Ebbott focuses his gaze on two wealthy couples in his elegant debut. Unscrupulous lawyer Emerson, who’s married to dissatisfied Retsy, has been friends with psychiatrist Amos since high school, and with Amos’s physician wife Claire since childhood. Their 16-year-old daughters, Anna and Sophie, have been thrown together for years but are growing apart. One October, Emerson invites Amos and his family for a weekend at his country house outside New York City. The weekend’s peace is disturbed first by minor incidents—a twisted ankle, a broken bottle, a joke taken as an insult—and later by a horrifying betrayal. Months later, one character, whose life has been shattered by the events of the weekend, reveals a secret to the others, who must then decide how to handle the revelation. In refined prose that feels like a throwback to mid-20th-century psychological realism, Ebbott lays bare the many ways in which the families harm each other as each character seeks to protect the status quo of their “smooth, edgeless life.” The novel’s hothouse atmosphere can feel a bit static—the characters appear to exist outside of time and of any society but their own, as if released from the amber of a John Cheever story—but it’s also the novel’s greatest strength, as Ebbott conjures up a world where mental machinations trump morality. It’s an alluring accomplishment. Agent: Grainne Fox, UTA. (June)

Reviewed on 04/04/2025 | Details & Permalink

In Reva's astonishing metafictional tale (after Good Citizens Need Not Fear), a Ukrainian Canadian writer named Maria Reva attempts to write a novel about Ukraine’s mail-order bride industry on the eve of the Russian invasion. The novel’s first part consists of Reva’s novel in progress featuring Yeva, a snail conservationist working to save a species on the brink of extinction by traveling around the country in her RV turned lab to find specimens for breeding. To pay for her equipment, she joins guided romance tours and goes on dates with Western men looking for a pliable Ukrainian bride. Meanwhile, sisters Nastia and Sol strive to take the bridal industry down. After Nastia borrows Yeva’s RV with a plan to kidnap 12 of the bachelors, Russia invades and Reva’s manuscript grinds to a halt. Reva emerges as a character in the second part, reeling from the bombings and worrying about her grandfather, who still resides in occupied Kherson, as she watches the news from Vancouver. She disappoints her agent with the news that she’s quit the novel (“I was writing about a so-called invasion of Western bachelors to Ukraine, and then an actual invasion happened.... To continue now seems unforgivable”). Reva then writes a grant proposal to travel in Ukraine for research on a “postnovel” about her birth country in flux. When she returns in the final section to her three revolutionary anti-brides, their adventure brilliantly dovetails with Reva’s literary experiment and wartime reckoning. This inspired and urgent novel is bound to make a major splash. (June)

Reviewed on 04/04/2025 | Details & Permalink

Poet Daley-Ward (Bone) makes her fiction debut with an engrossing and off-kilter tale of twin sisters and their mother, a Black woman who left them when they were infants in 1995 London. Clara and Dempsey were adopted by different families after a dead body found on the banks of the Thames was identified as their mother, Serene (their father’s identity was unknown). Now, at 30, Clara is a successful novelist who drinks too much and has meaningless sex, while Dempsey is a reclusive data entry worker who relies on an unorthodox life coach. When Clara sees a woman who looks just like the Serene she knows from photos, she’s convinced the woman is her and Dempsey’s mother, but there’s one catch: the stranger appears to be 30, the age Serena was when she disappeared. Clara and the stranger fall into an intriguing push-pull relationship; Clara hopes to take care of her, but she says Clara is the one who “seem[s] a little lost.” When Clara claims to Dempsey that their mother has reappeared, Dempsey worries that the woman is an opportunistic imposter. In chapters from the perspective of aspiring writer Serene in 1995, the reader gains insight into the reasons behind her departure. The dreamy novel is propelled by searching questions about how to be a mother and how to find fulfillment. It’s a singular family drama. Agent: Marya Spence, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (June)

Reviewed on 04/04/2025 | Details & Permalink

Rawle debuts with an addictive tale of a fiercely competitive and increasingly dangerous reality TV show. It’s narrated by Lily, a beautiful 20-something contestant lured by the promise of luxury consumer goods and hot men. In the beginning, she and the show’s nine other women await the arrival of the 10 male cast members at a beautiful but unfurnished desert compound. Only nine arrive—while the women were shuttled there by the producers, the men have been trekking for miles across the desert—leaving the women at a disadvantage in the show’s dating challenge (each day, a contestant is sent home if they haven’t managed to spend the night with a member of the other gender). The gender split is kept unbalanced as cast members participate in competitions and tasks for rewards such as a coveted hair straightener. As Lily sees other cast members dismissed, some of whom she mistook for friends, she strives to be the last one standing, even at the risk of betraying the one man she feels a genuine connection with. Rawle’s fast-paced plotting keeps the reader turning pages, as does Lily’s intriguing character development. This portrait of a vapid world contains remarkable depth. Agent: Mollie Glick, CAA. (June)

Reviewed on 04/04/2025 | Details & Permalink

A lowly media planner pursues friendship and love while trying to stay afloat at her magazine job in Peplin’s witty and emotionally raw debut. Twenty-something narrator Jane Grabowski can’t tell whether she’s been promoted or sidelined when she’s assigned to work under fashion editor Bekah Rake, a woman whose “glamorous boredom” reminds Jane of Cher from Clueless. Mainly, Jane lusts for department intern Madeline Navarro, who keeps sending her mixed signals. If the situationship between Jane and Madeline weren’t messy enough, musician and serial monogamist Addy enters the picture and makes Jane even more conflicted about what she truly wants. While she basks in Addy’s comparatively effusive attention, she also longs for the excitement she felt with Madeline. Peplin keeps readers rooting for Jane to find love, but more indelible than the romance plot is the depiction of the bond between Jane and her colleagues, who call themselves the Stepford Planners and dish about their cutthroat office (“Getting fired was like dying except worse because nobody gave you a gravestone,” Jane reflects after Bekahe gets the axe). Devotees of The Devil Wears Prada will find much to love. Agent: Alison Lewis, Frances Goldin Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 04/04/2025 | Details & Permalink

Frey (Katerina) strives for TV-worthy suburban drama in this no-holds-barred if trite sex romp. A group of wealthy friends are wilting on the vine in New Bethlehem, Conn., unsatisfied by their mates. Two of them, “glamorous WASP” Devon Kensington McCallister and former “Dallas debutante” Belle Hedges Moore, throw a swingers’ party, appointing themselves as matchmakers in the partner-swapping. Devon wants ex-NFL quarterback Alex Hunter, while Belle picks Charlie Dunlap, the town’s hunky high school hockey coach, who’s dating their neighbor Katy Doyle. The next morning, Belle and Devon compare notes on their respective nights and speculate on how things went between Belle’s impotent husband and Alex’s “lovely” wife. Meanwhile, Katy wakes up distraught after a night with Devon’s “fucking pig” of a husband. A mortal consequence to the friends’ extramarital activity is hinted at throughout, and by the third act, one of them is revealed to be dead. Despite extraneous backstory, Frey never cuts below the surface of his characters, making the novel feel both padded and shallow. Still, he sustains the momentum with his signature clipped style (“[Katy] tried to think through what happened. The party. The card. The room. The glass”). This one’s strictly for the author’s diehard fans. (June)

Reviewed on 04/04/2025 | Details & Permalink

Eisenberg debuts with a twisty tale of a down-and-out writer looking for new material and determined to unearth secrets during a reunion with her college friends. Mallory Shepard’s first novel was successful, but as she flounders without an idea for a second book, her publisher and agent threaten to drop her. Making matters worse, her girlfriend has recently moved out of their Los Angeles apartment, causing her to fall behind on rent and face eviction. She’s surprised to receive an invitation from her college friends Marcus and Tamar to their wedding in Austin, Tex., given that they fell out of touch long ago, but accepts, hoping to get to the bottom of an unspecified traumatic event that took place a decade earlier, which she calls “the incident.” Their friend group belonged to a campus club called The Newts, created to advocate for women’s safety from sexual violence. Now, however, Mallory’s old friend Dani—a candidate for the U.S. Senate—might have a vested interest in keeping her in the dark about what happened. Eisenberg holds the reader’s attention with nuanced character work and tense depictions of the friends’ reunion while keeping the reader guessing until the final act. It’s a notable addition to the dark academia shelf. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/04/2025 | Details & Permalink

Baird debuts with a caustic send-up of the campus novel centered on a divinity professor’s attempt to cash in on a strange phenomenon involving his toddler. Adrian Bennett’s two-year-old son, Luca, begins to exhibit a miraculous glow, as seen by Adrian, his thesis student Paul Harkin, and members of Luca’s medical team. Others can’t see “the nimbus,” as the glow comes to be known, including Luca’s mother—Adrian’s wife, Renata—nor can audiences at Adrian’s lectures on his Chicago campus, which doesn’t stop him from trying to profit from the subject. Paul hopes to exploit Luca, too, focusing his thesis on the nimbus. Renata, meanwhile, struggles with raising Luca and their older son during Adrian’s frequent absences, such as his trip to Texas to hobnob with a billionaire willing to throw money at Adrian’s school to research the phenomenon. Alum Warren Kayita jumps on the Luca bandwagon after learning the baby brings good luck, and tries to arrange for his loan shark to meet Luca in exchange for debt forgiveness. Baird’s satire takes no prisoners in its unflinching condemnation of those who hope for miracles while evading their day-to-day responsibilities. This packs a stinging punch. (June)

Reviewed on 04/04/2025 | Details & Permalink

Tensions flare during an English family’s vacation in the country in Littlewood’s emotive sophomore outing (after Amazing Grace Adams). The action begins with a falling tree, when Patrick Fisher rushes past his two older grown daughters, Alex and Nancy, to save their younger sister, Eva—who is least in danger. Alex, the eldest at 45, resents her husband, Luc, who doesn’t pitch in enough with their three children. She obsessively lurks on social media for updates on her first boyfriend, Matt, whom she hasn’t seen in decades, and struggles with not having lived up to her potential after being deemed the smart one by her parents. Nancy, 44, worries that her childhood reputation as the family screwup will reemerge if she tells them she’s been suspended from her doctor job following a clash with a patient. Eva, a child model turned savvy businesswoman at 40, is anxious about the family discovering her recent secret marriage to Scott, whom her parents and siblings think is a gold digger. Some of the action is a bit stagey, but the sisters’ bitterness, judgments, and rivalries feel all too genuine, and the story shifts effortlessly between the present and the sisters’ childhoods, culminating in the revelation of a secret that explains Patrick’s behavior. The author’s fans will find much to love. (June)

Reviewed on 04/04/2025 | Details & Permalink

An unlikely friendship is tested by zany events in this darkly funny if diffuse novel from Semegran (The Benevolent Lords of Sometimes Island). Seff, a writer, finds a drinking buddy in Big Dave, the conservative plumber who lives next door in their Austin, Tex., suburb. Big Dave’s belief in climate change (“Ranchers and farmers... know better than to deny what Mother Earth is telling us”) and generally compassionate nature perpetually upends Seff’s stereotypical assumptions about right-wingers. When other neighbors’ pets start disappearing and some come back mutilated, Big Dave insists they install cameras. The cameras capture another nuisance: a man walking naked in the middle of the night, and Big Dave becomes fixated on tracking down the “pervert,” putting a strain on his and Seff’s friendship. The novel’s numbered chapters are intercut with short stories devoted to side characters, such as the trio of brothers who try to outsmart a dachshund that chases them on the way to school in “The Kirby Boys Battle Cindy the Weiner Dog,” and the young girl who tends a magical garden in “Melon Girl.” Not all of it hangs together, but Semegran has a knack for drawing colorful characters. This waggish slice of life is worth a look. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 04/04/2025 | Details & Permalink