A glittering, bold, darkly funny novel about two sisters—one in New York, one in Singapore—who are bound by an ancient secret. Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald is a nihilistic sugar baby in New York, living from whim to whim as she freely uses her beauty and charms to make ends meet. But they share a secret: once they were snakes, basking under a full moon in Tang Dynasty China. A thousand years later, their mysterious history is the only thing still binding them together. When Emerald experiences a violent encounter in Central Park, and Su boards the next flight to New York, the two reach a tenuous reconciliation for the first time in decades. Su convinces Emerald to move to Singapore so she can keep an eye on her—but she soon begins to worry that Emerald’s irrepressible behavior will out them both in an affluent city where everything runs like clockwork, but no deviation from the norm can be tolerated. Dark, hilarious, razor-sharp, and raw in emotion, Sister Snake explores chosen family, queerness, passing, and the struggle against conformity. Boldly reimagining the Chinese folktale the Legend of the White Snake, this is a novel about being seen for who you are—and, ultimately, how to live free.
Archives
MEMORY PIECE
The award-winning author of The Leavers offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life? In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. “Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves,” they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity.
By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet’s early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighborhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves.
SANDWICH
From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go. For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too. This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers. It’s one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.
OUR NARROW HIDING PLACES
For fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Nightingale: an elderly woman recounts her Dutch family’s survival during the final years of Nazi occupation, shedding new light on old secrets that rippled through subsequent generations. Eighty-year-old Mieke Geborn’s life is one of quiet routine. Widowed for many years, she enjoys the view from her home on the New Jersey shore, visits with friends, and tai chi at the local retirement community. But when her beloved grandson, Will, and his wife, Teru, show up for a visit, things are soon upended. Their marriage is threatening to unravel, and Will has questions for his grandmother—questions about family secrets that have been lost for decades and are now finally rising to the surface. But telling Will the truth involves returning to the past, and to Mieke’s childhood in coastal Holland. There, in the last years of World War II, she survived the Hunger Winter, a brutal season when food and heat were cut off and thousands of Dutch citizens starved. Her memories weave together childhood magic and the madness of history, and carry readers from the windy beaches of The Hague to the dark cells of a concentration camp, through the bends of eel-filled rivers, and, finally, to the story of Will’s father, absent since Will’s childhood. Our Narrow Hiding Places is a sweeping story of survival and of the terrible cost of war—and a reminder that sometimes the traumas we inherit come along with a resilience we never imagined.
THE WEDDING PEOPLE
It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamt of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe—which makes it that much more surprising when the women can’t stop confiding in each other. In turns uproariously, absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is a look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.
LONG AFTER WE ARE GONE
“Don’t let the white man take the house.”
These are the last words King Solomon says to his son before he dies. Now all four Solomon siblings must return to North Carolina to save the Kingdom, their ancestral home and 200 acres of land, from a development company, who has their sights set on turning the valuable waterfront property into a luxury resort. While fighting to save the Kingdom, the siblings must also save themselves from the secrets they’ve been holding onto. Told in alternating viewpoints, Long After We Are Gone is a searing portrait on the power of family and letting go of things that no longer serve you, exploring the burden of familial expectations, the detriment of miscommunication, and the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children.
THE GREAT DIVIDE
An epic novel of the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there, by Cristina Henríquez, acclaimed author of The Book of Unknown Americans. It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection. Ada Bunting is a bold sixteen-year-old from Barbados who arrives in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work. Alone and with no resources, she is determined to find a job that will earn enough money for her ailing sister’s surgery. When she sees a young man—Omar—who has collapsed after a grueling shift, she is the only one who rushes to his aid. John Oswald has dedicated his life to scientific research and has journeyed to Panama in single-minded pursuit of one goal: eliminating malaria. But now, his wife, Marian, has fallen ill herself, and when he witnesses Ada’s bravery and compassion, he hires her on the spot as a caregiver. This fateful decision sets in motion a sweeping tale of ambition, loyalty, and sacrifice. Searing and empathetic, The Great Divide explores the intersecting lives of activists, fishmongers, laborers, journalists, neighbors, doctors, and soothsayers—those rarely acknowledged by history even as they carved out its course.
I WANT YOU MORE
When ghostwriter Zara becomes entwined with celebrity chef client, Jane Bailey, she starts to see the side Jane keeps hidden from the cameras and gets stuck in a plot she never saw coming.
SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND
Failed Pitbull impersonator Ismael Reyes—you can call him Izzy—might not be the Scarface type, but why should that keep him from trying? Growing up in Miami has shaped him into someone who dreams of being the King of the 305, with the money, power, and respect he assumes comes with it. After finding himself at the mercy of a cease-and-desist letter from Pitbull’s legal team and living in his aunt’s garage-turned-efficiency, Izzy embarks on an absurd quest to turn himself into a modern-day Tony Montana. When Izzy’s efforts lead him to the tank that houses Lolita, a captive orca at the Miami Seaquarium, she proves just how powerful she and the water surrounding her really are—permeating everything from Miami’s sinking streets to Izzy’s memories to the very heart of the novel itself. What begins as Izzy’s story turns into a super-saturated fever dream as sprawling and surreal as the Magic City, one as sharp as an iguana’s claws, and as menacing as a killer whale’s teeth. As the truth surrounding Izzy’s boyhood escape from Cuba surfaces, the novel reckons with the forces of nature, with the limits and absence of love, and with the dangers of pursuing a tragic inheritance. Wildly narrated and expertly rendered, Say Hello to My Little Friend is Jennine Capó Crucet’s most daring, heart-breaking, and fearless book yet.
AND SO I ROAR
A stunning, heartwrenching new novel from Abi Daré, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice.