Laura Brooke Robson has crafted a fascinating story about the choices we make, the responsibilities we carry, and the ambiguities of regret.

A CURSE FOR THE HOMESICK
by Laura Brooke Robson
Mira/HarperCollins, February 2025
(via Harvey Klinger, Inc.)

On Stenland, there comes a time known as skeld season: when a woman can wake with three black lines on her forehead, the mark of a skeld, and turn anyone she sees to stone. Skeld season comes around without warning, and while each only lasts three months, the people skelds turn to stone are very much dead.

That’s how Tess’s mother killed Soren’s parents. Maybe for this reason alone, Tess and Soren should not have fallen in love. Since the time her mother was a skeld, Tess has wanted to leave Stenland, to run from the windswept island, from her family and friends. She is unwilling to bear the responsibility of one day killing anyone, let alone someone she loves. Soren, though, has always been determined to stay, to live out his life in the only place he’s ever known as home, even if that life could be cut short. They cannot see eye to eye—and yet, they cannot stay apart. She tries to come back for him. He tries to leave for her. But can your love for one person outweigh everything else? And how do you decide how much you’re willing to risk, if it might mean destroying someone else in the process?

“A lyrical, melancholy, and deeply moving story about the people we love and the places we long for, even when we know we shouldn’t. Aching and poignant.” —Ava Reid, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Study in Drowning

Laura Brooke Robson grew up in Oregon and studied English and Creative Writing at Stanford. She is also the author of the young adult novels Girls at the Edge of the World and The Sea Knows My Name. Laura lives in New York.