Cover by Arsh Raziuddin
PRAISE
“Eerie and unsettling and believable.”
—Gillian Flynn
“Like picking up a downed power line, so full of rage and want and, well, electricity, that I couldn’t put it down.”
—Ann Patchett
“Jennette McCurdy takes what could have been a simple morality tale and turns it into something more complicated and infinitely more interesting—a riveting examination of lust and self-delusion, and a sly reminder that our worst mistakes can sometimes lead us stumbling toward the light. McCurdy is a fearless and darkly funny writer with an unerring eye for the perfect mortifying detail.”
—Tom Perrotta
“[She] writes sentences that glimmer and cut like razors. With Half His Age, she delivers a deeply felt and humorous tale about the dangers of youth and desire—this novel is uncomfortable, unpredictable, and unputdownable.”
—Aria Aber
“A bold and unapologetic novel for edge-seekers, doom-scrollers, latchkey kids, horn-dogs, and all those who love hard.”
—Brittany Newell, The New York Times Book Review
“Proves her memoir was anything but a one-hit wonder. Brimming with teenage angst and McCurdy’s signature dark humor.”
—USA Today
“You’ve never met a character quite like Waldo. An explicit, provocative, and sometimes uncomfortable read . . . an unapologetically bare and intimate portrait of the psyche of a girl on the brink of womanhood and a meditation on the generational cycles that shape us. Seventeen-year-old Waldo is simultaneously fascinating and frustrating, naive and nuanced. Maybe you're ashamed of her or embarrassed by her—or maybe you're rooting for her to come out the other side. . . bold and brash . . . A vivid picture of all that we dismiss when it comes to the complexity of a young woman’s desire. . . . With each of her books, McCurdy continues to lean into the uncomfortable conversations that end up leading the discourse.”
—Harper’s Bazaar
“A bleak, often hilarious and uncomfortable triumph.”
—The Guardian
“McCurdy’s furious writing—her dystopian rendering of a culture squandering its dreams and desires on the crack high of cheap stuff—is hard to tear yourself away from.”
—The Atlantic
“[A] a connoisseur of the ugly detail . . . Assured, provocative, and cements [McCurdy’s] standing as a talented writer . . . articulates the vulnerability of girlhood with guts, humor and just the slightest whisper of warmth.”
—The New York Times
“Hilarious, gross, disturbing, poignant.”
—The Washington Post
“A writer able to capture some of the darkest parts of human nature with unflinching honesty and devastating humor.”
—NPR
“As unapologetic and undeniable as its young protagonist . . . McCurdy treats Waldo’s want with an almost reverent seriousness.”
—Elle
“McCurdy’s furious writing—her dystopian rendering of a culture squandering its dreams and desires on the crack high of cheap stuff—is hard to tear yourself away from.”
—The Atlantic
“[A] revenge story, one where McCurdy excavates emotions she herself had at seventeen. And if it makes you angry, about feminism or rampant consumerism or the power dynamics in age-gap relationships, even better—McCurdy still is, too.”
—Rolling Stone
“Share[s] plenty with her memoir: smarts, style . . . Here, 17-year-old Waldo finds herself desperately, foolishly, hopelessly in love with a teacher, a predicament that allows McCurdy to stretch her muscles exploring power and desire in our modern moment.”
—Town & Country
“Haunting, hilarious, and heart-rending . . . A coming-of-age story that refuses easy answers—the kind McCurdy tells best.”
—Bustle
HALF HIS AGE
JENNETTE MCCURDY
Intoxicating.
Inappropriate. Inevitable.
The New York Times bestselling blockbuster from the author of I’m Glad My Mom Died
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a sad, funny, thrilling novel about sex, consumerism, class, desire, loneliness, the internet, rage, intimacy, power, and the (oftentimes misguided) lengths we’ll go to in order to get what we want.
Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all: Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films and things that she doesn’t? Or is it purer than that, rooted in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the similar filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does.
Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles—or attempts to overcome them—in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.
Jennette McCurdy is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died, winner of the 2023 American Library Association Alex Award. The book has been published in more than thirty countries and has sold more than three million copies. Half His Age is her debut novel.
PRAISE
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE
“Chong’s endearing novel about second chances is a tender look at the power of redemption.”
—The Washington Post
“Wise and poignant [with] mouthwatering descriptions of food . . . about finding—or rediscovering—the people who make hardship worth enduring.”
—Bobby Finger, The New York Times Book Review
“I Leave It Up to You is funny and tender, with characters whose lives are satisfyingly messy. Jinwoo Chong is a writer for those of us who exist between cultures and identities.”
—Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times bestselling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
“Alive and boisterous and entirely profound . . . a riot and a tender exploration of (re)discovering your place in the world.”
—Bryan Washington, author of Palavar
“A remarkable portrait of an American family . . . compassionate and beautifully told.”
—Grace D. Li, New York Times bestselling author of Portrait of a Thief
“You won’t forget this big-hearted, beautifully written book.”
—BookPage
“Jinwoo Chong is a master storyteller. A novel about second chances, the many threads of love that tie people together in the face of loss, and the maddening complexities of family devotion, this is a spectacular book.”
—Crystal Hana Kim, author of If You Leave Me
“Sweet and satisfying without sacrificing bite, I Leave It Up to You achieves that which we cherish in our most favorite works: an unvarnished reflection of reality.”
—Mateo Askaripour, New York Times bestselling author of Black Buck
“Funny and wickedly observant with a cast of characters so endearing I laughed out loud and was moved to tears, I Leave It Up to You is a delicious meal of a book, with courses of drama, tragedy, and comedy. Jack Jr.’s efforts to separate himself from his raucous, loving, over-reaching Korean American immigrant family are rendered with brilliant finesse and beauty.”
—Jimin Han, author of The Apology
“Alive and boisterous and entirely profound . . . a riot and a tender exploration of (re)discovering your place in the world.”
—Bryan Washington, author of Palavar
“By the end of I Leave It Up to You, Chong managed to pull off the impossible: He made me fall in love with New Jersey. His prose is funny, exuberant, and moving, and his characters are packed full of life in all of its spectacular dysfunction.”
—Grant Ginder, author of So Old, So Young
“A spirited and deeply affecting story about love in all its forms, the chaos and complications of family, and how to pick yourself back up in the wake of loss . . . as pleasurable as a good conversation over an excellent meal.”
—Gina Chung, author of Sea Change
“I Leave It Up to You explores what it means to be healthy, to love, to rebuild a family in the aftermath of a bewildering tragedy. A tender novel of rebirth and repair . . . a delicious read.”
—Isle McElroy, author of People Collide
“Captures precisely that tragicomic feeling of suspended animation . . . [a] funny and big-hearted novel.”
—Rafael Frumkin, author of Confidence
“Versatile wunderkind Chong . . . deftly, poignantly, gloriously transforms family dysfunction into universal life lessons about how independence and autonomy don’t have to mean giving up unconditional love, underscored with a ringing reminder to never take it for granted.”
—Booklist, starred review
I LEAVE IT UP TO YOU
JINWOO CHONG
Love.
Family.
The art of sushi.
What if you could go back—wiser than before—and do it all again?
From the award-winning author of Flux comes “an endearing novel about second chances” (The Washington Post), with wise insights into love, family, and sushi.
A coma can change a man, but the world Jack Jr. awakens to is one he barely recognizes. His advertising job is history, his Manhattan apartment is gone, and the love of his life has left him behind. He’s been asleep for two years; with no one to turn to, he realizes it’s been ten years since he last saw his family.
Lost and disoriented, he makes a reluctant homecoming back to the bustling Korean American enclave of Fort Lee, New Jersey; back into the waiting arms of his parents, who are operating under the illusion that he never left; and back to Joja, their ever-struggling sushi restaurant that he was set to inherit before he ran away from it all. As he steps back into the life he abandoned—learning his Appa’s life lessons over crates of tuna on bleary-eyed 4 a.m. fish runs, doling out amberjack behind the omakase counter while his Umma tallies the night’s pitiful number of customers, and sparring with his recovering alcoholic brother, James—he embraces new roles, too: that of romantic interest to the nurse who took care of him, and that of sage (but underqualified) uncle to his gangly teenage nephew.
There is value in the joyous rhythms of this once-abandoned life. But second chances are an even messier business than running a restaurant, and the lure of a self-determined path might, once again, prove too hard to resist.
Jinwoo Chong is the author of the novels I Leave It Up to You and Flux, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. His work has appeared in Guernica, The Southern Review, The Rumpus, LitHub, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Electric Literature, and received recognition from the 2025 Best American Short Stories anthology and a special mention from the 2022 Pushcart Prizes. His third novel, Club Nine Tails is forthcoming. He lives in New Jersey with his husband and cat.
“Smart, funny, fast, and a little bit furious . . . a highly entertaining novel filled with surprising scenes and unforgettable characters. [He] is at the top of his game.”
—Patrick Ryan
“Sharp and insightful, wild and heartbreaking . . . You will love this comic and precarious journey in a Nissan Cube. This one is a real winner.”
—Annie Hartnett
PRAISE
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE
FINALIST FOR THE ITW AWARD
AMAZON EDITORS’ CHOICE
“A new Catherine Steadman novel is an auto-read for me . . . [she] more than delivers on the brilliant twists and thrills I’ve come to expect from her writing.”
—Lucy Foley
“[A] sleek, unsettling puzzle— gripping and haunting.”
—Harlan Coben
“Addictive, thrilling, intoxicating.”
—Lisa Jewell
“Unbearably tense . . . thought-provoking, the perfect beach read.”
—Riley Sager
“Sinister, stylish, and shocking.”
—Chris Whitaker
“Breathtaking . . . Beautifully told, insanely gripping, with surprises at every turn. I devoured it.”
—Clare Leslie Hall
“Continues to dazzle with distinctive, constant observations about human behavior.”
—Caroline Kepnes
“A genuinely unique voice in crime fiction.”
—Gillian McAllister
“Hypnotic and pulse-pounding.”
—Andrea Bartz
“This is the best novel I’ve read in ages.”
—Danielle Trussoni
“Sharply modern and timeless.”
—Flynn Berry
“Steadman proves once again she’s a master of smart, suspenseful, storytelling.”
—Liv Constantine
“Everything you want in a summer thriller . . . A read-it-in-one-sitting type of book.”
—People
“The mysteries accrue, as does our admiration for Steadman, whose gift for invention only increases with each novel.”
—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)
“Perfectly thrilling.”
—Vanity Fair
“Twisty . . . highly imaginative . . . deliciously provocative.”
—The Washington Post
VARIOUS
CATHERINE STEADMAN
The million-copy bestselling stalwart of suspense.
The bestselling author known for her cinematic and psychologically chilling thrillers—a Reese’s Book Club pick.
Have you ever wondered how long it takes to dig a grave? Wonder no longer. It takes an age. However long you think it takes, double that.
So begins Something In the Water, the debut thriller that launched Catherine Steadman into the stratosphere: a New York Times bestseller and Reese’s Book Club pick.
With subsequent novels Mr. Nobody, The Disappearing Act, The Family Game, and Look in the Mirror, Steadman moves easily between domestic suspense, psychological thriller, and puzzle-box mystery. Her novels are glamorous without frivolity: secluded houses, wealthy families, film sets, tropical locales, and privileged social echelons become pressure chambers for paranoia, ambition, deception, and questions of identity. The result is commercial suspense with a polished, cinematic edge that is propulsive and preoccupied with the compromises we make when confronted with money, status, love, fear, or the chance to become someone else.
Catherine Steadman is an author and screenwriter based in London. She grew up in the New Forest, Hampshire, and now lives in East London with her husband and two daughters. Steadman’s first novel, Something in the Water, was a New York Times bestseller with rights sold in more than thirty territories. She is also the author of Mr. Nobody, The Disappearing Act, The Family Game (a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice), and Look in the Mirror.
PRAISE
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“Soooo good . . . TikTok hype house gothic-literary drama.”
—The Cut
“Here you’ll find that gothic horror, so often lurking in the dingy dark, can manifest also in the fluorescent world of the terminally online. . . . Stein knows more about the internet than I do. (Probably more than you too, dear reader, but I don’t want to presume.) Makes sense, then, that the versatile writer has found the gothic possibilities in a house full of social media influencers.”
—NPR
“Leigh Stein [has] cemented herself as a satirist of Our Present Moment. Turns out nothing is scarier than the influence machine.”
—Literary Hub
“Stein’s novel has much to say about Hollywood, social media, and the creator economy; at its heart is a gothic horror story wrapped up in a mystery with satirical undertones.”
—Los Angeles Times
“For anyone who has felt fate intervening on their TikTok feed.”
—USA Today
“[An] incisive social satire . . . a funny, dark look at the new creator economy in a way only Leigh Stein can.”
—Town & Country, “The Must-Read Books of the Summer”
“Wildly entertaining and whip-smart.”—Katie Couric Media
“Leigh Stein’s work provokes you like the most unsettling clip you’ve ever seen on a screen—and you won’t be able to look away.”
—Julia Phillips
“This is a smart, funny, and incisive novel about fading relevance, digital reinvention, and the people addicted to making content even as it consumes them.”
—Andrew Boryga
“A masterpiece and laugh-out-loud funny . . . the first novel about TikTok that takes it seriously, in all its hideousness and brain rot . . . I’m obsessed with the fusion of Gothic creeping dread and the seductive allure of the algorithm. I loved this!”—Josh Lora (attellthebeees)
“There’s no better setting to explore the changing world of media than a Los Angeles influencer’s mansion. . . . Rife with poignant observations about what drives a person to a content-creation career (trauma, grit, destiny) and how the lines between media and retail have all but disappeared, Stein’s latest . . . is a super-fun read with amazing depth.”
—Booklist
IF YOU’RE SEEING THIS, IT’S MEANT FOR YOU
LEIGH STEIN
Remember when you thought the internet couldn’t get any crazier?
The bestselling satire about a haunted hype house, getting older, and the strange permutations of modern life.
After her boyfriend dumps her in a Reddit post, unemployed thirty-nine-year-old Dayna accepts an unusual opportunity from a man she stopped speaking to twenty years ago: If Dayna can help Craig transform his crumbling mansion into a successful hype house of influencers, he can restore his birthright to its former glory, and she can bring her career back from the dead.
But missing from the mansion is Becca, an enigmatic tarot card reader who built a rabid fandom with her cryptic, soul-touching videos . . . and then vanished. With nineteen-year-old Olivia, the newest member of the hype house (and one of Becca’s biggest fans), Dayna begins to build a social media campaign around Becca’s disappearance that will catapult the creators to new heights of success. Too bad Craig forbids Dayna from pursuing the mystery at its heart.
As Olivia searches for traces of Becca in a labyrinthine house that seems intent on hiding its secrets, and Dayna becomes entangled with both Craig and Jake, the resident heartthrob and the last person to see Becca, the two women make a shocking discovery that will upend everything.
Leigh Stein makes fun of what the internet is doing to us. She is the bestselling author of six books, including the critically acclaimed satirical novel Self Care. She has written culture pieces and personal essays for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker online, Airmail, Allure, ELLE, BuzzFeed, The Cut, Salon, and Slate.
PRAISE
SEEN ON LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS
"Bless Jo Firestone's quiet, mad genius . . . Hilarious and completely brilliant, [a] bloodstained love-letter to reality-dating television."
—Vulture
“I’m so sad Sex Island isn’t a real TV show, because I’d make a fantastic host.”
—Stephen Colbert
“A genius and my hero—there is truly nothing Jo Firestone cannot do.”
—Taylor Tomlinson
“Once again the incomparable (and unhinged) Jo Firestone proves that she is damn funny.”
—Ziwe
“A triumph of genre fuckery. The kind of book that makes you laugh out loud on the subway, unashamed to be reading a book with both SEX and MURDER on the cover in huge print . . . Jo Firestone once again proves that not only is she an expert comedian, but she can spin a genuine mystery tale that has you completely unsure of what is going to happen next, in the best way possible.”
—Ana Gasteyer
“A delightful, sidesplitting satire of the reality TV industry as seen from the perspective of Luella van Horn, the crime-solving alter ego of a Staten Island social worker named Marie Jones. The sequel, Sex on Murder Island, brings Luella back a few months after her first sleuthing triumph . . . Let’s just say I’ve never read a more wholesome novel involving multiple sex parties. She’ll catch the killer, but the book shines brightest in its depiction of a lonely woman searching for real friends.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“For readers who prefer to cackle wickedly, Jo Firestone’s Sex on Murder Island could be just the ticket. A sequel to the comedian’s Murder on Sex Island, the new book promises a similar blend of sex, murder, and completely inappropriate humor.”
—The Boston Globe
“Fast-paced fun that will appeal to fans of Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan and Jesse Q. Sutanto’s Meddelin Chan.”
—Library Journal, starred review
“Wild, wacky . . . somehow even funnier than her first book [and] perfectly over-the-top. Let’s hope there’s a third Luella adventure coming soon. . . . A wonderfully weird mystery.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Hilarious . . . Sexy waiters, spooky butlers, and a kinky boat pilot named Betsy all support Luella’s madcap murder investigation. For sheer laughs, this beats the previous book, and readers will hope to encounter the colorful cast of sidekicks in future installments. It’s a riot.”
—Publishers Weekly
MURDER ON SEX
ISLAND
SEX ON MURDER ISLAND
JO FIRESTONE
A sexy reality show.
A missing contestant.
A one-of-a-kind detective.
The side-splitting and acclaimed mystery series starring Luella van Horn, private eye.
When a cast member goes missing from the hit reality show Sex Island, producers hire detective Luella van Horn to go undercover as a contestant and solve the case. What the producers don’t know is that the enigmatic Luella van Horn is actually a woman named Marie Jones, a divorced ex–social worker from Staten Island attempting to lead a double life as a private eye. The local press couldn’t get enough of Luella . . . until she horribly bungled her last case and a murderer went free.
Unable to resist the opportunity to be a part of her favorite trashy TV show, travel to a remote island, and embark on a journey for redemption, Marie-as-Luella takes the case. But the more she learns about Sex Island’s dark underbelly, the harder it gets to make it out alive. She encounters shady producers, sleazy directors, contestants willing to do whatever it takes to win the $100,000 grand prize—and the dead body of the show’s missing fan-favorite in her bathtub.
Will she find the killer? Will she find herself? Will she find love? Find out now, on Sex Island’s most dramatic season yet.
Jo Firestone is a comedian and television writer known for her work on After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson, ZIWE, and Joe Pera Talks With You. Her most recent comedy special, Good Timing, received a Critics Choice nomination and is available on Peacock.
PRAISE
“Brilliant . . . explores the long path to self-fulfillment, how we discover our place in the world, and what we owe to others along the way. . . . Megan Cummins uncovers the troubling, intricate mystery of human connection, how we survive the worst of it, and sometimes don’t. She lays bare how we manage, despite enormous hurdles, to collapse the remote distances between us, and how each of us is a portal to worlds unseen.”
—Sarah Blakely-Cartwright
“A live scroll on love, loyalty, who we are in our wrongdoings, and how we end up with the one we end up with . . . Cummins captures all of her characters in their wide and earnest humanness. This novel sustains the empathy it calls for and reminds us that one need not be a saint to achieve redemption. I closed the book at the end, but my heart was still open.”
—Sidik Fofana
“An exquisite first novel about the body’s fragility, the spirit's opacity, and the elastic absolution of narrative. Megan Cummins’s restless, devoted protagonist—a young writer working toward something like truth in the shadows of her father’s addiction, and in friendship’s frank light—is the kind of protagonist I’ll find myself thinking of years later, as of a good friend: ‘I should call Gertie.’”
—Rachel Lyon
“Gertie is a heroine for the ages—I challenge you to find a reader who doesn’t fall in love with her dark humor, her vulnerability, her flaws, or her complicated affection for everyone around her. Atomic Hearts explodes with love and tenderness on every page.”
—Maria Kuznetsova
“Emotional rawness leaps off the page . . . Gertie’s voice is so well developed and nuanced; she’s set to be one of the most memorable characters of the year.”
—Debutiful
“A nuclear blast to the emotional core . . . Atomic Hearts is the kind of novel that will send you scrambling for your phone to call your best friend, your mom, your dad, and let them know how much they matter.”
—Nick Fuller Googins
“Impressive . . . This works equally well as a gritty coming-of-age drama and an insightful story about the nature of writing.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
ATOMIC HEARTS
MEGAN CUMMINS
I’d been raised on secrets. I knew they weren’t a good idea.
A stunning literary debut about growing up and the power of storytelling.
Sixteen and living in a small Michigan town, Gertie is harboring a secret heavy enough to fracture her closest friendship. She and Cindy have been bonded since birth by the fact their fathers are addicts, and their unsteady home lives are a little easier when they’re together, sprawled on a trampoline with pilfered vodka and dreams of moving to New York.
After an accident involving a bonfire and an aerosol canister sends Gertie to the hospital, she finds herself with nowhere to go but to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to live with her newly sober father. She sees it as a chance to escape the hometown drama she’s caused, but drama finds her all the same: parties without curfews, boys without boundaries, a compromising photo, tragedy back home . . . and her father, once again teetering on the edge of oblivion. Terrified of the consequences of being honest with Cindy, her sole refuge is the fantasy novel she’s writing, a portal to another world and the story of a young girl roaming a strange land, trusting her wits to survive.
Years later, when ghosts of the past surface, Gertie decides to write again about that explosive summer from the stabler shores of adulthood. Powered by the fierce imagination of her youth, Gertie finally allows herself the grace to tell a version of her narrative that she always hoped would be true.
Written with the feel and power of a ticking time bomb, Atomic Hearts is an unforgettable story of the ways we can be saved by friendship, love, and imagination.
Megan Cummins is the author of If the Body Allows It, awarded the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction and longlisted for the Story Prize and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. Her stories and essays have appeared in A Public Space, Guernica, One Teen Story, Ninth Letter, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She edits at Public Books, a magazine of arts, ideas, and scholarship. Atomic Hearts is her debut novel.
PRAISE
“A deliciously twisted thriller that blends culinary obsession with moral horror. Ed’s descent from desperate gambler to captive chef is depicted with slick pacing, vivid food writing, and creeping dread. Each course sharpens the tension, turning indulgence into menace and appetite into power. This novel savors excess, class, complicity and leaves you squirming.”
—Dua Lipa’s Service95
“Dark, delicious satire . . . Callie Kazumi is brilliant.”
—Shari Lapena
“Stuffed with succulent prose, delicious dread, and cutting commentary on power, class, and greed, Greedy is as brilliant as it is brutal. That a book this smart, this profound, and this cynical can still be this much fun is a feat. Callie Kazumi is a star.”
—Rachel Harrison
“Sinister, stylish, and utterly addictive, Greedy is a feast of a novel. It’s playfully fiendish and a seductive blood-soaked gourmet thriller you won’t be able to put down. I’m hungry for more from Callie Kazumi.”
—Lucy Rose
“For readers looking for a delightful thrill that doesn’t forsake depth . . . deliver[s] page-turning twists and nuanced character studies.”
—Forbes
GREEDY
CALLIE KAZUMI
Not suitable for vegetarians.
What would you do for a seat at the table? A shocking story of culinary horror set in Japan.
They will kill me soon, Edward Cook thinks. And when the Yakuza are unable to collect what he owes, Ed realizes, theyʼll go after his wife and child next. Broke, desperate, and unemployed, he stumbles upon an unusual ad: Chef wanted! Private chef for a high-profile businesswoman. One million yen per day.
Ed accepts the job. He hasnʼt earned any Michelin stars, but he knows his way around a kitchen. Leaving his life in Tokyo behind, he departs for an opulent estate in the mountains owned by the enigmatic and reclusive Hazeline Yamamoto, a disgraced socialite with a predatorʼs smile and an exacting palate. Hazelineʼs world is one of taste, connoisseurship, and experimentation—she is a certified gourmand. But when you can afford filet mignon for every meal, you begin to seek out the strange and forbidden.
The closer Ed gets to Hazeline and the brighter future that she promises—if he remains loyal—the nearer he is to realizing the chilling truth about her altruism. In this shadow world of unimaginable wealth, there are worse monsters than two-bit gangsters. The wind blowing through Hazeline’s home carries the sound of screaming, and Ed finds himself feeding all kinds of beasts.
Perfect for fans of Parasite and The Menu—enticing as a starter, meaty as a main dish, and full of satisfying just-desserts—Greedy is a suspenseful poison-pen note to classism and an ode to Japanese cuisine, a horror-tinged thriller unsuitable for vegetarians but full of shocking delights for every reader.
Callie Kazumi is the author of Claire, Darling and a British Japanese writer who started work on her first book after being given Stephen King's On Writing by her father. She lives in London with her husband and their Bichon Frisé, Betsy.
PRAISE
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: them, Book Riot
“Irresistibly fresh, bright, funny, and bursting with singular voice, this is the kind of romance I’ve been waiting for, and we’re so lucky to finally have it.”
—Casey McQuiston
“One of the best romantic comedies I’ve read in recent memory . . . characters you instantly feel like you know and an extremely clever trans take on My Best Friend’s Wedding . . . laugh-out-loud funny, sharply observed—an absolute must-read.”
—Joel Kim Booster
“Absolutely sparkles with all the wit, charm, and drama of the best nineties rom-coms and does it in pitch-perfect prose.”
—Torrey Peters
“Part romance, part lit-fic, all wedding bells, Rose Dommu’s debut novel contains nostalgic nods to quintessential Nineties romcoms all while managing to revel in the joys of family and the messiness of a brand new life.”
—Rolling Stone
“Queer literary Florida is alive and well in Rose Dommu’s Best Woman, a deliciously clever and relentlessly hilarious firecracker of a debut. The book is smart, sexy, and endlessly entertaining. Dommu shines.”
—Kristen Arnett
“Full of snappy pop culture references, Dommu is an especially tender writer of our awkward little yearnings.”
—W
“[The] near-universal contours of trans experience have rarely been articulated with such specificity in published fiction.”
—them
“Destined to be optioned . . . [Best Woman] feel[s] deeply cinematic without ever sacrificing laughs or hewing to the audience’s expectations.”
—Vogue
“A sparkling love story . . . an almost-scientifically perfect cocktail of love, betrayal, angst and relief. Best Woman is as re-readable as its influences are rewatchable.”
—Electric Literature
“Irreverently funny and tear-jerkingly tender, Best Woman takes the wedding cake as my favorite debut of the year.”
—JP Brammer
BEST WOMAN
ROSE DOMMU
She just made her worst mistake.
A sharp contemporary send-up of My Best Friend’s Wedding , for lovers of the messy rom-com.
Julia Rosenberg loves her brother. Really loves him. Enough to: be the “best woman” at his wedding; leave behind her hard-won New York life, brilliant best friends, and drag brunches for Boca Raton, Florida; entertain the uptight bride-to-be and her vicious cronies; try (and fail) to dodge the hometown hookup buddy she can’t resist; and navigate the tricky dynamics with her divorced parents.
She’s not that nervous. Her family stood by her when she came out as a woman a few years ago. And it’s just one week in Florida—a week of old memories and sisterly duties that will force Julia to confront the tensions that have been bubbling beneath the surface of her closest relationships. No big deal.
When it turns out that Kim Cameron, the gorgeous, self-assured girl that she crushed on hard in high school, is the maid of honor, Julia panics. She tells a teensy little lie to win Kim’s favor—a lie that snowballs out of control and threatens to undermine the blossoming attraction between them and complicate an already challenging relationship with her family. Using her wit, charm, and a suitcase full of couture “borrowed” from a pop star, Julia just might survive the horde of clone-like bridesmaids, go-kart racing bachelor parties, and alcohol-fueled speeches. But she won’t make it out unscathed. As best woman, she’s making the worst decisions of her life.
An utterly contemporary send-up of My Best Friend’s Wedding and a riotous coming-of-age novel, Best Woman is rife with crackling wit and devastating poignancy and announces Rose Dommu as an exciting voice in fiction.
Rose Dommu is the author of the Substack newsletter Mall Goth and host of the podcast Like a Virgin. Rose previously managed LGBTQ+ social media editorial strategy at Netflix. A former senior staff writer at Out magazine, Dommu also hosted the magazine’s podcast, The Outcast. As a journalist, she has written for Paper, Vice, Them, Gay Times, Elite Daily, and other publications. She is the co-founder of the queer art collective The Culture Whore, which staged large-scale art events across the United States and Europe. Dommu lives in Brooklyn with her alarmingly large collection of shoes.
PRAISE
FINALIST FOR THE MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Glamour, PopSugar, Debutiful
“The characters in Sirens & Muses wake up each day and choose chaos. Angress’s strength is her ability to create an engrossing plot, allowing readers to watch as her messy characters navigate their way to the finish line.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“[H]olds the reader’s attention like a gallery so compelling that a visitor is torn between staring at one work and rushing on to the next room.”
—Glamour
“Convincing and moving . . . Angress’ portrayal of the intersection—or disconnect—of art, politics, idealism, and practicality within the web of familial, romantic, and professional relationships is painterly, in the best sense of the word.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Gripping, provocative, and supremely entertaining.”
—Buzzfeed
“Angress so deftly portrays the splendor and squalor of trying to create something great in the face of rampant capitalism, of love and lust in the face of tooth-and-claw competition.”
—Electric Literature
“Sexy and smart . . . confident and captivating . . . propulsive and immersive . . . structurally ambitious and wonderfully crafted.”
—Autostraddle
“Antonia Angress is so talented, and her depiction of young artists—with their egos and inspirations and ambitions—is unforgettably impressive. Read. This. Book.”
—Julie Schumacher
“Brilliant . . . This narrative is intricate, moving, and often funny, and its scenes are beautifully crafted. . . . A wonderful book.”
—Charles Baxter
“Sirens & Muses features characters as flawed as they are talented—full of desire, ambition, and aching regret. Their journeys engrossed me till the very last page.”
—Dawnie Walton
“Powerful, elegant, and mesmerizing . . . a writer to watch.”
—Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
“With wit, tenderness, and insight, Sirens & Muses explores why art matters, who gets to make it, and what it’s worth . . . is stunning in its detail and inventiveness.”
—V. V. Ganeshananthan
“A brilliant study of art, politics, male dominance, female passion, and the commercialized art world in the early 2010s . . . A highly recommended novel of art and heart.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“[A] winning debut . . . Angress nimbly embodies each of her characters, allowing her exceptional storytelling abilities to shine. . . . a standout.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
SIRENS & MUSES
ANTONIA ANGRESS
Four artists navigate ambition, rivalry, and desire.
A debut novel of class, money, art, youth, and a generation’s fight to own their future.
It’s 2011: America is in a deep recession and Occupy Wall Street is escalating. But at the elite Wrynn College of Art, students paint and sculpt in a rarefied bubble. Louisa Arceneaux is a thoughtful, observant nineteen-year-old when she transfers to Wrynn as a scholarship student, but she soon finds herself adrift in an environment that prizes novelty over beauty. Complicating matters is Louisa’s unexpected attraction to her charismatic roommate, Karina Piontek, the preternaturally gifted but mercurial daughter of wealthy art collectors. Gradually, Louisa and Karina are drawn into an intense sensual and artistic relationship, one that forces them to confront their deepest desires and fears. But Karina also can’t shake her fascination with Preston Utley, a senior and anti-capitalist Internet provocateur, who is publicly feuding with visiting professor and political painter Robert Berger—a once-controversial figurehead seeking to regain relevance.
When Preston concocts an explosive hoax, the fates of all four artists are upended as each is unexpectedly thrust into the cutthroat New York art world. Now all must struggle to find new identities in art, in society, and among each other. In the process, they must find either their most authentic terms of life—of success, failure, and joy—or risk losing themselves altogether.
With a canny, critical eye, Sirens & Muses overturns notions of class, money, art, youth, and a generation’s fight to own their future.
Antonia Angress was born in Los Angeles and raised in San José, Costa Rica. She is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Minnesota MFA program, where she was a Winifred Fiction Fellow and a College of Liberal Arts Fellow. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband, the artist Connor McManus. Sirens & Muses is her first novel.
PRAISE
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH LIBRARIES HONOR BOOK
“For top-notch drama, this year’s medal goes to Rules for Ghosting. . . . Here, actual ghosts haunt the quiet and tender moments, and it’s the scenes at family holidays that leave you rattled and gasping.”
—Olivia Waite, The New York Times Book Review
“The richness of this book left me breathless: how carefully Ezra works to square his trans self with the gendered requirements of Jewish rituals, the fragility of love after loss, the burden of feeling like you’re the only one who can hold a group of squabbling people together. It also brims with such delectable drama that I had to pause mid-scene to find the nearest person and dish as though it were real-world gossip.”
—The New York Times (“One of the Best Romances of 2024”)
“The kind of book you want to live in. This gorgeous debut marvels at new life and does not shy away from life lost. It cracks open the meaning of the word ‘haunting’—whether that be of discarded identity, hidden yearning, or literal ghosts.”
—Haley Jakobson
“A triumph . . . With equal amounts of humor and pathos, Rules for Ghosting is sensitively and gorgeously told. Shore writes characters real enough to step off the page, filled with raw vulnerabilities that allow readers to share in all their pain and love.”
—Shelf Awareness, starred review
“A tender, heart-filled novel, Rules for Ghosting is a beautiful story about identity, family, faith, community, and first love. . . . A breathtaking debut.”
—Ashley Herring Blake
“As unabashedly queer as it is loudly and beautifully Jewish, Rules for Ghosting is one of the most unique, poignant novels I’ve read in a long, long time. Ezra’s journey through self, complicated family dynamics, and opening up to new love was one I’ll never forget. Throw in a looming ghost or two and this book truly has it all.”
—Carlyn Greenwald
“Fun as hell. It’s giving TJ Klune, but instead of supernatural children we’ve got dead people. Same sexy queer longing, though (and honestly, also some supernatural children).”
—A. E. Osworth
RULES FOR GHOSTING
SHELLY JAY SHORE
To save his family’s failing funeral home, he’ll have to save himself.
The bestselling romance about a reluctant clairvoyant.
Ezra Friedman sees ghosts, which made growing up in a funeral home complicated. It might have been easier if his grandfather’s ghost didn’t give him scathing looks of disapproval as he went through a second, HRT-induced puberty, or if he didn’t have the pressure of all those relatives—living and dead—judging every choice he makes. It’s no wonder that Ezra runs as far away from the family business as humanly possible.
But when the floor of his dream job drops out from under him and his mother uses the family Passover seder to tell everyone she’s running off with the rabbi’s wife, Ezra finds himself back in the thick of it. With his parents’ marriage imploding and the Friedman Family Memorial Chapel on the brink of financial ruin, Ezra agrees to step into his mother’s shoes and help out . . . which means long days surrounded by ghosts that no one else can see.
And then there’s his unfortunate crush on Jonathan, the handsome funeral home volunteer . . . who just happens to live downstairs from Ezra’s new apartment . . . and the appearance of the ghost of Jonathan’s gone-too-soon husband, Ben, who is breaking every spectral rule that Ezra knows.
Because Ben can speak. He can move. And as Ezra tries to keep his family together and his heart from getting broken, he realizes that there’s more than one way to be haunted—and more than one way to become a ghost.
Shelly Jay Shore is a writer, digital strategist, and nonprofit fundraiser. She writes for anxious queer millennials, sufferers of Eldest Daughter Syndrome, recovering summer camp counselors, and anyone struggling with the enormity of being a person trying to make the world kinder, softer, and more tender. Her debut novel, Rules for Ghosting, was a national bestseller and was named one of the New York Times Book Review’s Best Romances of the Year.
“A journey across the country and into two artists’ souls. A beautiful exploration of queerness, Jewishness, and full-throated love.”
—TJ Alexander
“Should be read with your feet up on the dashboard. This is the happily-ever-after I craved in my soul; no one writes romance like Shore.”
—Ella Dawson
PRAISE
“Lyrical, introspective . . . Mudlark’s ruins feel eerily tangible—not just because of their climate change origins, but because of their enmeshment in arts and culture, the piecemeal way detritus and contrived normalcy coexist, and the intricate human relationships at the heart of the story.”
—The Austin Chronicle
“Mudlark is absolutely hypnotic—a page-turning tale of a dark, near-future New York, told with all the lyrical grace of the best literary fiction. I was completely swept away.”
—Justin Cronin
“Combines the spellbinding worldbuilding of Staion Eleven with a rock-and-roll heart . . . A luscious, awe-inspiring, and gorgeously written novel about love and how it will save us, no matter what the future holds.”
—Amanda Eyre Ward
“Intricate, propulsive, thoughtful, beautiful . . . Mudlark does it all. It’s a book about mothers, daughters, and rock-and-roll; about who leaves and what is left behind; about what can be saved from a damaged world we haven’t loved enough. It is an amazing book that takes readers to all sorts of depths—full of wonders [and] gorgeously written.”
—Elizabeth McCracken
“A stunner . . . audaciously imaginative, brutally tender, a love letter and a cautionary tale. Mary Helen Specht has conjured a frightening, vivid and profoundly humane exploration of resilience amid the ruins.”
—Jennifer Dubois
“A gorgeous, brilliant, heart-stopping quest . . . In the sliver of light between the ending of one civilization and beginning of another, a mother is calling out for her daughter, and a daughter is looking for her mom. This book has the rock-and-roll energy and style of legendary heroes who screamed out their ballads in leather jackets and cool boots. I inhaled this book and would take it with me if I had to grab my things fast before the water reached the window.”
—Deb Olin Unferth
“A beautiful story of human relationships amid devastation, and how love and art mend, even in the darkest of times. . . . Mudlark is richly imagined, ambitious, and propulsively written. . . . I was captivated, terrified, and amazed at Specht’s tender and brilliant imagination. This book is truly original.”
—Nina McConigley
MUDLARK
MARY HELEN SPECHT
The fall of a rockstar. A daughter’s search for redemption.
For fans of Station Eleven, a profound and dazzling novel about a long-lost solo album.
Jenny Sweet’s marriage is ending—and with it her band and maybe even her fragile relationship with her thirteen-year-old daughter, Neko. A reluctant wife and mother, Jenny plans a new journey of self-discovery after one more gig at Burning Man. But when Neko disappears amid the chaos of the festival, Jenny fears that everything that mattered to her has been lost. As she races against the dark, Jenny finds herself thrown into the past, and into the heart of a gathering storm.
Now twenty-five, Neko is a mudlark: a trained recruit who braves the rival factions and feral survivalists in the ruins of a crumbling, flooded Manhattan for resources that grow scarcer by the day. When she stumbles upon the master of her mother’s long-lost solo album and later hears that someone else is searching for it—someone who could be her mother, missing for over a decade—she embarks on a perilous adventure with a ragtag crew that will take her from treetop societies to decadent raves to the underground bunker where she will, finally, confront her mother’s fate—and her own.
A profound tale of resilience set in a future wracked by calamity and buoyed by hope, Mudlark is an unforgettable novel that explores how love and art persist as beacons of humanity.
Mary Helen Specht is the author of Migratory Animals, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and winner of the Texas Institute of Letters Best First Fiction Award and the Writers’ League of Texas Fiction Prize. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Prairie Schooner, and numerous other publications. A Fulbright Scholar to Nigeria and Dobie-Paisano Writing Fellow, Specht currently teaches creative writing at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, where she lives with her family.