Long-Time Reader, First-Time Visitor: A Baltimorean’s Guide to ‘First-Time Caller’

I’ll do a lot to romanticize my life. But sometimes I get lucky, and all I have to do is walk a few blocks to immerse myself in a beautiful, relatable love story, such as First-Time Caller, the latest from bestselling author B.K. Borison. In it, Aiden, a jaded romance radio show host, and Lucie, a hopeless romantic eager to fall in love, are unexpectedly thrown together by Lucie’s pre-teen daughter. Maya and the love-starved Baltimore public. At its core, First-Time Caller is a story about making your own magic and accepting that heart-stopping romance can be found in the everyday mundane (both earnestly and reluctantly). It’s a love letter to the author’s home city in which she expertly weaves the fictional with reality, blending the picturesque world expected in the genre with a literary universe you feel like you can be a part of just by walking out your front door. To celebrate the novel’s release, my friends and I took to the setting’s streets to visit some of the highlighted locations, happy to indulge ourselves in Aiden and Lucie’s world. By the end of the day, the only thing we felt like we were missing was a Heartstrings, Baltimore’s Romance Hotline sweatshirt. (Hint. Hint. Book merchandisers)