Best New Books: Week of 1/9/24
Rachel Hawkins, Jayne Ann Krentz, Olivie Blake, Seanan McGuire, Claire Oshetsky, Stephen McCauley, and more.
“From what I can tell, the chief distinguishing factor between children and adults is that children hear everything while appearing not to and adults hear nothing while pretending to listen.” – Stephen McCauley, Insignificant Others
The Atlas Complex by Olivie Blake
FICTION / FANTASY / MYSTERY / SCIENCE FICTION.
Only the extraordinary are chosen.
Only the cunning survive.
An explosive return to the library leaves the six Alexandrians vulnerable to the lethal terms of their recruitment.
Old alliances quickly fracture as the initiates take opposing strategies as to how to deal with the deadly bargain they have so far failed to uphold. Those who remain with the archives wrestle with the ethics of their astronomical abilities, while elsewhere, an unlikely pair from the Society cohort partner to influence politics on a global stage.
And still the outside world mobilizes to destroy them, while the Caretaker himself, Atlas Blakely, may yet succeed with a plan foreseen to have world-ending stakes. It’s a race to survive as the six Society recruits are faced with the question of what they’re willing to betray for limitless power—and who will be destroyed along the way.
“…dark and twisted and all sorts of gripping…” – Bryanna Cappadona, Today
“Olivie Blake concludes her much-celebrated dark-academia trilogy in suitably devastating fashion… equal parts romantasy and philosophy—Blake writing about the ethics of power is always a fun ride.” – Drew Broussard, Literary Hub
The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan ★
FICTION / FANTASY / HISTORICAL FICTION / MYSTERY / HORROR.
Akbar Manzil was once a grand estate off the coast of South Africa. Nearly a century later, it stands in ruins: an isolated boardinghouse for eclectic misfits, seeking solely to disappear into the mansion’s dark corridors. Except for Sana. Unlike the others, she is curious and questioning and finds herself irresistibly drawn to the history of the mansion: To the eerie and forgotten East Wing, home to a clutter of broken and abandoned objects—and to the door at its end, locked for decades.
Behind the door is a bedroom frozen in time and a worn diary that whispers of a dark past: the long-forgotten story of a young woman named Meena, who died there tragically a hundred years ago. Watching Sana from the room’s shadows is a besotted, grieving djinn, an invisible spirit who has haunted the mansion since her mysterious death. Obsessed with Meena’s story, and unaware of the creature that follows her, Sana digs into the past like fingers into a wound, dredging up old and terrible secrets that will change the lives of everyone living and dead at Akbar Manzil. Sublime, heart-wrenching, and lyrically stunning, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is a haunting, a love story, and a mystery, all twined beautifully into one young girl’s search for belonging.
“Khan’s prose is lush and lovely, her pacing skillful, and she successfully weaves a complex plot with a large cast. A ghost story, a love story, a mystery—this seductive novel has it all.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Beautifully written with intriguing characters and a story line that spans time, this subtle fantasy novel mixes historical fiction with dark fairy tales. ” – Tessa Terry, Booklist
“Kahn stuns with a multigenerational gothic tale infused with magical realism… This novel is a mystery and a love story fraught with heartbreak, infused with Islamic mythology, and written in evocative, lyrical prose. Fans of Isabel Allende and Alice Hoffman will be enchanted with this beautiful book.” – Lacey Tobias, Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“Dazzling… a magical and richly atmospheric gothic coming-of-age tale… Cinematic in scope and rendered in redolent prose, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years is a deeply immersive and inventive exploration of the many facets of love, loneliness and grief. Khan’s descriptions of Durban ground the story despite its fantastical elements, making the novel all the more compelling. Fueled by its vivid details, bewitching setting and a colorful cast of characters (including the house Akbar Manzil itself), this engrossing read acts as a potent reminder that the past does not merely hold the power to hurt us, but also to heal us.” – Stephenie Harrison, BookPage
Goldenseal by Maria Hummel
FICTION / HISTORICAL FICTION.
Downtown Los Angeles, 1990. Alone in her luxury hotel suite, the reclusive Lacey Crane receives a message: Edith is waiting for her in the lobby. Former best friends, Lacey and Edith haven’t spoken to one another in over four decades.
As young adults meeting at summer camp in Maine, and later making their way in the glitzy spotlight of postwar Hollywood, Edith and Lacey share a deep-rooted bond that once saved them from isolation and despair, providing comfort from the public and private traumas that they had each endured and which a newly optimistic world was eager to forget. Told through a continuous, twisting conversation that unfolds over the course of a single evening, in which each woman tells her story and reveals long-hidden secrets, the narratives of Edith and Lacey burn with atmosphere, mystery, resentment, and regret.
Set against the vivid landscapes of Los Angeles and unfolding with the evanescence of a dream or a memory, Goldenseal peels away the layers of an intimate female friendship to reveal a stirring and haunting story about the search for connection and the lingering echoes of lost love.
“Radiant… Goldenseal provides plenty of golden moments, an elixir for these times.” – Gordon Dossett, Manchester Journal
“Hummel delivers a lifetime of pathos and revelation in the course of one night.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Hummel skillfully evokes the Cranes’ gilded world of hotels and Hollywood, and deeply explores the women’s fraught friendship from both points of view. Readers will be rapt.” – Publishers Weekly
The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins
FICTION / SUSPENSE / MYSTERY.
When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
But in the aftermath of her death, her adopted son, Camden, wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.
Ten years later, his uncle’s death pulls Cam and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but the legacy of Ruby is inescapable.
And as Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will––and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.
“[A] delicious tale of murder, greed, and the ties that bind… Hawkins does an excellent job keeping readers off-balance throughout. Nonstop twists and surprises make this a true thrill ride.” – Publishers Weekly
“Featuring unreliable narrators and twists throughout, Hawkins’ latest continues her reign as the queen of slow burn domestic thrillers. This is a page-turner that readers will find hard to put down and is perfect for fans of stories with ambiguous morals and dysfunctional families.” – Stephanie Howes, Booklist
“This story has everything — a glamorous widow, a mountain top mansion haunted by the past, secrets, the power of money and privilege to corrupt — all woven into settings vividly painted. The perfect book to curl up with on a weekend retreat.” – Emily Lilley, Indie Next
Holiday Country by İnci Atrek
FICTION / ROMANCE.
Ada adores spending every summer in a Turkish seaside town with her mother and grandmother at the family villa. The glittering waters, endless olive groves, and her spirited friends make it easy to leave her idle life in California behind. But no matter how much Ada feels she belongs to the country where her mother grew up, deep down, her connection to the culture feels as fleeting as the seasons.
When Levent, a mysterious man from her mother’s past, shows up in their town, Ada can’t help but imagine a different future for her mother—one that promises a return to home, to love, to happiness. But while playing matchmaker, Ada has to come to terms with her own intensifying attraction to Levent. Does the future she’s fighting for belong to her mother—or to her alone?
Lush and evocative, İnci Atrek’s Holiday Country is a rapturous meditation about what it means to experience being of two worlds, the limitations and freedom of a life in translation, and the intricacies of a love triangle that stretches across generations and continents.
“A summer romance is the backbone of Atrek’s plot, but she unravels that trope and breathes fresh life into while also exploring family secrets and identity, and the different worlds we can inhabit at the same time. Atrek’s prose is lush and is a pitch-perfect match with the sensuality of the plot.” – Adam Vitcavage, Debutiful
“Atrek’s debut is immersive and sensual; readers will feel as if they’re truly on the gorgeous beaches with Ada.” – Cari Dubiel, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“…Atrek gloriously portrays the seaside setting, and she expertly explores the crackling tension between mother and daughter. This finely rendered debut heralds the arrival of a smart, bold voice.” – Publishers Weekly
Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire
FICTION / FANTASY.
Antsy is the latest student to pass through the doors at Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children.
When the school’s (literally irresistible) mean girl realizes that Antsy’s talent for finding absolutely anything may extend to doors, Antsy is forced to flee in the company of a small group of friends, looking for a way back to the Shop Where the Lost Things Go to be sure that Vineta and Hudson are keeping their promise.
Along the way, they will travel from a world which hides painful memories that cut as sharply as its beauty, to a land that time wasn’t yet old enough to forget—and more than one student’s life will change forever.
Mislaid in Parts Half-Known is a story that reminds us that getting what you want doesn’t always mean finding what you need.
“This delightful portal fantasy will stick in readers’ hearts.” – Kristi Chadwick, Library Journal
“[A] satisfying installment for the Wayward Children series fans, and a promising lead-in to further developments.” – Regina Schroeder, Booklist
“Another perfect contribution to the Wayward Children series. Of all the worlds I would be happiest in is the Shop Where the Lost Things Go, so I love that we get to learn more about the Shop and Antsy in this book. Fans will love this one!” – Rayna Nielsen, Indie Next
My Friends by Hisham Matar
FICTION / HISTORICAL FICTION.
One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat, and has the sense that his life has been changed forever. Obsessed by the power of those words—and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa—Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh.
There, thrust into an open society that is miles away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change. He attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London, only to watch it explode into tragedy. In a flash, Khaled finds himself injured, clinging to life, unable to leave Britain, much less return to the country of his birth. To even tell his mother and father back home what he has done, on tapped phone lines, would expose them to danger.
When a chance encounter in a hotel brings Khaled face-to-face with Hosam Zowa, the author of the fateful short story, he is subsumed into the deepest friendship of his life. It is a friendship that not only sustains him but eventually forces him, as the Arab Spring erupts, to confront agonizing tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his own sense of self against those closest to him.
A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the ways in which time tests—and frays—those bonds, My Friends is an achingly beautiful work of literature by an author working at the peak of his powers.
“A subtle, graceful, intimate exploration of loss and disconnection.” – Kirkus Reviews
“…poised and poignant… Khaled’s elegiac ruminations never throttle the suspense as the characters continuously risk their lives for Libyan liberation. This is both a melancholic examination of the horrors of repression and a powerful ode to the freedom of speech.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“[Matar] imbue[s] each scene with rich, nostalgic emotion, especially as much of the book is based on reality. As Khaled reflects on the heartbreaking and life-affirming relationships he has had over the course of his life, readers are sure to be touched, coming to a deeper understanding of friendship, nation and home.” – Eric A. Ponce, BookPage, STARRED REVIEW
The Night Island by Jayne Ann Krentz
FICTION / MYSTERY / SUSPENSE / ROMANCE.
Talia March, Pallas Llewellyn, and Amelia Rivers, bonded by a night none of them can remember, are dedicated to uncovering the mystery of what really happened to them months ago—an experience that amplified innate psychic abilities in each of them. The women suspect they were test subjects years earlier, and that there are more people like them—all they have to do is find the list of others who took that same test. When Talia follows up on a lead from Phoebe, a fan of the trio’s podcast, she discovers that the informant has vanished.
Talia isn’t the only one looking for Phoebe, however. Luke Rand, a hunted and haunted man who is chasing the same list that Talia is after, also shows up at the meeting place. It’s clear he has his own agenda, and they are instantly suspicious of each other. But when a killer begins to stalk them, they realize they have to join forces to find Phoebe and the list.
The rocky investigation leads Talia and Luke to a rustic, remote retreat on Night Island in the Pacific Northwest, where the Unplugged Experience promises to rejuvenate guests. Upon their arrival, Talia and Luke discover they are quite literally cut off from the outside world when none of their high-tech devices work on the island. It soon becomes clear that Phoebe is not the first person to disappear into the strange gardens that surround the Unplugged Experience retreat. And then the first mysterious death occurs…
“[A] pleasing paranormal story.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Jayne Anne Krentz’s imaginative, immersive paranormal romance is a shivery, senses-tickling read.” – BookPage
“Readers will come for Krentz’s can’t-put-it-down plotting and stay for the combustible sexual chemistry and delightfully quippy banter.” – John Charles, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
Of Greed and Glory: In Pursuit of Freedom for All by Deborah G. Plant
NONFICTION / POLITICS / HISTORY / SOCIOLOGY.
Freedom and equality are the watchwords of American democracy. But like justice, freedom and equality are meaningless when there is no corresponding practical application of the ideals they represent. Physical, bodily liberty is fundamental to every American’s personal sovereignty. And yet, millions of Americans—including author Deborah Plant’s brother, whose life sentence at Angola Prison reveals a shocking current parallel to her academic work on the history of slavery in America—are deprived of these basic freedoms every day.
In her studies of Zora Neale Hurston, Deborah Plant became fascinated by Hurston’s explanation for the atrocities of the international slave trade. In her memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road, Hurston wrote: “But the inescapable fact that stuck in my craw, was: my people had sold me and the white people had bought me… It impressed upon me the universal nature of greed and glory.” We look the other way when the basic human rights of marginalized and stigmatized groups are violated and desecrated, not realizing that only the practice of justice everywhere secures justice, for any of us, anywhere.
An active vigilance is required of those who would be and remain free; with Of Greed and Glory, Deborah Plant reveals the many ways in which slavery continues in America today and charts our collective course toward personal sovereignty for all.
“A cogent study of how racialized abuse of justice is a feature—not a bug—of American life… A compelling argument against the systemic abuse of justice as a weapon of oppression.” – Kirkus Reviews
“This is an emotional and passionate book, raw in its grief and anger, but also imbued with hope for redemption. Based on objective historical fact and subjective experience, Of Greed and Glory has the power of a sermon and the urgency of a manifesto.” – Deborah Mason, BookPage, STARRED REVIEW
Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky
FICTION.
Margaret Murphy is a weaver of fantastic tales, growing up in a world where the truth is too much for one little girl to endure. Her first memory is of the day her friend Agnes died.
No one blames Margaret. Not in so many words. Her mother insists to everyone who will listen that her daughter never even left the house that day. Left alone to make sense of tragedy, Margaret wills herself to forget these unbearable memories, replacing them with imagined stories full of faith and magic—that always end happily.
Enter Poor Deer: a strange and formidable creature who winds her way uninvited into Margaret’s made-up tales. Poor Deer will not rest until Margaret faces the truth about her past and atones for her role in Agnes’s death.
Heartrending, hopeful, and boldly imagined, Poor Deer explores the journey toward understanding the children we once were and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of life’s most difficult moments.
“…beautiful [and] terrifying… Grief is a well-trod territory in fiction, but in Oshetsky’s hands, this familiar topic becomes fresh and strange. The book’s narrative structure mirrors the grief-stricken mind — starting, stopping, looping back, stuttering, marching grimly forward… With Poor Deer, Oshetsky proves themself the bard of unruly psyches.” – MJ Franklin, New York Times
“Oshetky handles Margaret’s monstrous manifestation with a delicate touch and infuses her daily life with a muted eerieness. Readers will be captivated by Margaret’s beautifully weird search for atonement.” – Publishers Weekly
“This haunting and evocative novel will resonate with readers of Richard Russo, Lionel Shriver, and Markus Zusak.” – Stephanie Turza, Booklist
Rental Person Who Does Nothing: A Memoir by Shoji Morimoto; translated by Don Knotting
NONFICTION / MEMOIR / SOCIOLOGY.
I’m starting a service… available for any situation in which all you want is a person to be there. Maybe there’s a restaurant you want to go to, but you feel awkward going on your own.
Maybe a game you want to play, but you’re one person short.
Or perhaps you’d like someone to keep a space in the park for your cherry blossom viewing party…
Shoji Morimoto was constantly being told by his boss, “It makes no difference whether you’re here or not,” and that his presence contributed nothing to the company. Morimoto began to wonder whether a person who “does nothing” could still have actual value and a place in the world. Perhaps he could turn “doing nothing” into a service? With one tweet, Rental Person was born.
Rental Person provides a fascinating service to the lonely and socially anxious. This book details thousands of his true-life adventures:
Accompanying a divorcee to her favorite restaurant
Waving goodbye to a client from the train platform
Sitting in the courtroom during a client’s trial
Supporting a client during a difficult surgery
Rental Person is dependable, nonjudgmental and committed to remaining a stranger, and the curious encounters he shares are revelatory about both Japanese society and human psychology.
In Rental Person Who Does Nothing, Morimoto chronicles his extraordinary experiences in his unique line of work and reflects on how we consider relationships, jobs and family in our search for meaningful connection and purpose in life.
“A fascinating and oddly endearing memoir.” – Rebecca Mugridge, Library Journal
“An eccentric, charming book, showing how humans can connect in the strangest of circumstances.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Three cheers for Morimoto!… Rental Person Who Does Nothing starts slowly, seemingly fluff, an attempt to get more mileage out of a fleeting internet story. By its close, Morimoto, though still elusive, emerges as a modern Bartleby, an inadvertent dissident, someone who has come to see his practice as being ‘about enjoying the absurdity of swimming against the tide of efficiency.” – Sukhdev Sandhu, The Guardian
River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure
FICTION / HISTORICAL FICTION.
Shanghai, 2007: Fourteen-year-old Alva has always longed for more. Raised by her American expat mother, she’s never known her Chinese father, and is certain a better life awaits them in America. But when her mother announces her engagement to their wealthy Chinese landlord, Lu Fang, Alva’s hopes are dashed, and so she plots for the next best thing: the American School in Shanghai. Upon admission, though, Alva is surprised to discover an institution run by an exclusive community of expats and the ever-wilder thrills of a city where foreigners can ostensibly act as they please.
1985: In the seaside city of Qingdao, Lu Fang is a young, married man and a lowly clerk in a shipping yard. Though he once dreamed of a bright future, he is one of many casualties in his country’s harsh political reforms. So when China opens its doors to the first wave of foreigners in decades, Lu Fang’s world is split wide open after he meets an American woman who makes him confront difficult questions about his current status in life, and how much will ever be enough.
In a stunning reversal of the east-to-west immigrant narrative and set against China’s political history and economic rise, River East, River West is an intimate family drama and a sharp social novel. Alternating between Alva and Lu Fang’s points of view, this is a profoundly moving exploration of race and class, cultural identity and belonging, and the often-false promise of the American Dream.
“[A] brilliant debut… With an assured hand, Rey Lescure illuminates how even someone who feels trapped and diminished can still make a life.” – Poornima Apte, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Rey Lescure’s debut has a beautiful coming-of-age story nestled in a brilliant generational saga that touches on race, class, and place in the world. It is as equally intimate as it is an expansive note on today’s culture.” – Adam Vitcavage, Debutiful
“…captivating and sharp… Rey Lescure provides immersive depictions of Shanghai and Qingdao along with delicate character work. This is a remarkable story of a family caught between cultures.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
Sugar, Baby by Celine Saintclare
FICTION.
Sugar, Baby follows Agnes, a mixed-race 21-year-old whose life seems to be heading nowhere. Still living at home, she works as a cleaner and spends all her money in clubs on the weekends searching for distractions from her mundane life. That is until she meets Emily, daughter of one of her cleaning clients, who lives in London and works as a model… and a sugar baby, dating rich older men for money.
Emily’s life is the escape Agnes has been longing for-extravagant tasting menus, champagne on tap, glamorous hotels with unlimited room service, designer gifts from dates who call her beautiful. But this new lifestyle is the last straw for her religious mother Constance.
Kicked out of her family home, Agnes moves in with Emily and the other sugar babies in their fancy London flat and is drawn deeper and deeper into their world. But these women come from money: they possess a safety net Agnes does not. And as she is thrown from one precarious relationship to the next-a married man who wants to show off the glamourous, exotic girl on his arm; a Russian billionaire’s wife who makes Agnes central to a sex party in Miami-she finds herself searching for fulfillment just as desperately as she was before.
A compelling journey of self-discovery that offers sharp commentary on race, beauty, and class, Sugar, Baby is an electric, original, spellbinding novel that will keep readers turning the pages until the very end.
“…provocative… This powerful story makes Saintclare one to watch.” – Publishers Weekly
“[A] propulsive and nuanced debut novel…” – Sophia June, Nylon
“[A] steamy and spellbinding story that will leave you hot under the collar, but also provide a sense of hopefulness regarding our own autonomy over this world… Sexiness sells, but the author’s sensitive portrayal of sexuality is what makes this book stand out.” – Adam Vitcavage, Debutiful
Unsinkable by Jenni L. Walsh
FICTION / HISTORICAL FICTION.
Violet Jessop is Miss Unsinkable.
After her mother becomes too ill to work, the responsibility to provide for the family falls to Violet as the oldest of nine. When the world enters the Great War, she serves as a nurse, helping men who could very well be her brothers. Working as a stewardess and wartime nurse, Violet not only survives a shipwreck but also two sinkings, one on the infamous Titanic. No one can understand why she would return to sea, but something keeps drawing Violet back to the tumultuous waters, where she struggles to put the tragedies of her past behind her and pursue a life and love all her own.
Daphne has survived calamity of her own.
Daphne Chaundanson grows up as an unwanted child after her mother died in a tragedy. She throws herself into education, collecting languages like candy in a desperate attempt to finally earn her father’s approval. When the Special Operations Executive invites her to be an agent in France in World War II, her childhood of anonymity and her love of languages make her the perfect fit. She sees it as an opportunity to help the country she loves and live up to her father’s expectations. But the dangers of war challenge Daphne in ways she never could have expected, and the secrets from her own past must be faced for her to truly have a future beyond the conflict—if she can survive it.
Inspired by true stories of Violet Jessop and the thirty-nine women of the Special Operations Executive. Two unsinkable women. Two stories of survival, family, and finding one’s own happiness. One connection that reshapes both their lives forever.
“…fresh and riveting. Perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale, Unsinkable shines with themes of endurance, tenacity and female empowerment.” – Leandra Beabout, Reader’s Digest
“[A] heartfelt tale… Walsh’s prose truly allows the reader to enter the mind and heart of each character, bringing their motivations, flaws, and desires to light… Walsh skillfully crafts two well-rounded characters who grapple with internal and external conflict, and yet who honestly earn their resolutions.” – Lily Hunter, Booklist
You Only Call When You’re in Trouble by Stephen McCauley
FICTION.
After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece—“his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet.” Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay.
Naturally, that’s when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily—the real love of Tom’s life, as his boyfriend reminded him when moving out—is embroiled in a Title IX investigation at the college where she teaches that threatens her career and relationship. And after decades of lying, his sister wants him to help her tell Cecily the real identity of her father.
Tom does what he’s always done—answers the call. Thus begins a journey that will change everyone’s life and demonstrate the beauty or dysfunction (or both?) of the ties that bind families together and sometimes strangle them.
Warm, funny, and deeply moving, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble is an unforgettable showcase for Stephen McCauley’s distinctive voice and unique ability to create complex characters that jump off the page and straight into your heart.
“The story is beautifully written and replete with laugh-out-loud pronouncements (‘It sounds like music they’d play at a Swiss clinic for assisted suicide’) and aphorisms (‘True monogamy on the part of man was as rare as true veganism’). Add to this fully realized, empathic characters (well, a few of them are real stinkers), and you have an unmitigated delight and a book that you’ll hate to see end. ” – Michael Cart, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Heartwarming, charming, and funny, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble has characters that will become imprinted on your heart. Stephen McCauley gives us a novel that will set the bar for your 2024 reading!” – Mary O’Malley, Indie Next
“As he has done for nearly four decades, McCauley weaves a witty social critique from the interplay between his characters and the day’s breaking news… a skillfully written, playful paean to a melting-pot society… McCauley’s gifts for prose, plot and provocation are likely to offer you a few fast-flying hours in his sunny, slightly futuristic world.” – Meredith Maran, Washington Post