, not backwards.