When the world is drowning, diplomacy is more than handshakes and headlines. Nitara Desai has spent her life negotiating international agreements, easing points of conflict, and averting disasters. Worst-case scenarios belong in her nightmares, not the IEC's daily reports. On a calm day, being a director at the International Energy Consortium requires fixing CarbonCon translators for Brazilian delegates. A thankless job, but the world is still drowning in CO2-there's no choice but keep treading. On a bad day, it's not just Brazilians acting up, but Americans walking out, and now the Governor of Southern California insisting on a clandestine meeting. Then a text from Matti, her solid rock in the stormy seas: Guess what? We're getting married! Suddenly, an earthquake is rolling through her personal life. She waited too long: to tell Matti how she feels, to quit the unwinnable race to net zero, to grab hold of things that make life worth living, not just trying to stay afloat. When the governor reveals an impossible technology that could save the planet, but it's in the hands of a madman, it's a catastrophe. And almost enough to distract her from everything falling apart. Work first, always. And maybe that's been the problem all along. Yet You Cry When It Hurts is the 4th of four tightly-connected solarpunk novels in a near-future climate-fiction series. It's about our future, how the forces of greed are ever-present, how the fight for a just world never ends, and how it's not strongmen who will save us but the bright cords of connection that hold the world together.