Nine to Five

Anais Calloway was supposed to go to college.

Instead, days after graduation — lost and ill over feelings she couldn’t enunciate — she drains nearly all her savings on a guided tour around the world. What begins as one reckless decision tears open into something far larger when Anais misses her flight in Banff and, on impulse, books a one-way ticket to Rio de Janeiro.

As Anais drifts further from the person she once thought she’d become, she finds herself pulled into unfamiliar lives, life-changing relationships, crowded cities, quiet landscapes, and moments of connection that feel almost impossible to let go of. Across years of movement and spontaneity, she accumulates a life she never planned for — and the strange ache of constantly becoming someone new.

But beneath the beauty and momentum of it all is a quieter question lingering just out of reach:

What happens when you finally stop running?

Tender, atmospheric, and deeply introspective, Nine to Five is a literary coming-of-age novel about identity, human connection, and the complicated difference between feeling alive and feeling at peace.