2002. Seattle. From the outside looking in, Jack O’Neill has it all. A well-paying consulting job in the technology industry, million-mile status, and a recently purchased condo overlooking Elliott Bay. He travels each week to his client’s headquarters in Chicago to prepare his team to launch a new online retail platform.

On a routine Monday morning, he meets Hope, a new barista, at the airport café. Her impassioned plea to change his coffee order is the first salvo in a series of encounters that lead him to question his default trajectory. As the project timelines slip and slip, Jack’s relationship with Hope blossoms and he takes a leap of faith. He quits his job and travels with Hope to Guatemala to work on a coffee plantation owned and operated by ex-combatants of the country’s civil war.

At the bustling plantation set at the base of a smoldering volcano, Jack tries to settle into a new, spartan existence. He struggles with balancing a longing for the comforts of his former life with the promise of a future with Hope. When the pressures of the plummeting coffee market erupt to expose the entrenched violence of the past, Jack finds himself faced with his biggest test yet.

Rumble Strips is a story of the power of catalysts to introduce love, meaning, and solace in the face of loss.