Zoey and Victor, best friends since college, have spent their twenties through thick and thin, poor and poorer, drunk and drunker. But things are starting to change. They are getting “old– er”, and there are some choices and regrets a greasy bacon egg and cheese can’t cure. When tragedy befalls Victor, Zoey and Victor’s once unbreakable bond starts to show its cracks. Early Thirties is an acutely accurate, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes sidesplitting, altogether validating story about navigating friendship, love, and career in late-young-adulthood, set against the colorful backdrop of the NYC media scene.
Archives
Among Friends
What begins as a celebration takes a sudden turn when a shocking betrayal shatters the trust between families. It’s an autumn weekend at a comfortable New York country house where two deeply intertwined families have gathered to mark the host’s fifty-second birthday. Together, the group forms an enviable portrait of middle age. The wives and husbands have been friends for over thirty years, their teenage daughters have grown up together, and the drinks, dinners, rituals, and games that form their days all reflect the rich bonds between them. This weekend, however, something is different. An unforeseen curdling of envy and resentment will erupt into an unspeakable act, the ramifications of which are enormous. Hal Ebbott’s Among Friends examines the aftermath of betrayal within the sanctuary of a defining relationship. It explores themes of class, marriage, friendship, and power, as well as the things we tell ourselves to preserve our finely made worlds.
House of Monstrous Women
A young woman is drawn into a dangerous game after being invited to the mazelike home of her childhood friend, a rumored witch, in this gothic horror set in 1986 Philippines.
Josephine del Rosario feels like a pariah in her town. Long ago orphaned after her father’s political campaign ended in tragedy, she’s all alone, taking care of the family home while her older brother is off in Manila, where a revolution brews. And it’s starting to feel like he’s abandoning her.
When she receives a letter from a cherished childhood friend, Hiraya, inviting her to play a game, she jumps at the reason for leaving town. Josephine will have whatever her heart desires if she wins. Maybe she can change her life. It doesn’t matter that dark rumors have always surrounded Hiraya.
Except Hiraya’s house is strange—labyrinthine and huge, and something seems to be following Josephine everywhere she turns. What’s worse is there’s something her old friend isn’t telling her.
There is something insidious about this invitation, and if Josephine isn’t careful, she’ll find that change is sometimes bought with blood.
The Bombshell
A young woman’s radicalization sparks a widespread movement and media frenzy in this explosive novel of youthful passion, political awakening and first love, by an extraordinary new talent.
Great Black Hope
An arrest for cocaine possession on the last day of a sweltering New York summer leaves Smith, a queer Black Stanford graduate, in a state of turmoil. Pulled into the court system and mandated treatment, he finds himself in an absurd but dangerous situation: his class protects him, but his race does not. It’s just weeks after the death of his beloved roommate Elle, the daughter of a famous soul singer, and he’s still reeling from the tabloid spectacle—as well as lingering questions around how well he really knew his closest friend. He flees to his hometown of Atlanta, only to buckle under the weight of expectations from his family of doctors and lawyers and their history in America. But when Smith returns to New York, it’s not long before he begins to lose himself to his old life—drawn back into the city’s underworld, where his search for answers may end up costing him his freedom and his future. Smith goes on a dizzying journey through the nightlife circuit, anonymous recovery rooms, Atlanta’s Black society set, police investigations and courtroom dramas, and a circle of friends coming of age in a new era. Great Black Hope is a propulsive, glittering story about what it means to exist between worlds, to be upwardly mobile yet spiraling downward, and how to find a way back to hope.
All the Other Mothers Hate Me
Florence Grimes is a thirty-one-year-old party girl who always takes the easy way out. Single, broke and unfulfilled after the humiliating end to her girl band career, she has only one reason to get out of bed each day: her ten-year-old son Dylan. But then Alfie Risby, her son’s bully and the heir to a vast frozen food empire, mysteriously vanishes during a class trip, and Dylan becomes the prime suspect. Florence, for once, is faced with a task she can’t quit: She’s got to find Alfie and clear her son’s name, or risk losing Dylan forever. The only problem? Florence has no useful skills, let alone investigative ones, and all the other school moms hate her. Oh, and Florence has a reason to suspect Dylan might not be as innocent as she’d like to believe…
The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree
Set in rural 1967 Arkansas, a haunting Southern debut about found family, folk magic, desperate choices, and the long shadow of trauma, as a peculiar young woman disguised by a name she found on a tombstone and accompanying a Vietnam vet she met in a graveyard returns to the ghosts of her childhood home… Genevieve Charbonneau talks to spirits and has a special relationship with rattlesnakes. In her travels, she’s wandered throughout the South, escaping a mental hospital in Alabama, working for a Louisiana circus, and dancing at a hoochy-kootch in Texas. Now for the first time in a decade, she’s allowed her winding path to bring her to the site of her grandmother’s Arkansas farmhouse, a place hallowed in her memory. She intends only to visit briefly—to pay respects to her buried loved ones and leave. But a chance meeting with a haunted young Vietnam vet reconnects her with the remnants of a family she thought long gone, and their union becomes a catalyst for change and salvation. An abused woman and her daughters develop the courage to fight back, a ghost finds the path away from life, and a sanctimonious predator becomes the prey. In the process, Genevieve must choose between her longing for meaningful connection after years as an outsider and her equally excruciating impulse to run. Written by a naturalist and set on the land where her family roots stretch back two centuries, The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree is a haunting story about letting go and the things we leave behind, the power of names, and the ties that bind. It is both harrowing and triumphant, a visceral Southern debut as otherworldly and beautiful as it is unflinching and wry.
The Seven O’Clock Club
Happiness is just outside the door…if you’re brave enough to seek it.
Freya, Callum, Mischa, and Victoria have nothing in common–well, except for one thing: they’ve each experienced a deep personal loss that has led them to an unconventional group meeting, every Tuesday night at seven. A meeting they’ve been particularly selected for that will help them finally move on. At least, that’s the claim.
As they warily eye one another and their unnervingly observant group leader, one question hangs over them: why were they chosen? To get the answer, they are going to have to share a whole lot of themselves first. Getting Freya, Callum, Mischa, and Victoria to trust each other is vital–because the real reason they’re connected will shift the ground beneath their feet.
Riveting and wise, The Seven O’Clock Club shows us the courage needed to face your past and the joy that can be found in stepping into your future.
The Names
The extraordinary novel that asks: Can a name change the course of a life?
Sike
After his last relationship ends in a spiral of angst, Adrian decides it’s time to try Sike: the new lauded and elite AI psychotherapy app that tracks your every move and emotion, and guides you toward mental contentment. He soon falls for Maquie, a smart and pragmatic venture capitalist scouring London’s tech scene for the next business boom. For fans of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, Sike is a story of two people wrestling with connection, identity, anxiety, success, and the limits of our obsession with self-analysis and awareness.