Where is the line between love and crazy? How much of life can ever be planned out or foreseen, even by intelligent, savvy, well-meaning people? Newlyweds Jack and Chloe have all such advantages. Ensconced in their affordable Chicago apartment, Jack struggles to pursue his writing career while Chloe works downtown applying herself to the world of high finance. The city is theirs to savor and enjoy.

A man in love, Jack aspires to be the perfect husband to Chloe. But his own self-doubts and Chloe's office flirtations cast shadows. Jealousy and misbehavior undermine their notions of themselves and each other. And their menacing, raffish neighbors, with volatile lives and 911 calls, come to seem uncomfortably comparable. In the intense heat of one Chicago summer, Jack and Chloe's marriage roils into a queasy chemistry of vanity, lust, and greed.

This is a love story that twists, and twists again, as it follows the stubborn persistence of passion and the outsized emotions that feed it. For anyone who has ever fallen in love -- or out of it- -- City Boy sets off literary fireworks.