THE DISTANCE FROM ME TO YOU

A multilayered YA stand-alone novel about love, survival, and self-discovery.

McKenna Berney is a lucky girl. She has a loving family and has been accepted to college for the fall. But McKenna has a different goal in mind: much to the chagrin of her parents, she defers her college acceptance to hike the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia with her best friend. And when her friend backs out, McKenna is determined to go through with the dangerous trip on her own. While on the Trail, she meets Sam. Having skipped out on an abusive dad and quit school, Sam has found a brief respite on the Trail, where everyone’s a drifter, at least temporarily.

Despite lives headed in opposite directions, McKenna and Sam fall in love on an emotionally charged journey of dizzying highs and devastating lows. When their punch-drunk love leads them off the trail, McKenna has to persevere in a way she never thought possible to beat the odds or risk both their lives.

THE DISTANCE FROM ME TO YOU sheds a light on a real-world phenomenon. Thousands of hikers get lost every year, many of whom are in their teens or early twenties, and not all of whom are rescued in time.

Marina Gessner is the pen name of Nina de Gramont. Nina is a writer and a teacher. Her work has appeared in Redbook, Harvard Review, Nerve, and Seventeen.