In Pyae Moe Thet War’s electrifying and heartfelt new rom-com, a writer’s attempt to find inspiration for her new novel is sabotaged by a vacation gone horribly wrong…and feelings for her off limits best friend.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Pyae Moe Thet War’s Here For A Good Time, which releases on August 26th 2025.
A trip they’ll never forget…
Poe Myat Sabei has the publishing career that any writer would kill for: her first novel sold at auction, became an international number one bestseller, and is being turned into a Netflix film. But now on deadline for her second book, Poe is facing a catastrophic case of writer’s block. The solution? Book a two-week getaway to an exclusive island resort for her and her best friend Zwe where she’ll undoubtedly be inspired to write her next bestseller.
But the vacation of their dreams disintegrates in a flash when the resort is taken over by a group of masked women who are very armed and very angry. As they try to leave the island before the group can track them down, Poe and Zwe suddenly find themselves facing the kinds of conflicts that only come up when, well, you’re trapped in a life or death situation on a remote island with your (hot) best friend.
From Here for a Good Time by Pyae Moe Thet War. Copyright © 2025 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
ONE
“Are you up?”
A dry, ragged grumble comes out of my phone’s speaker before Zwe’s empty shell of a voice mumbles, “No.”
“Can I come in?”
Another grumble. “It’s . . . one forty-seven.”
Whirling my chair around, I jump to my feet and, still feeling the buzz from my two post-dinner iced coffees, practically skip out of my office. “I know. But you won’t believe what I just did.”
“Unless it’s set the kitchen on fire, I don’t—” He pauses. “That better be a masked intruder knocking at my door.”
“I’m coming in! Be decent!” I say, hand already turning the doorknob. “And if you’re not, get under the covers.”
I leave Zwe’s bedroom door ajar behind me so that the living room light can stream in. Shirtless, he hauls himself up into a sitting position, both knuckles rubbing at his barely open eyes. “Please tell me you found out that the apocalypse has arrived and you’ve come to say a final goodbye. Because otherwise—”
I plop myself down at the foot of his bed, facing him. “What are you doing next Friday?”
“Obviously now hosting interviews for a new roommate,” he mutters, shoulders hunched. I can just make out the utter contempt that flashes across his eyes. Still grinning, I scoot myself closer across the duvet.
“Well, you’re going to have to push those auditions back three weeks, baby, because we’re going away!”
“My god, you are loud at two a.m.”
“That’s what all my lovers have told me!” I yell, even louder.
His shoulders vibrate with his chuckle. “Okay, okay, I’m awake. Now, run this by me again? Is this the plot of your next book?”
I shake my head. “No, but it’s book-adjacent. I, your best friend on this whole entire planet, in this lifetime and the next, have booked us a two-week-long, all-inclusive trip to—” I scrunch my gaze up at the ceiling, concentrating to make sure I get this right. “— Sertulu. It’s this tiny island located near the Philippines, like somewhere to the right.” I point to my own right to really solidify my geographical description.
“What—” Zwe scrubs one hand down his face. “—is that? Are you sure that’s even a real place? Is this some PR trip Netflix invited you on? Or did you fall for an online scam where this place promised you that, I dunno, Michael B. Jordan regularly holidays there?”
“How dare you, I’m not that gullible. And no, it’s very cool, I promise.” I unlock my phone, the contrast between the room’s darkness and the suddenly lit screen making me feel like I’m staring into the sun. “You’re not ready for this, I swear.” When the resort’s home page loads, I thrust the phone in front of Zwe’s face.
On reflex, he shields his eyes with the back of one hand. “Oh my god, have you never heard of dark mode? What are you, a boomer?” Through squinted eyes, he takes my phone, and pulls the brightness bar to its lowest before actually reading anything. “Since when did Ms. City Girl want to vacation on a remote island?”
“It’s at the sweet junction of ‘remote enough to feel peaceful’ and ‘not so remote that we’re wiping our asses with leaves we’ve foraged ourselves in the jungle,’” I explain. “And naturally, I have booked us a suite at the island’s most exclusive resort. Well, it’s the island’s only resort. But it’s still the most exclusive! Doesn’t it look incredible?”
He’s still scrolling through the Cerulean’s website. Even when he’s 80 percent asleep, Zwe’s poker face is inscrutable. He scrolls, clicks, scrolls some more, clicks, clicks, scrolls, clicks, scrolls, scrolls—and finally hands the phone back.
“Poe, it’s three in the morning.”
I blink. “Yes.”
“You booked us a trip to—” He nods at the now-black screen. “There. At three in the morning.”
“Yes. I was inspired.”
“By what? Did you start watching Lost?”
I put the phone down and smooth the front of my T-shirt. I’m on a high, and I will not be yanked back to reality by Zwe’s quips. “Ironically, by my writer’s block.” When I glance back up at him, a small smirk is toying with the corners of his lips. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says, but as soon as he opens his mouth to speak, the smirk reveals itself.
“What?” I ask, determined to get it out of him.
“You know I love you.”
“Mm-hmmm.”
“I just . . .” He chuckles and shakes his head. “Over the past four months, I have watched you take up a lot of hobbies to, you know, be inspired. Obviously, some of them have been less, um, logical than others—”
“Are we still on about the Legos? Because I would say that, to an extent, constructing a quarter of a Taj Mahal did get some of the creative juices flowing. I wrote a full two hundred words that first night. It’s the most I’ve written in . . . in . . .” Four months. I don’t need to say it out loud, though, because Zwe knows. Because he’s lived it, right alongside me in our two-and-a-half-bedroom (the half is our converted office space) fourth-floor walk-up.
There were the aforementioned Legos, which came after the violin, but before the cross-stitching. There has also been the ukulele, pottery making, jigsaw puzzles, friendship bracelets, an eight-week planting class that I attended a whopping two times, and bird-watching.
And I know this trip is (arguably) more radical than jigsaws and misshapen “mugs,” but at this point, I need radical.
“Maybe we sleep on it,” Zwe offers. If you looked up “the voice of reason” in the dictionary, you’d find a picture of him, clean-shaven face with a small mole on his right cheek and all, two dimples tacking up either end of his smile. I press my lips and look down at the comforter. “It’s nonrefundable, isn’t it?” He sighs.
From Here for a Good Time by Pyae Moe Thet War. Copyright © 2025 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
