Rowan & Neil Books in Order

Rowan Roth and Neil McNair start out as the kind of academic rivals who have been keeping score for years.

Today Tonight Tomorrow drops them into the last day of senior year in Seattle, when Rowan is desperate to beat Neil one final time after he snags valedictorian. The book runs on forced proximity: a citywide class game called Howl, a reluctant team-up, and a growing sense that the person she thinks she knows best is also the one she has understood least. What starts as enemies-to-lovers banter slowly turns into a goodbye letter to high school, and to the version of yourself you thought you would be by eighteen.

Seattle matters here. The first book uses the city as both backdrop and emotional engine, sending Rowan and Neil across familiar streets, landmarks, and favorite spots while graduation looms. Rowan loves Seattle fiercely, and that love gives the romance extra stakes, because every stop feels like part adventure, part farewell. Neil, meanwhile, shifts from annoying rival to awkward, deeply thoughtful counterpart, and the pleasure of the book is watching all the old grievances turn into a new kind of closeness.

The tone is funny, quick, and swoony, but it never forgets that growing up is scary.

The sequel, Past Present Future, picks up after that one magical night and asks a harder question: what happens after the big romantic realization? Rowan heads to Boston to study writing. Neil lands in New York, where new friends and a new routine seem exciting until his mental health begins to wobble. Instead of rehashing the first book's rivalry, the sequel turns its attention to distance, change, and the work of staying honest when both people are becoming newer versions of themselves.

That shift gives the duology a nice shape. The first book is about discovery, the second is about maintenance. In Today Tonight Tomorrow, the tension comes from whether Rowan and Neil can admit what has been hiding under all that competition. In Past Present Future, the tension comes from whether love can stretch to fit college, separate cities, creative uncertainty, and the private struggles neither of them can fix for the other. It is still romantic, just in a more lived-in way.

Across both books, Solomon keeps the focus on ambition, identity, friendship, family, and the weird mix of confidence and panic that comes with late teens. These are romance novels, yes, but they are also stories about learning how to see another person clearly, and how to let yourself be seen back. Read them in order for the full arc, because the real pleasure of Rowan and Neil is watching rivalry turn into partnership, then partnership get tested by real life.