From the New York Times bestselling author of The Postmistress comes a novel that is The Hours meets The Forsyte Saga, centering on a love affair between the daughter of an American dynasty and an upstart trying to break into polite society. Following three generations of an old money family that has run out of its money but not the firm sense of its place or power, The Guest Book weaves between the 30s, the 50s and the present, tracing the past mistakes and betrayals that ripple down through time, ambitiously examining the racism and power structures embedded in the U.S. for centuries. Brimming with gorgeous writing and bitterly accurate social criticism, The Guest Book is a literary tour de force about the histories we inherit and the ways we blindly pass the past inside us on––until we see the history that lies in the cracks between.
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Naamah
A wildly imaginative novel of the reluctant heroine who rescued life on earth. With the coming of the Great Flood––the mother of all disasters––only one family was spared, drifting on an endless sea, waiting for the waters to subside. We know the story of Noah, moved by divine vision to launch their escape. Now, in a work of astounding invention, acclaimed writer Sarah Blake reclaims the story of his wife, Naamah, the matriarch who kept them alive. Here is the woman torn between faith and fury, lending her strength to her sons and their wives, caring for an unruly menagerie of restless creatures, silently mourning the lover she left behind. Here is the woman escaping into the unreceded waters, where a seductive angel tempts her to join a strange and haunted world. Here is the woman tormented by dreams and questions of her own––questions of service and self-determination, of history and memory, of the kindness or cruelty of fate. In fresh and modern language, Blake revisits the story of the Ark that rescued life on earth, and rediscovers the agonizing burdens endured by the woman at the heart of the story. Naamah is a parable for our time: a provocative fable of body, spirit, and resilience.