Honey Girl

In Rogers’s frothy debut, a high-achieving 20-something Black woman blows up her life. Grace Porter is spending a weekend in Las Vegas with her two friends to celebrate completing her doctorate in astronomy, when she wakes up to find a note from Yuki Yamamoto, a woman she’d hooked up with—and gotten married to—the night before. Back home in Portland, Ore., Grace reckons with her reckless behavior and hazy “champagne-pink” memories while trying to continue living up to her strict, financially supportive military father’s expectations as she pursues a career in a field dominated by white men. Even though Grace is surrounded by a loving group of friends and roommates, she still feels alone and untethered. She decides to abandon her life plan to travel to New York to meet Yuki, a waitress and late-night radio storyteller. Still feeling restless, Grace heads to Florida to work on her free-spirited mother’s orange grove. There, Grace searches for a way to move forward on her own terms. While the story’s minimal tension gives the reader ample time to wonder if it’s worth plowing through, the dialogue is pitch-perfect (“What the hell would I look like on Dateline talking about how you disappeared in Las Vegas?” a friend admonishes Grace). Patient readers will find plenty to appreciate in this rom-com. Agent: Holly Root, Root Literary. (Feb.)