In a world ordered by distance, connection is regulated, memory is managed, and every life is measured within its assigned radius. Eoin has learned the rules. Aren has learned to obey them. But when a name lingers where it should not, and a presence returns where it cannot be explained, the quiet certainty of their world begins to shift.

As proximity itself becomes dangerous, even the smallest closeness can break everything.

The Quiet Proximity is the first volume in The Proximity Cycle, a literary dystopia exploring distance, memory, and the fragile boundaries between safety and intimacy.
Rowan Q. Lorne writes fiction concerned with the limits of ordered worlds — and the quiet human truths that slip through them.