<p> Billy Brent and Alice Stephens are star-crossed like all great lovers. Their need for each other drives them from Istanbul to Miami, Venice to Mexico. After years of encounters and escapes, they lose themselves deep in a desert wilderness, searching for a way forward, only to learn that sometimes the trail simply forks. </p> <p> From Charlie Smith, author of three <i>New York Times</i> Notable Books, comes his long-awaited new novel, his first in more than a decade. An exploration of the true particulars of obsession, <i>Three Delays</i> is a book of the spirit, of how broken people love and persist from darkness to darkness. </p>