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A HAND TO HOLD IN DEEP WATER

A devastating family drama driven by engrossing and believable characters.

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A young mother returns home in the face of a crisis and uncovers her family’s troubled past in this debut novel.

Nocher’s book begins with 5-year-old Tasha asking her mother, Lacey Cherrymill, where her grandmother is. Lacey can only respond, “I just don’t know.” In fact, Lacey’s mother, May, abandoned her, leaving her with her stepfather, a kindhearted farmer named Willy. Although Willy raised Lacey as his own child, he still feels “gullies” between them. After a long time away, Lacey visits Willy’s Maryland farm and seems to want to escape her stressful job, but soon the first of many truths is revealed: Tasha has leukemia and a long road of treatments nearby is about to begin. Willy’s farm soon becomes the base for disjointed family members striving to support one another, including Lacey’s ex-boyfriend Mac—Tasha’s father—and his daughter from a former marriage. Even as they all grow closer and Lacey and Willy find surprising promise for new relationships, the specter of May and the question of why she left them to fend for themselves persist. Nocher alternates between the present day and May’s own journal entries dating from the 1970s, which slowly reveal the turbulent and shocking circumstances that brought Willy and Lacey together. Between the disturbing secrets hidden in May’s journal and Tasha’s heartbreaking medical ordeals—such as the child asking Lacey if they can glue her hair back on later—the author does not pull any tragic punches. But readers ready to shed more than a few tears will find a wealth of complex characters. Willy and Lacey have a relationship that feels both unlikely and entirely real, while May’s journal entries, written in the voice of a lost teenage mother, are as authentic as they are haunting.

A devastating family drama driven by engrossing and believable characters.  

Pub Date: June 22, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-09-409521-9

Page Count: 483

Publisher: Blackstone

Review Posted Online: July 14, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL

A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.

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Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).

In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.

A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.

Pub Date: June 10, 2025

ISBN: 9781250320520

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025

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MY FRIENDS

A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.

An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.

Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”

A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.

Pub Date: May 6, 2025

ISBN: 9781982112820

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025

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