Archives de catégorie : Fiction

KASKADEN de Louise K. Böhm

An electrifying novel about a formative, all-consuming friendship that refuses to be categorised.

KASKADEN
by Louise K. Böhm
Penguin Verlag, July 2026

If Jojo could erase her past, she would. At uni, she is constantly scared that someone will find out that she doesn’t belong there, and even her parents don’t really understand what she’s doing in her lab all day. When her former best friend Yara gets back in touch, Jojo thinks back to her sheltered youth in a dreary suburbia she couldn’t wait to leave, and radiant Yara, her only anchor in this confusing world – Yara in those green trainers of hers, who had an answer for everything and protected Jojo from a world that didn’t value girls. Jojo still doesn’t understand why Yara ghosted her after high school.

But just as Jojo is about to lose herself in her memories, a flirtation with her tutor and money troubles force her to focus on the here and now. How much power will she let the past wield over her?

Smart and light as a feather, « Cascades » is a brilliant debut about friendship, love and everything in between – about marginalisation and belonging, about opening up and the strength that true friendship can give us.

For fans of Paradise Garden by Elena Fischer, Normal People by Sally Rooney, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante.

Louise K. Böhm, born in Berlin in 2000, studied media, creative writing, and cultural journalism and policy before starting a career in the music business. Her writing has appeared in various literary magazines and anthologies. On social media (@louschreibt_), she writes about books, gives insights into her life as an author and talks about classism in the culture sector. KASKADEN is her first novel.

MAGGIE MAYBE de Stephanie Webb

A coming-of-middle-age novel about two women who get a second chance to rewrite their lives—only to discover that their real stories were never flawed, just unfinished. For readers of Emma Straub and Catherine Newman.

MAGGIE MAYBE
by Stephanie Webb
Gallery, Summer 2027
(via David Black Agency)

When thirty-nine-year-old Maggie Mabey reads the opening of a novel-in-progress by her favorite author Savannah Greenstem, she is stunned to find her own life playing out on the page. She passes out and wakes up in an alternate reality where all her professional aspirations have come true: she’s a bookstore owner and a successful author, just as she’d always dreamed of being. The only problem? Her kids don’t exist. And her husband? He’s never heard of her.

Even though sixty-two-year old Savannah Greenstem has written dozens of books, she’s barely typed a word since the death of her late husband five years ago. But her writers block isn’t due to a broken heart; instead, she’s wrecked by the realization that she was never really in love with him in the first place. Years ago, she’d given up the great love of her life—Wilder Sinclair—to become the successful writer she was destined to be. Although she doesn’t exactly regret her choices, she does long for the life she might have had. But now, in this alternate world she’s found herself in, she and Wilder are together and it’s so much better than she could have imagined.

Desperate to return to the life she had before, Maggie finds Savannah and tries to convince her to rewrite her story. But Savannah doesn’t want to leave her own fantasy, even if it means keeping Maggie here against her will. As Maggie’s and Savannah’s fictional lives unravel—and entangle—in unexpected and delightful ways, they each must confront what they’ve been running from, ultimately discovering that the stories we tell ourselves can either trap us or, if we pay attention, give us the insight we need to remake our lives.

Stephanie Webb is a graduate of The Book Incubator and works as the marketing director for the program alongside authors Mary Adkins and Rufi Thorpe (who will certainly blurb). She earned her BA in English Literature and her MS in Holistic Nutrition. She was a finalist for the Women’s Fiction Writers’ Association Rising Star Award and has a growing social media platform with almost 14,000 Instagram followers.

CRAZY NORMAL de Marissa Matteo

A life-affirming novel about family trauma and what happens when a wealthy Manhattan family takes a cross-country trip in an RV and realizes that grief is messy, but healing is messier.

CRAZY NORMAL
by Marissa Matteo
Crown, September 2027

When Phoebe Fields was six, her older brother Alexander died by suicide. Twenty years later, her wealthy Manhattan family still refuses to talk about it.

On the anniversary of his death, the Fields family—along with Phoebe’s boyfriend, their nanny, and their cook—set off on an ill-advised RV trip to California for a wedding. What begins as a chaotic journey quickly becomes a reckoning, as old wounds resurface, secrets unravel, and long-suppressed grief begins to demand a voice. As Phoebe tries to piece together who her brother really was—and why he chose to leave—she must confront the emotional silence that has shaped her life. But in a family where love is loud, messy, and often misguided, healing doesn’t come quietly.

Marrying commercial appeal with literary sensibility, CRAZY NORMAL, is a voice-driven intimate portrait of a family that learns you can outrun the past, until you’re trapped in an RV with it. It is perfect reading for fans of The Wedding People and the film, Little Miss Sunshine.

Despite earning an MFA from the University of Miami, a second MFA from UCLA, and telling her parents she would be the next Joan Didion, Marissa Matteo has worked as a celebrity ghostwriter and television writer for the last two decades. She has ghostwritten eight books, including three New York Times Bestsellers. She worked as a writer/producer on the CBS drama Bull for five seasons and has developed shows with 20th, HBO, Hulu, Showtime, Sony, and Warner Brothers. Marissa lives in Manhattan Beach, CA with her husband and their two children. CRAZY NORMAL is her first novel.

RAVISHING d’Eshani Surya

A brilliant and compelling debut, RAVISHING shines a light on the dark enticements of the beauty industry and how it capitalizes on our desire to be someone we are not.

RAVISHING
by Eshani Surya
Roxane Gay Books/Grove Atlantic, November 2025

A provocative, darkly surreal novel of two Indian American siblings caught in the clutches of a beauty tech company, RAVISHING is a searing portrait of the beauty industry’s dangerous ability to change people’s relationship to their bodies and the cult-like grip it has on youth.

For teenage Kashmira, it’s painful to look in the mirror; she has her father’s face, and every feature is a reminder of his abandonment. When a friend introduces her to Evolvoir, a beauty product that changes users’ features, Kashmira is quickly hooked on how it allows her to erase the triggers of her grief. Meanwhile, at Evolvoir’s corporate offices, Kashmira’s estranged brother Nikhil first sees the product as an opportunity to make a difference and a name for himself, but is quickly mired in corporate complicity as reports surface of the product causing severe pain and persistent symptoms in some users. As chaos ensues, Kashmira is hospitalized and must negotiate the constraints of her new reality, while Nikhil uncovers a vicious truth that will force him to decide where his loyalties lie.

Perfect for readers of Gold Diggers and You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, RAVISHING is a visceral, yet immensely tender, coming-of-age story of two Indian American siblings caught in the clutches of a predatory beauty tech company, providing an illuminating portrait of the complexities of growing up brown, chronic illness, and our relationship to ourselves.

“[An] absorbing debut . . .  timely and a hard-hitting takedown of the beauty industry and a nuanced and sensitive look at the pressure on those who don’t fit traditional beauty norms to assimilate.”—Booklist (starred review)

“This debut is thoughtful in its handling of tricky themes of identity, belonging, and, perhaps most compellingly, the intersection of wellness culture and chronic illness. Surya handles this latter with unflinching—even discomfiting—clarity. A speculative take on the all-too-real rot at the heart of the beauty and wellness industry.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Incendiary . . . Surya blends her stirring whistleblower plot with a heartrending depiction of Kashmira’s delusion . . . This one hits hard.”—Publishers Weekly

Eshani Surya is a chronically ill South Asian writer living in Philadelphia. She holds an MFA from the University of Arizona, and is a 2022 Asian Women Writer’s Workshop mentee, a 2022 Kenyon Review Writer’s Workshop scholarship recipient, and a 2021 Mae Fellowship recipient. RAVISHING is her first book.

BURNOUT de Michael Cooper

A debut literary novel about a down-on-his-luck former detective in LA whose most famous case comes back to haunt him.

BURNOUT
by Michael Cooper
Range Literary Publishing, 2027
(via David Black Literary)

Former Detective James Rivers—JR to his friends—has long left behind his career. He has surfed off into the easy life: hiding out in an Airstream with an ocean view, downing one glittering-green Midori after another, caring for his bulldog and his old man, taking each L.A. day as it comes. But when he learns that convicted murderer Dylan Turner has been let out of prison, a lock unlatches in his brain. He has always known—hasn’t he?—that something wasn’t right with that case, but he never figured Dylan would go free. Was his most famous case his worst mistake? And if so, how will he protect the brother who betrayed Dylan? And how will JR save himself if Dylan comes for him? Pressed back into action by his old-partner-turned-chief-of-police, JR is teamed up with Brittany Charles, a young detective with an unflinching sense of justice and no patience for a has-been’s hesitation. As new victims of brutal murder surface, JR and Britt realize that the clock is ticking.

BURNOUT is the vivid and absorbing story of a man who must face his worst mistakes and discover what’s on the other side. A detective story for our moment, this tale centers on an unruly and vulnerable man, a tarnished knight with a heart that’s been chipped and cracked but not shattered, a man tiptoeing towards sobriety and a more honest life. Fueled by day-glo dialogue, brilliantly vivid humor, one-of-a-kind characters, and vast quantities of heart, BURNOUT is a raw and blistering ballad—about ancient mistakes and lingering regrets, about violence and what crawls beneath it, but also about the life-saving possibilities of empathy, hope, and love.

Michael Cooper is a founding partner of Range Media Partners. Before that, he spent a decade as a senior agent at CAA, working across literary, talent, film, and television, and before that he was with WME. Cooper was born in Montreal and grew up in Toronto, but he has lived in Los Angeles since 1984. BURNOUT is his first novel.