A 1990s South Carolina college romance series about becoming yourself, finding your people, and the connections that change everything.
Book One in the Harlow Series
Fall 1996 - Columbia, South Carolina
Shelby Marsh has spent eighteen years becoming exactly who her mother wanted her to be.
College is her first real chance to decide who she wants to become.
Tanner Cole has built his life around discipline, certainty, and a future he can't afford to lose.
The connection between them is immediate and terrifying in completely different ways.
Walking away should be easy. It isn't.
Book Two in the Harlow Series
Summer 1997 - Haynes Island, Georgia
A cottage falling apart on the Georgia coast, a summer of salt air and paint. Two people pretending the house is the only thing they're rebuilding and learning that some things can only be rebuilt by hand.
In development.
Reader reactions
“I feel like I am Shelby. This feels like my story!”Katie B.
“Shelby’s journey from the girl who has learned to make herself smaller into a woman beginning to understand that she is allowed to take up space. It hit me right in the feels.”Jennifer B.
“What an excellent debut novel. A college romance set in South Carolina in the ’90s... perfection!”Cristina H.
“Becoming completely stole my heart. It gave me characters who felt real, relationships worth rooting for, and a story I’ll be thinking about for a very long time.”Ashlie M.
About Becoming
Fall 1996
Columbia, South Carolina
Harlow University
Shelby spent eighteen years under the roof of a mother who believed love meant correction. Stand up straight. Be proper. Smile more. Speak less.
College is her first chance to find out who she is without someone adjusting her.
Tanner has a plan for everything. Pre-law track, swim team captain, a future built on discipline and focus. He’s spent years making sure nothing knocks him off course.
The connection between them is immediate and terrifying in completely different ways.
Shelby has spent her life wondering whether she’s worthy of being loved. Tanner has spent his life avoiding anything that might derail the future he’s worked so hard to build.
Walking away should be easy. It isn’t.
Becoming is a dual-POV story of first love, finding yourself, emotional intimacy, unforgettable friendships, sharp banter, late-night adventures, and the kind of slow-burn tension that earns every single page.
For the full Harlow 1996 mood, listen to the official Becoming playlist.
Listen on Spotify
Slow-burn, open-door, New Adult contemporary romance with explicit desire, earned heat, and strong emotional architecture.
Order Becoming now.
Signed Harlow Editions and standard paperback and hardcover copies are available directly from A.J. Beckett for U.S. shipping.
Paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions are available through Amazon for U.S. and international readers.
Becoming releases in September of 2026.
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A.J. Beckett writes contemporary romance where emotion lives in both the body and the mind, where silence carries as much meaning as dialogue, and where characters become more fully themselves through the people they cannot ignore.
The work is warm, restrained, and deeply character-driven. It trusts tension, physical awareness, and the ordinary moments that change everything.
A.J. Beckett lives and writes in Northern Alabama.
