High School Epic

A Raw, Funny, and Heartfelt Ride Through the Highs and Lows of Teenage Life

After her father disappears without warning, Dani Fetter enters high school already wrestling with abandonment. But instead of leaning on her longtime friends, she’s left behind again as they chase parties and popularity. Lonely and unsure, Dani finds solace in Kevin Martin—an outsider who seems to understand her. Until he doesn’t.

Told in a compelling mix of letters and traditional chapters, High School Epic follows Dani through the chaotic, confusing, and often hilarious ups and downs of adolescence in the early 1990s. As relationships shift and betrayals cut deep, Dani finds new connections, loses old ones, and stumbles her way toward self-discovery. Whether navigating love triangles, friendship fallouts, or the reappearance of a troubled parent, Dani’s story is one of growth, resilience, and the messy beauty of coming of age.

Discover a fresh, deeply relatable take on high school life—where nothing goes as planned, and everything matters.

Start reading High School Epic today and revisit the chaos, heartbreak, and humor of growing up.

Excerpt from the book

The cardboard felt soft as I pulled the panels back from the box. Dust billowed out and went up my nose. I coughed for a few moments and then peered inside to see a pile of uninteresting paperbacks with worn spines. I carefully lifted them out and placed them next to me on the steamy attic floor. I looked again into the dark abyss of the box.

There it was. A charcoal gray cardigan. Tears pricked my eyes. Dad's sweater. He wore it whenever he sat in the backyard, reading a book on the Laws of Thermodynamics or some obscure sci-fi, his bare feet up on one of our lawn chairs, smoking a cigar. I pulled it out and it felt soft, like a well-loved blanket or stuffed animal. It smelled faintly of cigar smoke, or maybe I imagined it. I slid my arms into the sleeves, wiping away the tears with one of the cuffs. I peered into the box again, hoping to find something else. Maybe his watch. But my hand grazed some loose notebook papers with some formulas written in his chicken-scratch handwriting, handwriting that could easily be mine, except I don't know one thing about scientific formulas. I dug through the papers and felt the spines of more books. Nothing else.

"Dani?"

I wiped my eyes some more. "I'm coming back down."

"Did you find it?"

"Yeah."

I heard Tiff say something to Kris, and then they both laughed. My stomach clenched a little. I hated it when they laughed without me.

"Come on! Let's see it!"

I walked carefully down the rickety attic stairs, the sweater hanging on me.

"I kind of like it!" Kris crossed her arms and studied me carefully. Then she nudged Tiff.

"No–yeah! Totally cute. With your jeans and everything. I love it, too!"

This is what best friends are for. To lie to your face when you do something totally and completely bizarre, but that you have to do.

We stood on the cement walkway in front of the gray ranch-style house. The sign on the door read: "THE PSYCHIC IS NOT IN."

"I guess she's not home." Tiff peered into the tiny window next to the door.

"Thanks, Einstein."

"Shut up, Kris."

Tiff punched her arm.

"You shut up–Hey, don't cry, Dani! Come on. I bet she's open tomorrow."

I wiped my eyes with the back of the sweater's sleeve, noticing that though it was soft, it was somewhat frayed at the cuff. I felt one arm and then another go around me.

"There's always the Ouija Board," Tiff said, because a Ouija board was as valid as a background check.