The “what will she do next” charged outsiderness of Emma Cline’s The Guest meets Melissa Broder’s off-kilter humor and Banana Yoshimoto’s luminosity in KITTEN, a debut novel about a detached young woman whose obsession with her boyfriend’s unusual cat ushers her into the possibilities of her own life—but not without first threatening to unravel it.
KITTEN: A Novel
by Stacey Yu
Random House, Summer 2026
(via The Gernert Company)
Katie is far from home and fresh out of college in New York, desperate to skirt adulthood’s demands, all too willing to let her wealthy boyfriend make decisions for both of them. But when James takes her on vacation to his family’s house by the sea, he brings Silver, his childhood cat, and the calculus of care changes. Rocked by class dysphoria in the face of the town’s quietly insistent superiority and drifting from James, Katie finds giddy comfort in Silver, who has life figured out. Soon enough, they’re inseparable, and something inside Katie begins to crack open, or maybe just…crack.
It doesn’t help that back in New York, her roommate has abruptly moved out. Or that she’s no longer speaking to her mother, who resents her for leaving Little Rock. As the days pass and her uncomfortable awareness of her dependence on James grows, Katie becomes increasingly enamored of Silver, who looks out for her in mysterious ways. But when her fixation deepens and the stakes of her relationships intensify to the point of detonation, Katie must confront the demands and desires of her life: the one she comes from, the one she longs for, and the one she has.
KITTEN deftly explores the politics of helplessness (especially through the lens of class, family, and race), what we owe—and don’t—to those we care for and who dare care for us, and the startling joy that comes from connecting on our own terms. A tale for our times, KITTEN has all the trappings of a cult classic with mass appeal—a darkly playful, heartfelt, stylish bildungsroman about braving love in a lonely age.
Raised in California and based in London, Stacey Yu is a Chinese-American writer with a community – for now – of over 112,000 literary fiction readers on her TikTok account @literaryfling. She’s also the author of “Blue Hour,” a new literary Substack which just crossed 1,000 followers (launched earlier this month). Every day, Stacey connects with readers hungry for, in her own words, “stories that reflect their own deeply personal yet universal anxieties: growing older, loving the wrong person, missing their mother.” She began her career by working in publishing, first as an intern at Writers House, then as a reader for Alanna Feldman Scouting, and finally, in publicity at Random House before pivoting to branding as her day job, and writing (and talking about books across platforms) as her passion. In 2024, Stacey was a finalist for the UK BookTok Creator of the Year Award. She is twenty-six years old.
Germany, 1901. Domestic servant Lissi has embarked on a foolish affair with the scion of the family she works for. But her hopes of a romantic wedding are shattered, and when she finds herself pregnant, alone and desperate, she decides to leave her home town. Meanwhile, Julia Varrell has been lured into an arranged marriage under false pretences, and feels lonely on her husband’s idyllic estate. She, too, wants out. And so Lissi and Julia find themselves on board a ship bound for New York.
Book 1: A MILLION STARS ABOVE (
Book 2: A THOUSAND FLAMES BELOW (March 2025)
When Melanie’s fiancé has an accident and ends up in a coma, young Melanie fears for his life, and for their future. After weeks of desperation and paralysis, she seeks refuge and distraction on her 96-year-old great-grandmother Hanna’s estate. In the attic of the manor house, she discovers a Vietnamese fairy tale – and then Hanna tells her about her eventful past: how she grew up in Vietnam as the daughter of a wealthy family, and how she met her ‘jasmine sister’ Tanh, a girl born into poverty. As Melanie listens, fascinated, her great-grandmother regales her with tales of adventure among temples and rice fields, and the story of an extraordinary friendship between two girls separated by a fateful event. But Melanie finds solace not only in Hanna’s memories and unshakeable zest for life, but also in the company of widower Thomas, who looks after the manor’s gardens. And suddenly, she feels a little spark of hope stirring in her heart…
Karlskrona, Sweden, 1910. Liv feels constricted – and not just by the corset she puts on every day. Her loveless marriage to shipowner Sten Boregard, too, is stifling her. Her desire for freedom grows stronger when she meets Marlene, a sailor’s widow, who has been ostracised by the other sailors’ wives ever since her husband and his crew died on the high seas. But Marlene won’t let anyone bring her down, and Liv is impressed by her free spirit and energy. The pair become close friends, and when Liv unexpectedly inherits a rose-covered gamekeeper’s cottage in the woods, she and Marlene boldly decide to create a refuge where women can fulfil their true potential. They secretly breathe new life into ‘Rosenhag’ and its wildflower garden – but little do they know that not only their secret, but they themselves, are in grave danger…