Archives par étiquette : The Friedrich Agency

GARBAGE GIRL d’Emily Austin

For readers of Jen Beagin and Melissa Broder, Emily Austin returns to the wacky existentialism that made her debut a cult sensation.

GARBAGE GIRL
by Emily Austin
Bloomsbury, Spring 2028
(via The Friedrich Agency)

Photo credit: Bridget Forberg

Rob, a twenty-eight-year-old grocery store custodian, doesn’t know why she can’t keep a friend, and she’s getting tired of cleaning up other people’s shit—literally. Eager to understand what she’s doing wrong, Rob becomes consumed with figuring out why her childhood best friend Dinah ghosted her ten years ago. Between being berated by her Superstore manager, cleaning up after the serial men’s room vandal, and obsessing over her new crush, Bones, Rob tries to track down Dinah. But the more she searches, the more she’s overcome by the creeping feeling that something might be very wrong. What if Dinah didn’t just ghost her—what if something terrible happened?

Emily Austin is the author of four novels, most recently Is This a Cry For Help?, an instant USA Today, Globe & Mail, Quill & Quire, and Toronto Star bestseller. All four of her novels have been Indie Next picks, and her work has been published around the world.

GHOST BARN de John Verdon

Ex-homicide detective and puzzle-solving master David Gurney comes out of retirement to solve seemingly impossible murder cases. Blending hard-boiled noir fiction with the pleasures of classic “whodunit” puzzle- solving, Verdon has written a “hero for the ages” (David Baldacci).

GHOST BARN
by John Verdon
Counterpoint, September 2026
(via The Friedrich Agency)

The thrilling conclusion to the retired NYPD detective Dave Gurney saga.

Ghosts are returning from the past to trouble Dave Gurney’s peace as a local election sees a powerful real estate mogul with plans for a massive development face off against a librarian and ardent conservationist. When bodies start turning up and the local police turn a blind eye, Gurney suspects he’s the town’s only hope.

But involvement comes at a price. His last case early got his best friend killed, and it shattered his marriage. In the aftermath, he’s focused on breaking his reliance on police work in hopes of rekindling things with his wife, Madeleine. Can he ignore what’s happening and potentially let a murderer run amok, or will he once again dive into the darkness, giving in to his obsessive need to solve the unsolvable—even if it costs him Madeleine for good? One thing is clear: This harrowing, confounding case will be his last.

John Verdon is the author of the Dave Gurney series of thrillers, international bestsellers published in more than two dozen languages: Think of a Number, Shut Your Eyes Tight, Let the Devil Sleep, Peter Pan Must Die, Wolf Lake, White River Burning, On Harrow Hill, and The Viper.

OTTER MUSIC de Karen Joy Fowler

A love letter to the California Coastline, the creatures who inhabit it, and the stories we tell ourselves to find courage and hope—from the Booker shortlisted author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

OTTER MUSIC
by Karen Joy Fowler
Putnam, March 2027
(via The Friedrich Agency)

Lainey Miller is a reasonably happy, unmarried Marine researcher living in Santa Cruz, California, heading rapidly towards middle age. When her 11 year old niece points out that Lainey never actually has any FUN (not really) it sends Lainey spiraling down a reinvestigation of both her past—the conspiracist father who abandoned her in his misguided pursuit of « lizard people »—and her future, where most days it feels as if every effort to save and conserve the natural world is futile.

OTTER MUSIC is a story about how each of us must find a little patch of the world to save and tend to—even amongst the fires, and floods and cruelty—because it takes bravery to extend ourselves with love and determination into the awaiting world.

Karen Joy Fowler is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels and three short story collections. Her 2004 novel, The Jane Austen Book Club, spent 13 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves won the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award and was shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize. Her most recent novel Booth was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. She lives in Santa Cruz, California

UNTRAVELLED WORLD de Martha Perotto-Wills

A heart-pounding, otherworldly adventure, mixed with the thorny, sexy lesbian dynamics of a Julia Armfield novel. For fans of The Ministry of Time and Annihilation.

UNTRAVELLED WORLD
by Martha Perotto-Wills
Random House, Fall 2027
(via The Friedrich Agency)

Ten years ago, the door opened to reveal a surreal, uncharted world adjoining our own: a terrifyingly beautiful expanse of glass which shifts at its own whims—every two hours, every two days—unpredictably gifting clear, flat planes or delivering dangerous crevasses hiding reality-bending hallucinations.

For Teddy, newly graduated and directionless, the era-defining mystery of the other world is merely an icebreaker, a conversation topic on dates gone cold. But then Adrian Clermont, an old family friend, appears in Teddy’s living room seeking funding for an expedition into the other world. Teddy, seeing a chance for purpose and an escape from her privileged, hermetic world, begs to join Adrian’s team.

When the Clermont party make it through the door, Teddy falls helplessly in love with both the landscape and with Jenny Cattaneo, a flinty meteorologist with a strangely deep connection to the other world. When Teddy makes a staggering discovery about a missing explorer, she is forced to reckon with the true cost of the life she’s built in the other world—the first real home she’s ever known.

Martha Perotto-Wills is a writer from London. She has a BA in History and an MA in Queer History. After spending several years as a bookseller and cataloguer in crumbling second-hand bookshops she moved into trade publishing, and now works as an associate agent at a literary agency. She lives in south London with her girlfriend and their cat. UNTRAVELLED WORLD is her first novel, partially born from her obsession with Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s 1922 memoir The Worst Journey in the World.

THE LOVE AN ABALONE FEELS FOR THE SEA de Genki Ferguson

Take a cool dive into the waters of coastal Japan, the setting for Genki Ferguson’s exquisitely rendered coming-of-age novel, featuring traditional “ama” freedivers.

THE LOVE AN ABALONE FEELS FOR THE SEA
by Genki Ferguson
Counterpoint, Spring 2027
(via The Friedrich Agency)

During one fateful dive, Nagisa, a determined young woman joins the ama—who dive to depths of up to 65 feet without any scuba gear to hunt abalone and other shellfish —and doesn’t return to the surface.

Ren Ioka, Nagisa’s seventeen year old brother, finds himself unmoored by grief and uncertainty upon his sister’s disappearance. But after discovering an unsent love letter written by Nagisa years earlier, Ren becomes convinced that this confession holds the secret behind her inexplicable final dive.

In the process of retracing his sister’s hidden love, Ren meets Aiko, an inscrutable ama who once dove with Nagisa. As Ren gradually uncovers the truth behind his sister’s confession, he finds himself falling for Aiko, not realizing that she’s harboring a secret herself.

Genki Ferguson is a Canadian-Japanese writer and filmmaker, who spent the Spring of 2023 immersed in the world of ama divers in Mie, Japan, and based much of this story on his experiences living and working in their village. Genki’s previous novel, Satellite Love, was published in 2021 by McClelland & Stewart to critical acclaim and several award nominations.