Courtney Maum graduated from Brown University with a degree in Comparative Literature. She then lived in France for five years where she worked as a party promoter for Corona Extra, which had everything to do with getting a Visa, and nothing to do with her degree. Today, Maum splits her time between the Berkshires, New York City, and Paris, working as a creative brand strategist, corporate namer, and humor columnist.
Interesting Facts about Space (2024) Emily Austin "Dark humor has so much to teach us about the beauty and absurdity of the human condition, and the risk this book's charming heroine takes to open her fragile and flawed self to love contains a life lesson for us all."
The Apology (2023) Jimin Han "An intriguing, genre-bending novel that proves that the bonds - and grudges - of siblinghood exist beyond the grave. Insightful about secret-keeping and hopeful about the redemptive power of love, Jimin Han is a literary medium for imperfec families."
You Can't Stay Here Forever (2023) Katherine Lin "This glistening debut is filled with all the wanderlust, rage, and longing of earlyadulthood, and proves - in sinuous and Bacchic prose - that the dissolution of a friendship is a terrifying prospect."
A Likely Story (2023) Leigh McMullan Abramson "A dishy, sophisticated story about an aspiring novelist whose greatest influence (and hindrance) is her own famous father. Moving, enraging, and utterly romantic, A Likely Story is literary gold."
Motherthing (2022) Ainslie Hogarth "This novel is bursting with smart, provocative, heart-breaking things to say about the nature of grief and its ability to take up just as much - if not more - physical space than the actual person lost. Motherthing is gory and irreverent and totally irresistible - I can't wait to see what Hogarth spooks us with, next."
The Work Wife (2022) Alison B Hart "This timely, wry debut about female Hollywood creatives who are fed up with their delegation to the dark side of Tinseltown tackles major subjects--ambition, sisterhood, misogyny--with intimacy and heart. Witty, clever, and propulsively plotted--I dare you to put The Work Wife down."
Florida Woman (2022) Deb Rogers "Rogers smashes utopianism and utter monkey business together in this wild tale of do-gooders doing bad in Florida. You'll go bananas for it!"
The Bartender's Cure (2022) Wesley Straton "A love letter to the school of life, this tender story about a dispirited San Francisco transplant looking for salvation on the Brooklyn cocktail scene is ambrosial and spiked--you'll drink the words right up."
Little Rabbit (2022) Alyssa Songsiridej "A fierce and utterly compelling look at the nearly biological instinct to nurture a love affair, even when that love isn't understood by others, and it blows your world apart. Little Rabbit is a totally absorbing debut: nuanced, intelligent, and sexy as hell."
Little Foxes Took Up Matches (2022) Katya Kazbek "An unpredictable love story that is mesmeric, totally original, and deeply, deeply touching, Little Foxes Took Up Matches examines our competing human instincts to belong and to escape. Kazbek has reinvented--and bewitched--the coming-of-age genre, and I can't wait to succumb to whatever magic she writes next."
New Animal (2022) Ella Baxter "How Baxter manages to make the journey of a motherless funerary mortician surrendering to the Tasmanian BDSM scene feel universal is testament to what this unique novel has to say about the effects of mourning on our bodies and our souls. Raw, courageous, and--somehow--super fun."
The End of Getting Lost (2022) Robin Kirman "As enticing and twisty as the covered passageways our heroes use to disappear themselves in Europe, Robin Kirman seduces with this electric page-turner about ambition, deceit, and obsessive love."
The Arc (2022) Tory Henwood Hoen "A zeitgeisty and hopeful page-turner that proves neither algorithms nor big data can keep the heart from wanting what it wants."
Zabor, or the Psalms (2021) Kamel Daoud "A magnificent father-and-son saga that also manages to be an ode to the powers of the imagination, Zabor, or The Psalms combines the transcendent hopefulness of Gabriel García Márquez with the comic matter-of-factness of Jim Shepard’s coming-of-age tales. This shimmering novel about literature’s redemptive potential has never been more timely—or more crucial—than right now."
Body of Stars (2021) Laura Maylene Walter "Part allegory, part warning, and part celebration of the female body, this is a thrilling and flawlessly crafted debut about the potential women have to hold magic, make magic, and change the course of history with the underestimated weapons of intelligence and love."
The Arsonists' City (2021) Hala Alyan "Faced with the impending sale of their ancestral home in Beirut, the delightfully flawed members of the Nasr family must confront their late-onset nostalgia just as the secrets they’ve kept buried from each other are surfacing to air. An irresistible heart-tugger as complex and sensual as Lebanon itself."
Unseen City (2020) Amy Shearn "If Amy Shearn's fiction is as much fun to write as it is to read, that's welcome news because it's impossible to read her novels without wanting more, more, more. In true Shearn style, Unseen City is whip-smart, hilarious, and also deeply touching, and this story about mismatched New Yorkers finding common ground in a city they've decided--come hell or higher rent--to adore, will delight and charm you long after the last page."
Daughters of the Wild (2020) Natalka Burian "With prose as luminous and transformative as the psychoactive plant at this novel's core, this is a book about dignity, intuition, and the sustaining vine of friendship. A perennial read."
Sad Janet (2020) Lucie Britsch "In Sad Janet, Britsch has created a slacker heroine with the exuberant weariness of a Melissa Broder poem and the provocative non-conformism of an Ottessa Mosfegh character. From her pulpit in the anarchist dog shelter that also shelters her, Janet has veracious and darkly comic things to say about the real cost of artificial glee. A timely and trenchant debut."
The Last Summer of Ada Bloom (2018) Martine Murray "In this story of a young Australian family whose concealed deceptions are driving them apart, Murray writes with sensual tenderness about the buried yearnings that threaten and sustain our most cherished relationships, as well as our perverse human tendency to constantly test their strength."
Who is Vera Kelly? (2018) (Vera Kelly, book 1) Rosalie Knecht "Sardonic, intelligent, and thrillingly original, Rosalie Knecht has not only revitalized the female spy novel with her feisty, indeterminable heroine, she's also joyfully queered it. I loved this book and I loved Vera. Read this book right now!"
When Katie Met Cassidy (2018) Camille Perri "Snarky but tender, charming but never saccharine, When Katie Met Cassidy is a romantic comedy for a new breed of women who can deliver valentines and a mean left hook."
Katie Williams "Filled with extraordinary writing, wish-they-existed characters, and unexpected narrative turns, this novel will delight your mind and heart."
Little Disasters (2018) Randall Klein "Gripping pacing, matrimonial sabotage and emotional salvation collide in this heat wave of a novel about good Brooklynites gone bad."
The Little Clan (2018) Iris Martin Cohen "It Girls meet Lit Girls in this delectably written tale of two young women determined to lay claim to bookish Manhattan, fire codes, overdrawn bank accounts, and illegal leases be damned."
The Royal We (2015) (Royal We, book 1) Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan "A heartfelt exploration of a life lived in the spotlight, THE ROYAL WE balances dishy decadence with an honest look at the sacrifices required to stay princess to Prince Charming."
