Read Liz Jacobs’s Abroad as a two-book project: Abroad: Book One, followed by Abroad: Book Two. The central attraction brings Nick Melnikov and Dex Cartwell together in a London university setting, while friendship, family and belonging give their connection a wider frame. Choose it if you want a queer New Adult romance in which being away from home creates possibilities without making a person’s earlier life disappear.
The two-volume commitment matters. The publisher identifies the second book as the conclusion of the duology, and Jacobs explicitly explained before publication that the story would continue beyond the first. Someone interested in this particular couple should therefore keep both works visible instead of treating the second title as another unrelated campus romance.
This guide uses the publisher’s descriptions, both complete authorized opening excerpts and the author’s own discussion of the project. It offers a specific route into the books, rather than a claimed review of the entire duology. Later outcomes remain for the novels to disclose.
Identify Liz Jacobs’s Abroad before arranging the books
The English word abroad can describe travel without identifying any novel. Here it means the work by Liz Jacobs, published by Brain Mill Press. The useful anchors are the author, Nick and Dex, and the two explicit volume labels. A book recommendation that supplies only the word still needs that identification.
The publisher’s Book One record identifies the opening volume, first published in 2017. The Book Two record identifies its 2018 continuation and conclusion. These are two works in one planned story, rather than two formats or different translations of the same volume.
For a first read, begin with Book One. The sequel’s description necessarily speaks from a later position and can reveal developments you have not reached. Knowing the sequence lets you stop searching before those details become the substitute for reading. If you already own one volume, check its complete title before deciding that your shelf contains the whole project.
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Nick arrives in London with more than luggage
Nick’s Russian-Jewish family immigrated to the United States when he was a child; his London stay is a later university experience. That difference makes the setting more specific than a general tale of leaving home for the first time. He arrives with more than one place already attached to the question of where he belongs.
The authorized first chapter makes this visible before introducing the central romantic encounter. A conversation on the plane forces Nick to manage someone else’s assumptions about his Jewish background and family. The reader encounters his irritated private responses alongside the politeness he tries to maintain. An apparently ordinary travel conversation becomes a question about who gets to describe his history.
This opening offers a useful test of your interest. Do you want a story in which social discomfort can begin before anyone intends an obvious confrontation? Nick notices the gap between another person’s welcoming manner and what their questions demand of him. That is an observation about the published excerpt, not a judgment that every subsequent interaction follows the same pattern.
It also gives the romantic premise a wider context. Meeting someone new is only one part of being newly visible. Nick must already decide what to explain, what to withhold and when to end an exchange. Those everyday choices make privacy an active concern before the love story asks what another person might be allowed to know.
A private room can be a meaningful destination
The opening continues through Nick’s arrival, practical uncertainty and university accommodation. Its attention to getting somewhere, making himself understood and finally having a room to himself gives the move a material texture. London is initially something he has to navigate before it can become an attractive new life.
That distinction may appeal if you enjoy transition expressed through ordinary tasks. A new place involves more than a dramatic declaration of independence. It requires finding an entrance, handling belongings, understanding instructions and making enough private space to recover. The excerpt lets these small demands occupy attention rather than rushing directly to an imagined transformation.
For Nick, a room also changes who can enter. The pleasure of being alone belongs beside the possibility of connection, without automatically opposing it. A reader can be interested in both: what someone gains from closing a door and what might eventually make opening it worthwhile.
This is a concrete reason to sample the first chapter. If you enjoy a close view of how someone experiences an unfamiliar environment, its arrival sequence offers that test. It cannot establish the pace of every later chapter, but it can show whether spending time with Nick’s attention is part of the reading pleasure you want.
Dex has a different relationship with visibility
The official premise presents Dex as Black and queer, with a confidence that contrasts with Nick’s privacy. It also identifies pressures involving his family’s move, his younger brother and an earlier heartbreak. Confidence therefore supplies an initial impression, not proof that his life contains no uncertainty.
For the reader, the attraction lies partly in how different public positions meet. One person may find an ordinary social gesture difficult while the other treats it as familiar. Those differences can create tenderness, friction or misunderstanding. The premise invites you to investigate that interaction without deciding beforehand which person must always adapt.
Dex’s concern for his brother is especially useful to retain when considering him as a romantic lead. It places his attention outside the central attraction. A character can appear secure in one part of life while still worrying about someone else’s place in a changing environment. That combination offers more to follow than the simple role of a confident person who arrives to fix a private one.
Avoid turning the contrast into a complete explanation of either character. Nick’s privacy and Dex’s assurance are starting descriptions. The novels have room to complicate them. A discovery guide can identify why the mismatch is interesting while leaving the particular conversations and choices to the text.
Attraction does not make disclosure automatic
The central relationship raises a distinct question: what happens when wanting someone and being ready to be known do not move at the same speed? This is more precise than assuming a college setting supplies a universal story of freedom. A new environment may offer possibilities while the person entering it still carries expectations formed elsewhere.
You might enjoy following the difference between private recognition and public expression. You might instead prefer a romance whose protagonists are already comfortable naming their relationship. Knowing which experience you want helps you evaluate the Nick-and-Dex premise without treating either preference as a judgment about how people should live.
The opening excerpt of Book Two shifts attention toward Dex and a moment of public closeness. Because it begins after developments in the first book, save it until you are comfortable encountering those changes. Its usefulness as a sample is specific: it lets you examine how one character interprets another’s behavior and how a brief exchange can alter that interpretation.
That is an invitation to notice communication within the fiction, not a clinical model or advice about coming out. A scene can give two characters different information without making one of them the universal representative of privacy or openness. Their particular relationship is the reason to keep reading.
Izzy gives the friendship ensemble its own center
In an interview with Judith Utz at LGBTQ Reads, Jacobs explains that Izzy acquired her own viewpoint as the project developed. The author also identifies chosen families, queer spaces and the uncertainty at the end of college as important parts of what she wanted to explore.
That provides a clear reason to expect more than exclusive attention to Nick and Dex. If you enjoy a romance embedded in friendships that have their own needs and changes, Izzy’s presence is a meaningful attraction. If you want almost every scene to concentrate on a single pair, examine the structure before assuming the college-romance label answers that preference.
An additional viewpoint also changes what a reader can notice. A friend is not limited to confirming whether the central couple looks happy from outside. She can have priorities that create a separate line of curiosity. That possibility helps distinguish an ensemble from decorative companions who exist only to arrange meetings.
Do not infer a multi-partner romantic arrangement from the presence of several important people. The author’s explanation establishes narrative space and a wider social world. It does not turn every bond into the same kind of relationship. Keep romantic pairing, friendship and viewpoint as separate questions when choosing the book.
The return journey makes time part of the stakes
The second-volume premise places Nick’s eventual departure from London beside Dex’s questions about life after graduation. That creates more than a vague deadline. The two people are approaching changes that do not necessarily have the same destination or the same meaning.
For an exchange student, a stay can feel like a temporary departure from an established life. For someone whose current world is there, the same period can be part of a future that is already being built. A reader interested in this difference may find the relationship question especially compelling: what counts as a beginning when one person is also preparing to leave?
This is a premise-based question, not a forecast of the ending. It can help you choose the sort of uncertainty you want to spend time with. You may enjoy the practical pressure of different plans. Or you may prefer a romance in which both people can assume the same location from the outset.
Our guide to romance-series order separates a changing-couple series from a continuing relationship. For Abroad, the publisher’s duology designation gives the relevant answer: keep the two volumes together as the reading commitment you are evaluating.
Notice who gets to name a person’s background
The first opening makes even an introduction consequential. At the accommodation desk, Nick gives the name he wants used while another person tries to reconcile his Russian background with his arrival from Michigan. The details belong to the excerpt, but the reading question extends beyond getting the paperwork right: which description of a person does the conversation make available?
A geographical answer can be accurate and still feel incomplete. A place of birth, a family history and a current home answer different questions. When someone treats one answer as a correction to the others, the person being introduced may have to explain a life they had not intended to discuss. Watching how Nick manages that small exchange gives you something specific to follow as new friendships form.
You can use the same attention with Dex without assuming the two experiences match. Does a description express how he sees himself, how another person approaches him, or what the reader has been told? Those positions can differ. In a group discussion, identify the speaker before debating a label. It keeps a character’s own account visible and prevents an outside impression from quietly becoming the only available truth.
Personal experience informs the fiction without replacing it
Jacobs discusses the relationship between her own history and the novel in both the interview and a first-person essay linked by her publisher. She describes the importance of telling a queer immigrant story while explicitly limiting any claim that her experience represents everybody with a similar background.
That boundary matters for reading. An author’s relationship to the material can explain why a subject carries personal weight without making the protagonist a complete autobiographical substitute. You can attend to the specificity of the fiction rather than testing whether one character stands for every Russian-Jewish immigrant or every queer student.
It also makes comparison more interesting. Nick and Dex encounter different kinds of belonging; their experiences need not match to become meaningful to each other. Izzy adds another trajectory. The point of following the group is not to collapse those histories into one identity, but to see what the characters can learn about differences they do not initially share.
If these subjects are the main reason for your interest, the author’s discussion is useful reading alongside the novel. Keep it separate from the plot. A personal essay can provide context without supplying the answer to every choice a fictional person makes.
Choose the emotional experience as well as the setting
New Adult here concerns people moving through university-age transitions. The first opening explicitly identifies Nick as twenty. That detail is more useful than guessing his age from a campus setting, but it does not establish every other character’s age or settle all suitability questions.
The publisher advertises romance and personal growth, while the excerpts include discomfort, attraction and intimacy. Those observations describe particular material, not a complete inventory of every difficult subject in both novels. If a specific topic determines your choice, ask about that topic and the exact volume instead of treating a broad category as an answer.
Likewise, patient attention to a character’s uncertainty does not establish a precise heat level. The guide to gradual romantic development and explicitness explains why those are separate preferences. For this duology, decide whether the inward and social questions interest you before trying to reduce the experience to a single intensity label.
Keep the two works distinct when choosing copies
Brain Mill Press gives separate identifiers for the volumes and formats. Book One’s print ISBN is 9781942083627; Book Two’s print ISBN is 9781942083924. Use the volume title as well as the identifier when locating a copy. Two listings for Book One do not complete the duology simply because their formats differ.
The original titles remain the reference points in this guide. A local shop interface or a translated description does not establish that the text itself has been translated. Confirm the language of the actual product, especially if you are choosing a gift or switching languages between volumes.
Start with the first book’s authorized opening if Nick’s arrival, Dex’s different position and a wider friendship group sound appealing. Keep the second title on the same reading plan, then let the novels show how those people negotiate the time they have. For another romantic direction afterward, Alisson Bento’s catalog offers separate standalone stories rather than further installments in Jacobs’s duology.
