Madwoman (2024) Chelsea Bieker "Run a live wire straight through the human heart and you might get close to what Chelsea Bieker has done in MADWOMAN, an astonishing, edge-of-your-seat story about an image-obsessed housewife trying to hold her violent childhood at bay. Darkly funny, heart-smashing, and absolutely unforgettable, MADWOMAN is a masterpiece."
Liars (2024) Sarah Manguso "I couldn't put it down. An astounding feat, spanning a fourteen-year marriage with concision and specificity . . . It sliced all the way through me. So many women will connect with this book."
The Garden (2024) Clare Beams "Clare Beams casts an intoxicating spell with The Garden, a gothic tale about nature's dark whims and the unknowable chaos of matrescence. Prepare to be haunted."
Antiquity (2024) Hanna Johansson "Entrancing and calamitous, Antiquity dreams deeply into the shadows of desire and obsession. A precise and mysterious spell of a book."
In the Lobby of the Dream Hotel (2023) Genevieve Plunkett "In the Lobby of the Dream Hotel is a spellbinding novel, alive with feeling and discovery. Plunkett orchestrates an enrapturing story of a woman and mother tethered to a reality she would rather escape with bold jumps in time, nuanced observation, and flights of imagination. A book as much about the mundanities that trap us as it is about creativity's promise of freedom, In the Lobby of the Dream Hotel is an absolutely brilliant feat. I can't wait to see what Plunkett does next."
Your Driver is Waiting (2023) Priya Guns "A compelling character study with an electrifying ending, Your Driver is Waiting offers a potent social critique overflowing with love, despair, passion, and rage. Priya Guns brings to the page a voice infused with both bravado and vulnerability in this madcap story you won't want to put down."
The Seaplane on Final Approach (2022) Rebecca Rukeyser "Erotic possibility and inevitable ruin animate the Alaskan wilderness in this astounding debut about the first summer of the rest of your life. The Seaplane on Final Approach perfectly telegraphs the suspended animation of tourist-trap life within an eerie life-changing season, the gravity of which will only be felt decades later. Original and adventurous, horny and hilarious--it's everything I want from a book."
How to Be Eaten (2022) Maria Adelmann "Even better than it sounds, HOW TO BE EATEN presents vividly real women haunted by their fairy tale pasts in this deliciously angsty debut. Pure fun pulsing with a dark heart."
Lessons in Chemistry (2022) Bonnie Garmus "On par with Beth Harmon of The Queen's Gambit, Elizabeth Zott swept me away with her intellect, honesty, and unapologetic selfhood. Lessons in Chemistry is a story for all the smart girls who refuse to dumb themselves down despite a culture that demands otherwise. Though a creation of the 50s & 60s, Zott is a feminist icon for our time."
Shit Cassandra Saw (2022) Gwen E Kirby "As fun as it is furious, Shit Cassandra Saw rewrites womanhood with a cast of complex, contradictory, brave and bonkers heroines as likely to skewer you with a cutlass as they are to poorly re-tile your bathroom. I want to be friends with all of the women in this collection who refuse to be anything other than exactly who they are. A barnburner of a book that will set you ablaze with its clear-eyed brilliance."
