Latest from Marie Claire in Books

To Write Their Debut Novel, Jane Schoenbrun Turned to Creepypasta

Quinci LeGardye — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

In this author-curated rendition, Jane Schoenbrun—the writer/director behind cult-loved films like I Saw the TV Glow and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma—shares the reads that inspired their debut novel.

Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun has spent their career making stories about characters losing themselves in the glow of a screen. From the sinister online challenge in We’re All Going to the World’s Fair to the slasher-influenced sexual fantasia of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Schoenbrun has drawn in countless devoted fans with their intimate, Lynchian stories that explore how media affects our collective psyche. Their latest project trades the screen for the page, but it’s no less expansive.

Schoenbrun’s debut novel Public Access Afterworld is a feat of worldbuilding, split into 10 sections, or “episodes,” spanning seven decades and narrated by varied characters—an anxious housewife in 1940s New Mexico, two A.V. club kids in ‘90s suburbia, and a trans content moderator at a modern-day streamer, to name a few. Their only connection is the titular subterranean TV network, a mysterious realm where shows are extracted from “crooked” people's minds. The novel is a masterful sci-fi epic that turns the advent of television into a horrific, multi-dimensional conspiracy.

Though Schoenbrun first thought of the title in 2019, inspired by a lyric from Nirvana’s “Pennyroyal Tea” (”Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld”), they describe the novel as “picking up where I left off with TV Glow.” While their first two films were inspired by what they call the “egg crack” moment of realizing they were transgender, PAA draws from the self-upheaval that comes after.

Hogarth

'Public Access Afterworld' by Jane Schoenbrun

“I was very aware when I first sat down to start writing this that World's Fair and TV Glow were movies that didn't actually take you into transition,” they say. “They were movies that came from the process of early transition and of realizing that I needed to transition, but that as texts, they kind of end before the process of becoming actually begins. I think one of the reasons why [PAA] has to be such an epic is that there's just a lot to say about that.”

To write this opus—the first in an expected trilogy—Schoenbrun put their typical nonfiction reading on hold and took inspiration from “a strange mix between literary and nerd.” The writer also dove into creepypastas, or the “crowdsourced campfire stories and urban legends” that populate certain corners of the internet.

“I think [creepypastas are] part of this long tradition that I do count myself a part of, which is digging into the depths of what's glowing in front of you,” they say. “Looking for the thing that you know intrinsically must be in there, which is something that's going to be even more beautiful and a whole hell of a lot darker than what is initially broadcasting through.”

To coincide with the release of their highly anticipated new book on October 27, we asked the author to share the reads that inspired Public Access Afterworld, from acclaimed short stories to foundational LGBTQ+ novels to historical tomes.

Graywolf Press

'Her Body and Other Parties' by Carmen Maria Machado

“This book blew me away with its mixture of romance and grotesquery, which is at the heart of so much of my writing.—specifically this eroticized romantic body horror that isn't unaware of how hard it is to be a female body in this world.

[It has an] incredible short story that takes the form of an entire series of television, which goes episode by episode with increasingly surreal descriptions. As a kid, I would sneak out of bed to the family desktop and just write fake episode guides for fake TV shows. So I found Carmen’s story very inspiring and freeing to ask myself, How can I take that weird work I was doing as a 10-year-old and turn it into something akin to a novel?”

Majosta

'Winesburg, Ohio' by Sherwood Anderson

“I first read Winesburg, Ohio in college, and I've returned to it over and over again throughout the years. It's this interconnected series of short stories set in this town. They don't connect quite as much as the stories that make up Public Access Afterworld do, but I think I was as aware of the structure of my book as this intersecting group of character pieces about difficult characters, as I was about the mythology and how they would all congeal into an epic. Winesburg, Ohio also gets at this nastiness in small-town America that is very subtle, and it doesn't hit you over the head with it. It lingers in a haunted way that I really admire. When I think about how I want my work to linger, there's something similar in the DNA there.”

Vintage

'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' by Haruki Murakami

“Murakami was one of these gateway authors for me at a young age, who taught me that you could do the things that I loved so much in David Lynch films or visual mediums in prose alone. Like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, my book begins with what I hope will be an enthralling mystery that involves a missing person and then unwinds [into an] epic where you realize that what you thought was the plot is just the tip of an iceberg. I feel like I've learned so much in Murakami about this balance that's in all of my work between the dream and the story. I want to dig below the surface into the subconscious realms that his work so masterfully plums.”

Delhi Open Books

'The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter' by Carson McCullers

“I had a huge Carson McCullers phase in the year or two that I was starting to write this book. Really, any of her four novels could be on this list, but The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter just stunned me because of the ways in which it felt so emotionally grounded. This is the story of a town and of these multiple characters intersecting, looking for hope, salvation, or an end to the isolation of growing older in America. It doesn't feel like it's written towards a specific moment. It feels like it is penetrating to the heart of the spiritual emptiness of an America that is still segregated and still deep in Cold War anxieties, and obviously where queerness can't even speak its name aloud. This book just absolutely pulverized me.”

MCD x FSG Originals

'Nevada' by Imogen Binnie

"Nevada is so deeply important as a text for many trans people. For a while, I was trying to make it into a movie and the movie fell apart, so there's a long history with me and this project. The central conceit of the second half of the book is about these two people having a conversation—one of whom is pre-transition and one of whom is maybe five years into transition, but not doing so well herself. It's almost a time travel story. Is there anything that post-transition you could say to repressed, closeted you that would've helped? There's something about that central tension in my early transition work. It's like, What am I trying to do in these works if not talk to the younger me who wasn't ready to blow up my life in the way that transition required?"

Duke University Press

'Seeing by Electricity: the Emergence of Television, 1878-1939' by Doron Galili

“I'm a wannabe academic in that every morning, I’ll read academic writing in the fields that I gravitate towards, which tend to be media studies, gender studies, Marxist debates, and how that all relates to technology. I remember deep in the process of writing PAA, feeling like, I know a lot about television history as it would be told on Wikipedia, but I don't know that much about the actual history of the invention of this device. Probably the most important thing that I learned in this book was this really clear distinction that the author makes between the medium of cinema, which is primarily a medium of photography capture and reproduction, and the medium of television, which at its birth was thought of more in line with the telephone, as a means of communication and a means of transmission and electricity. That cracked something in the mythology for me and has implications throughout the story that I'm telling.”

_9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES by anonymous Reddit author

“This is a novel that was written anonymously—I believe people still don't know who wrote it—entirely in random comments on random Reddit threads. For about a year and a half, there would be replies from the same poster, and you could see all of them by clicking through to the profile. The replies were kind of in response to what the threads were about, but if you read them as a whole in chronological order, eventually they unfurled this epic novel-length creepy pasta that's much more literary in its ambition than most or any other that I've read. It becomes this ambiguously multi-narrator epic about the CIA, World War II, Lovecraftian monsters from other realms, abuse, and a personal darkness that felt very connected to the schizophrenia and horror of our present reality. The method and medium with which it was being told felt almost like these transmissions from underneath the internet. I remember reading it and being like, I want to write something like this, and that was absolutely in my mind as I started PAA.”

11 Novels About Cults That Are So Good, They Have Devout Followings

Liz Doupnik — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Believe it or not, you might belong to a cult and not even know it. Many "cults" are harmless: Built on a shared love for an author (Sally Rooney, I'm looking at you!), a workout studio, or a boy band, there’s nothing quite like geeking out over your obsession with people who get it. But then, of course, there are the groups where "cult-loved" gets its namesake. These—often shrouded in secrecy, centered on an enigmatic leader and eccentric beliefs or systems—have enraptured the public for decades (what with all the true-crime documentaries on your streaming services).

Whether they're driven by a zealot or someone who’s collected Beanie Babies since childhood, these groups have inspired many novels. After all, they exist as collectives, but countless individual characters make them up—often hailing from different backgrounds yet drawn together by the same message. Simply put: Books about cults offer authors ample opportunity to explore the darker side of the human psyche and need for connection.

From unraveling a leader's mind to a follower trying to break free, the subgenre has more than a few compelling titles. From forthcoming titles to cult classics in their own right, we've rounded up the best cult novels to read right now.

Europa Editions

'The Colony' by Annika Norlin (translated by Alice Olsson)

A best-of list frequent flyer, The Colony has drawn avid fans with its quiet yet crushing illustration of hopelessness—or defiance, depending on how you look at it. In the novel, Annika Norlin examines those who give up material things to live off the grid—and what you could gain, lose, or expose about your true nature in doing so.

The book follows Emelie, a burned-out journalist who's camping in a forest to reconnect with the natural world. Shortly into her trip, she encounters a group of misfits. From an ant specialist (yes, you read that right) to a quietly persuasive woman and a baby, it’s clear that unique circumstances have brought this collective together.

Impressed with how the group respects the surrounding land and one another, she records her observations in a notebook. The book presents these passages alongside deep-dive character studies that reveal each group member’s motivation to make the compound work—and stay on the fringes of society.

Random House Trade Paperbacks

'The Girls' by Emma Cline

Emma Cline’s debut novel announced her as one to watch in the literary world. It’s not hard to see why. Pulling inspiration from the Manson Family and their horrific crimes, The Girls is set in Northern California during the late 1960s. In the novel, teenager Evie is having a very bad start to summer. Not only is she struggling with her parents’ divorce, but she’s fallen out with her best friend, leaving her to kill time alone.

One day, Evie notices a group of girls hanging out in a nearby park. They seem to be everything she’s not: free, rebellious, and happy. In a chance encounter, she meets the ringleader, Suzanne, and starts hanging out with the group. Evie learns that unlike her suburban home, the girls live on an old ranch outside of town. Avoiding her parents at all costs, Evie spends as much time as possible with Suzanne and the others, eventually meeting Russell, the aspiring musician who runs the ranch. Everything seems right in the world, until Evie and Suzanne erupt into a fight that irrevocably alters both their lives. With combustible sapphic yearning and violent stakes, The Girls is a must for any cult junkie.

Virago

'The Incendiaries' by R.O. Kwon

Let this be a reminder of what an absolutely heartbreaking banger The Incendiaries is. Brimming with dark academia vibes, the novel follows two students at the fictional elite college, Edwards University. Will, a transfer student on scholarship, is immediately besotted with Phoebe, a captivating young woman who’s harboring a painful secret: She thinks she caused her mother’s death.

The two date, but the footing is unsteady. One of Phoebe’s best friends suddenly dies, compounding her grief and pushing her mindset to a breaking point. Will wishes he could stay with her over the summer, but an opportunity in China is too good to pass up.

Vulnerable and alone, Phoebe catches the attention of former Edwards student, John Leal, who, after his own traumatic experiences, begins a religious cult centered on suffering and penitence. Phoebe joins the group. The results are as bad as you think. A hard look at loss, grief, and community, The Incendiaries is completely can’t-put-downable. (That's not without trigger warnings: Note that this book contains campus sexual assault.)

Little, Brown and Company

'Little One' by Olivia Muenter

Catharine West has done everything she can to distance herself from her complicated childhood spent in a Florida commune run by her father. But when she receives an email from a journalist doing a piece on the collective—now a shell of what was once an active community—Catharine is flooded with memories. While some elements were idyllic, like spending time with her best friend, Linna, other parts were far darker.

After discovering something hidden about Catharine’s mother, Catharine and Linna waffle over how to manage the secret and what it could mean for their futures. An unflinching story on the ties that bind us and honoring your self-worth, Little One stashes more than one surprise up its sleeve, making it a propulsive thriller.

Penguin Random House

'O Sinners!' by Nicole Cuffy

After his father's death, journalist Faruq is sent on assignment to investigate "the Nameless," a utopian community living deep in the California redwoods. There, he meets their leader, Odo. While serving in the Vietnam War in the late '60s, Odo and fellow Black soldiers were confronted with the hypocrisy of fighting for a country that heavily discriminated against them at home—which is in part what inspired him to begin the Nameless.

But Faruq has lost the plot. Extending his trip for months, the journalist grapples with the nature of the Nameless. Is their utopia a veneer for something darker? Or is the compound a marvel that should be replicated? Is he imagining things, or has he become Odo's pet project? As Faruq searches for answers, he recalls painful memories of his parents, compromising his mindset and sometimes his outlook. Centered on home, grief, and the distortion it can unleash on the everyday, O Sinners! is an engrossing read with a unique structure that keeps the pages turning.

Harper Perennial

'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' by Quentin Tarantino

It’s rare that a film is released before the corresponding book hits shelves. Quentin Tarantino, however, is no stranger to breaking with tradition. Based on his wildly successful film of the same title, Rick Dalton, a washed-up actor, and his body double, Cliff Booth, become snared in stopping a tragedy before anyone can get hurt.

Providing insight into the characters’s motivations and relationships, the book is a galloping read. Whether you’re a film buff looking to build out your Tarantino catalogue or want to gear up for the sequel, The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is charged with the same electricity as the film.

Hogarth

'Our Share of Night' by Mariana Enriquez (translated by Megan McDowell)

Leave it to Argentinian author and master storyteller Mariana Enriquez to put forth a family saga rich with social commentary—and a cult. Weaving together disparate timelines and settings, Our Share of the Night is a literary-leaning horror novel that is sure to convert even the genre’s toughest critics.

At the outset of the novel, Rosario, a young wife and mother, is killed in a tragic accident. Her death forces her husband and son, Juan and Gaspar, to go on a road trip for a meeting with Rosario's family that makes Meet the Fockers look tame.

Rosario’s family belongs to The Order, a religious cult that inflicts terrible acts in the name of its deity, The Darkness. Though many try, only a few are selected to serve as The Order’s medium. Often, like Juan, the group’s current medium, few are given a choice. Juan hopes to shield Gaspar from a life like his. But as Juan weakens with the strain of being a medium, his abilities as a parent—and protector—also fail. And Gaspard is left alone to shoulder his family’s expectations without falling victim to The Darkness.

Blackstone Publishing

'Rosemary's Baby' by Ira Levin

Anyone who’s lived in N.Y.C. knows the horrifying feat of apartment hunting—let alone finding the perfect apartment. There’s always a catch. Unfortunately for Rosemary and her husband Gus, their new place is no exception. Though stately and regal, the young couple finds their neighbors are noisy at night—and a little nosy.

Over time, Gus settles in, but Rosemary struggles, stricken with bizarre nightmares and strange occurrences when she’s home alone. Then she learns some good news: She’s pregnant. And though previously irked by her neighbors, she finds herself increasingly grateful for them and the special interest they’ve taken in her baby...until she figures out their motive.

One of the most iconic horror stories of all time, Rosemary’s Baby itself has a cult following of its own. An investigation into autonomy, parenthood, and deception, Rosemary’s Baby is still a haunting read, nearly 60 years after it was first published.

Vintage

'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt

The book that arguably ignited the dark academia phenomenon, The Secret History needs no introduction. Known for its gloomy New England university setting and a gaggle of strangely brilliant students—and one inspiring teacher—The Secret History rakes through Greek mythology and puts on a Dickensian twist to craft a timeless story about class, power, and groupthink.

For those who need a refresher: The Secret History is told through the perspective of Richard, an outsider from California who lingers on the edges of the tight Classics group. Hand-selected by Julian, the only professor of the concentration, few are accepted into the course. But after doing the crew a favor, he is permitted to join.

Soon, Richard gets a crash course in the group’s raucous, wine-fueled nights, which include gallivanting across campus in costumes. But as the semester progresses, tension thickens within the group, especially between the clique’s leader, Henry, and Bunny, who isn’t as innocent as he appears. After winter break, Richard learns the truth behind the rising hostility among the Classics majors and must decide who he will support. He doesn't know it, but someone’s life depends on it.

G.P. Putnam's Sons

'Supper Club' by Lara Williams

A book with pages screaming “fuck the patriarchy,” Supper Club is about reclaiming space and being completely unapologetic in the pursuit of pleasure. For the protagonist, Roberta, this means relearning how to enjoy food without guilt or harsh dieting. Sample sizes need not enter the chat.

She and her new bestie, Stevie, dumpster dive and devour cast-off leftovers in the name of joy. Experiencing something close to euphoria, she and Stevie organize group dinners, complete with appetizers, cocktails, and the release of female rage. But as Supper Club sessions spiral into madness, Roberta wonders if she’s started something bigger and more dangerous than she intended.

Scribner

'The Unworthy' by Agustina Bazterrica (translated by Sarah Moses)

A spiky mixture of dystopia and horror, The Unworthy will have you staring at a wall after you’ve finished. Fans of The Leftovers or Midsommar will especially enjoy the tension that’s taut enough you could play it like a guitar. The book is written from the perspective of an unnamed woman living in a former Catholic convent with a religious order, the Sacred Sisterhood.

As wild storms rage outside the monastery’s walls, the narrator writes on all sorts of matters. From vying to graduate from her current tier, an “unworthy” to a “chosen,” and the brutal punishments that are part of the sect’s practice, the narrator depicts a harsh and unforgiving cult. But then a newcomer arrives at the convent’s doorsteps, sparking the narrator’s memory of her past, whether she likes it or not.

Everything We Know About 'Things We Never Got Over,' Your Next BookTok-to-TV Obsession

andreap617@gmail.com (Andrea Park) — Sun, 25 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

When it comes to bringing #BookTok-beloved romance novels to life, Prime Video has been on a truly impressive tear. After its The Summer I Turned Pretty series took pop culture by storm in recent years, 2026 alone has seen the debut of the first seasons of Off Campus, based on Elle Kennedy’s best-selling series, and Every Year After, adapting Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After, as well as a movie version of Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis. Meanwhile, page-to-screen takes on Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean series and Meryl Wilsner’s Cleat Cute sapphic soccer rom-com, plus a sequel film to 2023’s Red, White & Royal Blue are still to come.

But wait, there’s more! Prime Video is adapting Lucy Score’s Knockemout series into a TV series: Things We Never Got Over, named for the first book in the trilogy. While we count down the minutes until the release, here’s a refresher on the book series and a roundup of everything we know so far about the on-screen adaptation.

Everything We Know About Prime Video's 'Things We Never Got Over' TV Series Adaptation

Sourcebooks, Inc.

'Things We Never Got Over' by Lucy Score

What is 'Things We Never Got Over' by Lucy Score about?

Small towns, evil twins, and grumpy-but-secretly-sweet love interests, oh my! This 2022 book, the first in a three-book series, is full of delicious drama and steamy romance. It centers on Naomi, who abandons her wedding to return to her hometown of Knockemout, Virginia, at the request of her estranged twin sister Tina. Soon enough, Tina skips town—with her sister’s car, phone, and purse in hand—leaving Naomi stranded, homeless, and responsible for the 11-year-old niece she only just met.

That’s (of course) when she meets gruff bad boy Knox, who reluctantly steps in to help after witnessing the implosion of Naomi’s life. Their connection makes for a very sexy enemies-to-lovers slow-burn romance that grows deeper as Naomi and Knox face some of the trouble Tina was running away from.

Sourcebooks, Inc.

'Things We Hide From the Light' by Lucy Score

The next two books in Score’s Knockemout series follow other pairs from around the rough-around-the-edges town, to similarly spicy effect. Things We Hide From the Light follows police chief Nash (Knox’s brother) and his flirty new neighbor Lina, while Things We Left Behind delves into the love story between ruthless businessman Lucian and local librarian Sloane.

Molly Griggs and Matthew Noszka will lead Things We Never Got Over, with Griggs playing twins Naomi and Tina and Noszka as Knox. (Image credit: John Lamparski/Getty Images / Taylor Hill/FilmMagic/Getty Images)

Who is in the cast of the 'Things We Never Got Over' TV show?

The show’s first casting announcements arrived in September 2026, with Deadline reporting that Molly Griggs will play the dual role of Naomi and Tina, while Matthew Noszka and Tommy Martinez will play brothers Knox and Nash, respectively.

Griggs, 32, has starred in shows including The Residence, Dr. Death, and Servant. She made her Broadway debut in Hello, Dolly! in 2018 and also appeared in John Proctor is the Villain in 2025. Noszka, 33, got his start as a model and has since scored main roles in Star and All’s Fair, while Martinez, 34, recently appeared in Disclosure Day and in shows like Laid and Good Trouble.

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A month later, Deadline announced another flood of casting announcements. Rounding out the three couples are Lili Simmons (Power Book IV: Force, Ray Donovan) as Lina, British actor Sean Teale (Skins, Doctor Odyssey) as Lucian, and Sarah Jeffery (Charmed, the Descendants franchise) as his love interest, Sloane. Building out Naomi and Nash’s circles, meanwhile, are Megan Stott (Little Fires Everywhere, Penelope) as Tina’s daughter Waylay, Anthony Keyvan (XO, Kitty, Love, Victor) as Naomi’s longtime best friend Stef, and JoBeth Williams (Poltergeist, Kramer vs. Kramer) as Nash and Knox’s grandmother, Liza J.

Who is involved behind the scenes of the 'Things We Never Got Over' TV show?

Eric Charmelo and Nicole Snyder are serving as showrunners and executive producers of Things We Never Got Over. They previously co-wrote the 2018 psychological horror film The Perfection and co-created the CW series Ringer in the early 2010s. (Interestingly, Ringer also starred one actress, Sarah Michelle Gellar, who played estranged twin sisters!)

“Things We Never Got Over has everything we love in great television: an irresistible enemies-to-lovers romance, quirk, comedy, and a community you never want to leave,” Charmelo and Snyder said in June 2026. “Lucy Score built a wildly passionate fanbase around these characters, and we’re excited to introduce the world of Knockemout to Prime Video audiences everywhere.”

Gina Girolamo, whose executive producer credits include You, Gossip Girl, and Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, will also serve as an EP on the new show, as will Lucy Score herself. Actress/director Jennifer Morrison—who you may recognize from House and Once Upon a Time—has also joined as an executive producer and is set to direct the first two episodes of the series.

Sourcebooks, Inc.

'Things We Left Behind' by Lucy Score

When will the 'Things We Never Got Over' TV series be released?

No official release date has been set, but Prime Video gave the show a series order in June 2026, and production was underway when the first cast announcements came out in September 2026. Filming reportedly kicked off in Vancouver that month, with plans to wrap in mid-December, per the Vancouver Sun.

Time for some girl math: If we consider Off Campus' production-to-release schedule as an example similar to Things We Never Got Over, the show’s first season filmed in Vancouver from July to October 2025 and hit Prime Video the following May. By that logic, we can likely expect Things We Never Got Over to reach our TV screens in mid- to late summer 2027.

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What has Lucy Score said about the 'Things We Never Got Over' TV series?

Score has shown enthusiastic support for the adaptation since the beginning. In 2024, shortly after the initial announcement (which included a different showrunner), the author expressed excitement in a Deadline interview, calling it “another one of those pinch me moments.”

When asked about page-to-screen adaptations in general, she said, “I’m really excited about it because I’m a storyteller at heart, so I’m always fascinated with how other people and how other mediums can tell a story. For me to sit down and write a book, it’s me alone in a room, voices in my head, of course, and I tell a story. There are very few layers that get added to that story. I have editors who will look at it and make suggestions. But other than that, that’s pretty much it. If it goes to TV or movie, you are adding so many layers to each story. You have cast, you have the director, you have wardrobe, music, location, there’s just so many ways to subtly add to the story, and I cannot wait to see someone else’s vision for the characters that I created.”

Score also weighed in on some of her own "wish list" items for the show. Though she didn’t offer up any dream cast members—saying that she just wanted "people who can make the characters feel real"—she did say that she’d “melt into a puddle” if any songs by The Killers made it onto the soundtrack.

The writer added that the core thing she’s hoping to see make it from the page to the screen is the banter. “I want it to be lot of funny banter back and forth, especially between the brothers,” she said. “I just want the characters to connect in a similar way that they did on the page, and I want viewers to connect to the story the way readers connected to it. That’s my wish list.”

Every Detail I Can Find About the Adaptation of 'Happy Place' by Emily Henry

andreap617@gmail.com (Andrea Park) — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Since People We Meet on Vacation debuted on Netflix in early 2026—marking the first adaptation of one of Emily Henry's beloved romance novels—EmHen fans have been clamoring for more. And we’re in luck: All but one of her other adult romances are currently being adapted for the screen, and even the one holdout, 2025’s Great Big Beautiful Life, technically has a Henry-penned screenplay already completed.

Beach Read, Funny Story, Book Lovers, and Happy Place are in development. Happy Place was announced in 2024 and initially slated as a Netflix series, with Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions on board as producers. At the start of 2026, however, the streamer confirmed the switch to a feature film format for Happy Place, with J.Lo and her partners still on board. Even more exciting? Henry herself is writing the screenplay.

Here’s everything else we know so far about the page-to-screen adaptation of Emily Henry’s Happy Place.

Everything We Know About the 'Happy Place' Adaptation

'Happy Place' by Emily Henry

What is 'Happy Place' by Emily Henry about?

The 2023 novel, Henry’s fourth adult romance, is a second-chance love story with a hint of fake dating. It centers on Harriet and Wyn, who recently broke up after nearly a decade together but decide to keep their split a secret as they join their friends for an annual group trip to a cottage in Maine.

The story shifts back and forth in time, tracing back to the start of Harriet and Wyn’s relationship and their ups and downs over the years. As they reflect on their shared history and individual wants and needs, they find they can be more honest than ever about what's most important to each of them separately and together. Inevitably, being in a much healthier place leads them to figure out what their futures hold—whether that means going their separate ways or giving their love story another try.

When will the 'Happy Place' Netflix film adaptation be released?

Neither Netflix nor Henry has revealed a release date for the Happy Place film yet. The first page-to-screen take on an EmHen book, People We Meet on Vacation, was announced in late 2022 and premiered in January 2026. Applying that same timeline to Happy Place, which was announced as in development in mid-2024—albeit as a series rather than a feature film—could put a release date around the end of 2027 or early 2028 at the earliest. Of course, that will depend on casting and the shoot, but rom-coms tend to be relatively low lift.

Fortunately, to tide us over, we’ve got another adaptation to look forward to: The movie version of Beach Read, starring Phoebe Dynevor and Patrick Schwarzenegger, is set for a theatrical release in May 2027.

Emily Henry celebrates the release of People We Meet on Vacation in January 2026. (Image credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Netflix)

Who is involved behind-the-scenes of the 'Happy Place' Netflix film adaptation?

A director isn't publicly attached to Happy Place yet, but the producers include J.Lo and her frequent collaborators, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Benny Medina, through their Nuyorican imprint. The film should be in good hands: Jenny from the Block is a rom-com queen, and Nuyorican has helmed several popular romance films, from Marry Me and Shotgun Wedding to Office Romance.

Henry will write the script. A team of screenwriters penned People We Meet on Vacation, while director Yulin Kuang wrote Beach Read, so Happy Place will be among the first times Henry is involved beyond a producing credit.

When the Happy Place and Funny Story films were confirmed, the author shared a statement. “I genuinely couldn’t be more excited to work on the adaptations of Happy Place and Funny Story with Netflix,” she said. “The entire team there has been so passionate about, dedicated to, and supportive of People We Meet on Vacation from the jump, and getting to do it all over again—this time writing the scripts myself—has been a thrill. I feel so lucky to have found this home for these films, among people who believe deeply in the necessity and power of this kind of story.”

Jennifer Lopez will be involved behind the scenes of Happy Place. (Image credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Netflix)

Who is in the cast of the 'Happy Place' Netflix film adaptation cast?

That’s another thing we don’t yet know. But the rom-com’s fans, of course, have plenty of ideas. Back in 2024, when Happy Place was first announced as a Netflix series, Henry posted the news on her Instagram account, noting in the caption that while no cast members were attached yet, they’d all be “actors in their late 20s to early 30s,” and inviting fans to comment their dream casting decisions.

Fans' requests for the headstrong, perfectionist Harriet include The Pitt’s Supriya Ganesh, Margaret Qualley, Hailee Steinfeld, Isabela Merced, and Simone Ashley. For the charming but self-doubting Wyn, meanwhile, they’ve dream-cast Lewis Pullman, Drew Starkey, Leo Woodall, and The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Christopher Briney, to name just a few.

Henry herself has actually joined in on the casting suggestions. In a 2025 interview with PEOPLE, she noted that while she typically stays out of chiming in about specific fancastings, she does "take those names that come up a lot into conversations with these teams."

She also admitted she had one suggestion for one character across all her books—and it just so happens to be for Happy Place. “For Harriet in Happy Place, I think Eve Hewson would be wonderful,” the writer revealed. “And usually, when I am thinking of casting, I’m not actually thinking of someone who looks like that person. I’m just thinking of someone who has that same vibe. But she actually does look more or less how Harriet is in my head.”

Only time will tell if the rest of the world gets to see the Disclosure Day and The Perfect Couple star in the role, too!

My Doctor Told Me to "Find a Man" If I Wanted to Be a Mom. Instead, I Took Up Gardening

Tarajia Morrell — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Food writer Tarajia Morrell has published everything from travelogues to features on sustainable agriculture to essays about growing up in the N.Y.C. culinary scene and even her obsession with spoons. A love for food has always been intrinsic to the New York native, as her parents founded one of the city's most popular wine merchants, and she went on to study at the French Culinary Institute before working in restaurants and pursuing writing.

After co-authoring the James Beard-winning Savor: A Chef’s Hunger for More with Fatima Ali, Morrell is sharing her own story in Desire Feeds the Feast. The memoir explores her lifelong relationship with an insatiable hunger—for memorable meals, but also for beauty and love.

Ahead of the book's November 3 publication, Morrell shared an exclusive excerpt with Marie Claire about how she turned to gardening when she struggled with fertility, before welcoming her daughter.

I hadn’t given up on the Big Love, but my filter was finer. My healed heart had lost some of its naïveté, and I saw easily past men who did not suit me. Calluses and scars are made of similar stuff. Like my right hip, there’s a degree of torque my heart will no longer go, and when someone tries to push past it, intentionally or not, I move on easily.

Whether it was my emotional baggage, the men, or the city’s frenetic attention span affecting everyone in its orbit like a speeding metronome, meaningful relationships seemed more and more impossible to unearth and unlikely to last. I tried dating apps, but it felt completely wrong, misaligned with my instinct-led nature, my need to follow my nose.

I wanted to meet someone with whom I had a natural connection. I wanted to travel and talk about books and drink wine and eat out with someone I wanted to make out with. I wanted to make out with someone whom I wanted to wake up with, who wanted to wake up with me, and do so again and again. I never cared about getting married or a wedding, but I wanted to love someone enough to try to be a family—to try to have children together. Why was this person so seemingly impossible to find?

It’s not as if I was a homebody. I was at Mettā, a restaurant that I was involved with, and dining out in other restaurants often. But something had shifted. The New York I’d come of age in was all about being in a good room, a cool place, so you could see and meet like-minded people, see someone you like and find an excuse to start a conversation.

Restaurants had become my nightclubs, and so I expected them to offer opportunities to meet someone. But as I looked around, it felt like few people went out to meet new people anymore. In addition to much posing in order to post on social media, even at bustling, romantic bars with great lighting, I noticed people’s noses were always in their phones. Instead of catching my eye across a crowded, perfectly lit room and striking up a conversation, it seemed like everyone was hunting digitally for a soulmate or bedmate through the robotic addendum of their smartphones and dating apps and the algorithms that steered them. I need to feel someone’s energy to take an interest in them, and I didn’t feel anything—other than icky—on an app.

“What is wrong with me?” I lamented to my mother.

“I think it’s mostly bad luck,” my mother said in her quint- essentially caring, placating tone. “And you lost all those years as an actor, while all your friends were building careers and finding mates. You’re behind.”

Thanks, Mom.

Frustrated beyond measure but trying to avoid becoming embittered, I decided to try a new route. Proactively, I found a matchmaking agency that quietly let eligible women join the so-called “pool” of men for chump change. I wasn’t guaranteed a match, but I would likely be set up with men who had paid to be matched by “experts” and were guaranteed a certain number of dates. I went on three dates before I admitted defeat. Nothing about any of this romance hunting felt authentic, or romantic.

zibby media

Desire Feeds the Feast: a Memoir

“It’s time to freeze your eggs,” a friend told me when I bemoaned my most recent dating fiasco to her.

“I’m 37,” I said. “So isn’t it past time for that?” “Honey, it can still work, but do it now,” she insisted. As I looked out the window of the doctor’s office while he recited his spiel somewhat absentmindedly, I could see my childhood apartment. I tried to psych myself up for the hormone protocol, the injections I’d give myself, the monitoring, the egg retrieval, all in the name of “time and peace of mind.”

I emptied my savings account, filled the prescriptions, and anxiously gave myself the injections in a pinch of my belly, standing alone in my childhood kitchen. When I went in for the fateful visit during which they checked to see how many follicles had grown into eggs, the doctor found only two, but they didn’t tell me that at the time. My phone rang later, while I was in a meeting at Mettā, and I rushed into the January cold to take the call.

“Hi, is this Taray-gia? This is Dr. Fines calling from Manhattan Fertility.”

“This is Tarajia, yes, hi.”

“Hi, I’m just calling to say that we’ve canceled the rest of your fertility treatment for this cycle.”

“Why?” I asked, baffled.

“Well, we’ve looked at the reports from your monitoring visit this morning, and we see that only one, maybe two, good follicles are developing into an egg, so it’s basically the same as a regular cycle for you. We won’t perform an extraction for just one egg.”

I’d wandered down Adelphi Street and suddenly thought I might be sick into the stoop planter of one of the pretty brownstones.

“I don’t understand,” I said mostly to myself. “Wait, who are you again? You’re not my doctor.”

“No, um, ma’am, Dr. Smith is out of office today, so I just wanted to give you a call to let you know that you don’t need to continue with the injections.”

“Shouldn’t my doctor make this decision?” I asked, belligerent. I’d met him only once, but still, wasn’t there some protocol, or was I just a cog?

“Well, it’s a group practice, we work as a team, and Dr. Smith was notified of your outcomes. I’ll connect you to reception, who can help you schedule a follow-up with him.”

When I finally got an appointment a couple of weeks later with Dr. Smith, he was unsentimental.

“You could do another round,” he said noncommittally while shuffling papers on his desk. “But with results like these, and if it’s a stretch financially, I won’t encourage it. And it’s important to remember that IVF is the same protocol, so don’t wait to meet someone a few years from now thinking you can do IVF together. It’s not likely to work for you, if this hasn’t.”

I tried to contain my fury. I stared out his window toward my apartment in the middle distance.

“I guess I just don’t understand,” I said stupidly.

“In a small percentage of women, this happens. Their bodies simply don’t respond to the drugs the way most women do. Look, it’s not impossible for you to get pregnant. You ovulate. Start trying to make a baby with a man. But you’re not a good candidate for egg freezing or IVF.”

“Doctor, if there was a man with whom I wanted to make a baby, then excuse me, but we would not be having this conversation.”

“Well, go find him!” he said, as if it were as easy as finding a stone to skip on a rocky beach or a dandelion to wish upon in a spring field. I wanted to spit in his face.

How could my body betray me like this? How could my body be unwilling to give my heart the thing it most wanted: love, the love of a child, family?

How could my body betray me like this? How could my body be unwilling to give my heart the thing it most wanted: love, the love of a child, family? The grief I experienced was debilitating, such that I spent weeks retreating to my bed, blinds drawn, eyes covered, not sleeping, not crying exactly, but sort of leaking tears in a liminal state, like a frog whose body half freezes in a frozen pond, alive but not exactly living. What made it infinitely worse was that I’d suspected this outcome. I’d never been pregnant, not once.

In all my years with boyfriends who “pulled out” or with whom I practiced the notoriously faulty rhythm method, this prognosis confirmed what I’d always suspected: I wasn’t fertile. My mother had miscarried in all pregnancies that followed me; her siblings never had kids. This diagnosis, for all its cruel pain and disappointment, made sense. It also perfectly dovetailed with my wretched theory that I Cannot Have or Keep the Things I Most Want. Despite my extreme privilege, when it comes to what matters most, matters of the heart, I was, for lack of a better term, cursed. The problem must have been me—be it my outlook, my body, or my fate, I was the issue. I was the consistent variable. I was the broken constant.

I refused to sink to the fatalism that had plagued me pre-Uruguay. I knew I had to soldier on. That I could and would find that strength. But I also knew I desperately needed love in my life—not necessarily romantic love, but the superpower that is loving someone other than oneself.

Maybe I’ll meet someone and adopt, I told myself, attempting to come to terms with the fact that I would not be a parent to a child from my body. Maybe someday I’ll adopt on my own, when I have more means to support a child.

“I bet you’ll meet someone who is divorced, who has kids you’ll fall in love with,” my mother said.

“You will be a mother,” Daphne, Grace, Lou, and nearly all my friends said, almost unanimously, full of empathy.

As I usually do in times of distress, I felt a pull toward nature. When there was a hint of spring in the air, and the scent of earth on the wind in the city, I decided that it was time to cast aside my fears and to teach myself to garden, even if the outcome was imperfect. The wraparound terrace was the main feature of the apartment, and I began to imagine the oasis I could create there for myself, on my own, in my glorious and original tower.

The garden of my youth was long gone, deserted gradually as my parents had made a sanctuary for themselves upstate, where roots were welcomed deep into the earth and pots were only for the geraniums that were brought inside to winter. In a final blow to the urban terrace’s long-ago grandeur, the landlord had vanquished most of our remaining stubborn trees and decaying old vessels. The lovely Siena tiles with moss between them that had cooled my youthful feet in summer had been ripped out and replaced with bland gray concrete slabs. All our pots were confiscated, though for years they’d held only sad elegies of life: a persistent beach rose shrub that refused to die or to flower; the rotted roots of an old birch that gave up a decade before; a feral bonsai. When I reluctantly returned to my childhood home, the terrace was once again a blank canvas, as it had been when my mother arrived in ’73. Consciously or not, I’d been waiting for a partner to guide me in my garden, someone to carry heavy bags of earth, someone to cook dinners for and eat with under the awning in summer, as my parents had. So, as in all things that have eventually brought me the most satisfaction and joy, I learned by doing; I taught myself. My dad asked his former team at the Morrell & Company warehouse to put aside Bordeaux boxes and drop them off whenever they were doing deliveries nearby. I carted earth from supply stores and young juniper shrubs from the farmers’ market. I ordered Japanese grasses and planted them beneath the big picture window that I looked out upon from my writing desk, and they whispered to me as I typed.

A cluster of spiderworts, one of the only things to survive from my childhood, flourished in an old steel basin, its purple flowers greeting me in the mornings between long verdant reeds. In an old terra-cotta planter that my dad had affixed to the brick wall in the 1970s, a stubborn succulent stem remained, prehistoric, leafless, but not lifeless. I replanted that stub, and its silvery leaves and stems spanned a foot by the end of the season. I buried dahlia bulbs, and though it seemed impossible that the brown tubers could amount to much, their shoots poked through the earth to greet the sunshine and grew to shoulder height.

I wanted wildness that would wave in the breeze, and so I experimented with seeds, literally laughing at the notion that I could put these tiny particles in the soil and that something might occur. For days, I watered the seemingly barren earth and laughed harder still when, sure enough, little green shoots appeared. I sprinkled zinnia and cosmos seeds that shot up quickly, adorably, mocking me in my skepticism. Their seed packages told me to “thin” them when they were two inches tall, but, as ever, I found pruning difficult. I’ve always struggled to take away, to make room for something I can’t yet see, for things without proof or guarantees.

In the flotsam of the overstuffed bookshelves, I found a book from the 1970s on organic urban gardening and followed its instructions for a shortcut to composting. I liquefied my vegetable scraps and fed this superfood smoothie to my tiny tomato seedlings, and they doubled in size in days. In early July, the first fruit began to color. My lone clematis vine flourished, as did my profuse herb garden, and these things together, these small predictable and yet implausible acts of nature, made a believer of me.

The garden teased me again for my loneliness, whispering to have a bit of faith. Some forces, like the seeds, would make things come, whether I believed in them or not.

I was nostalgic for the garden of my youth, abundant and harlequin, but liked my predominantly green version. Simple as my plot remained, it obsessed me. I walked through it 10 times a day and worried about it when I spent a night away. I looked for old urns in junk shops and considered making a little grotto out of seashells. I carried home an old, discarded marble slab from the curb and turned it into a bench seat. I watered each plant according to the way it liked best. I fell asleep thinking of how I could improve upon it the next year.

I asked myself what was missing from the garden, and the answer was not another boxwood, a quince arbor, or a new red maple, though those, too, would’ve been nice. What was persistently missing was a person, a partner who remained a chimera, the laughter of an unknown child.

“Tarajia, can you water the garden, please, while I get dinner going?” my mother almost always instructed when we returned from upstate on Sunday evenings to a parched terrace. As a young girl, I’d come to expect that part of the routine. “And please Windex the table before you set it so we can have dinner out there.” And back out I would go to finish the job. When the blooms came in, my mother picked violets, wrapped their tender stems in damp paper towels, and sent them to school with me to give to my teachers.

I desperately wanted a descendant to dream in my garden, to water it when the sun began to set while I prepared supper, to pick its raspberries, to trap its centipedes. I swallowed my sadness and looked across the river at the Pepsi-Cola sign, then back down to my herbal babies. The garden teased me again for my loneliness, whispering to have a bit of faith. Some forces, like the seeds, would make things come, whether I believed in them or not.

My Father Spent Years Collecting Proof That Palestine Existed. Then He Gave It All to Me

Elena Dudum — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

How can one remember somewhere they've never really been? That question is central to author/educator Elena Dudum's work creating an archive of her ancestral home, Palestine, and writing about the diaspora experience and fight for Palestinian liberation.

In her debut memoir, They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful, she reflects on her family's history, from their days as successful orange grove farmers to their 1948 immigration to San Francisco to growing up with a father who taught her to value where she came from. She also explores her own radicalization, after a visit to a modern, occupied Palestine led her to carry on her father's research about what the nation was like before it was colonized.

Before her highly anticipated book hits shelves on October 27, Dudum shares an exclusive excerpt with Marie Claire about the emotional labor of her research and how she became committed to writing about Palestine.

I missed back home. Not San Francisco, but Palestine. It had been 10 years since I’d traveled from one holy site to the next. I decided to visit in my own way, on Google Maps. Click by click, I walked through the streets of Ramallah, past banks, jewelry stores, markets, and followed the path down the main road toward Rukab’s Ice Cream, known throughout the West Bank for its stretchy, mastic-laced scoops. When Taita does speak about Palestine, she most often talks about missing the texture of this ice cream.

My blinking cursor hovered over the storefront’s hot-pink awning, which read Rukab’s Ice Cream, Since 1941. It’s my family’s frayed claim to fame back home. Rukab was our original last name before our family tree split after my great-great-grandfather, perhaps great-great-great-grandfather, adopted a nickname that somehow morphed into Dudum. As always, there are three versions of the story and nobody ever agrees which one is correct—something about bloodshot eyes that weep, or a drunken relative high from eating fermented grapes, or seeds from a tree used as gambling chips. No story adds up—except the bloodshot eyes. A friend looked into it for me and found that the word Dudum in Arabic refers to a red sap that comes from a tree indigenous to Palestine. When the tree’s bark is cut or wounded, it exudes a thick reddish resin, as if the tree itself is crying tears of blood. Like the tree, Dudum men have been known to weep, leaving their eyes bloodshot and glazed. Siddi would cry when watching his grandsons play mediocre high school basketball or when all of us grandchildren wore matching pajamas on Christmas morning. The sheer fact of our existence made his eyes well.

I clicked on. I typed Gaza into my Google Maps page and landed on a deserted playground. Like a video game with a hard edge to its map, the program allowed me to click only one step past the slide before I was forced to click back toward the swings. Apparently, Google needs permission to bring its camera cars into this “conflict zone.” Israel has never agreed.

Atria/One Signal Publishers

'They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful' by Elena Dudum

After weeks of sleepless nights, the only person I wanted to talk to was my father. I wanted to tell him that he was right. That it wasn’t paranoia, the not-seeing had been enforced, all the way down to the street view of a playground in Gaza. But I knew the moment I did engage I’d receive an explosion of information or fear or enthusiasm. I didn’t know which I dreaded more: his guarded silence, or the avalanche he’d unleash the moment he sensed I was ready to join him. Even the simplest of questions could lead to an argument, because when it came to Palestine, one of his children was always going about it the wrong way. There was also the shame. Who was I to ask for all his resources now after thirty years of avoidance? Still, I needed answers. During a phone call, when my father appeared in a pleasant mood, I delicately asked him what he loved most about our time in Palestine.

“That young boy winning Arab Idol. Do you remember?” he began. “I was very, very proud that night. I was so happy for everyone. They were vindicated. And we were there.” He paused.

“The orange groves, of course. But visiting my father’s house. That was remarkable. All of us came from one small home where four families and three generations lived together. And here we are.” I hummed in agreement. “Their house is on a street named after my grandfather, Jiries. Remember? I have a photo of the street sign and it says ‘Jeries the Teacher,’” he said. I knew the photo he was referring to. I’d recently tried to locate the house in Ramallah and found that the street had been renamed. I also knew, after some research, that the street had not been named after our Jiries, the one who died in the orange groves. He was not a teacher. He was a man of the land. I softly explained to him that I didn’t think it was his grandfather; I had already looked into it for him. My father was silent for a moment.

“I don’t know.” He sounded dazed. We weren’t FaceTiming, but I was sure he was looking up at the sky. “I’d like to think he was a teacher, though. Because I’d like to think of myself as a teacher. And I think I’m a lot like my grandfather.” I didn’t want to argue with him. So I changed the topic.

“Andrew told me you have a transcript from when Siddi was interviewed by the Department of Justice,” I said, opening a conversation I knew would likely go sideways. As with his collection of magazines, he’d always been protective of these documents. He’d led a Freedom of Information Act request after Siddi’s death and didn’t like being asked for things as if his hard work were nothing.

“Yes,” he said, his tone shifting from its dreamy haze. “It’s very interesting.” I perked up. I wanted to see what the federal examiners had asked my grandfather during his immigration interview.

“Why?” I asked.

“It proves everything,” he said. “There is some nasty stuff in there . . .”

I grabbed my laptop, opened a blank document, and began typing.

When he heard my keyboard’s click-clack, his voice sharpened.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Just taking some notes.”

“Are you writing about us?”

“No, no. I’m just doing some research.”

“About what?”

Where to begin? I could have said.

“Something about Palestine.”

“Well, leave us out of it.”

A family photograph of Dudum's grandfather. (Image credit: Courtesy of Elena Dudum)

After we hung up, I received a text from him about his collection of magazines, which I had continued asking about.

I shared them with you. No one else is likely to ever look at them. They’re yours.

I took this to mean that whatever I was working on, I should keep going.

In a folder titled “Palestine Old Magazines & Dad’s Book Excerpts,” I found hundreds of scanned documents going back to 1783. His collection circled one idea: Palestine existed, Palestinians existed, and here was the proof that this land had never been empty. Like me, he was consumed by the question of whether Zionism could be considered a colonial project. His magazines, most of which were dated before 1948, outlined how the new Jewish population enjoyed its first taste of colonial enterprise. In a 1938 issue of LIFE magazine, one article read: “The Jews, a race supremely adaptable to city civilization, have taken on their first colonizing job in Palestine. They could not have picked a tougher spot to begin.” Another article read:

“The Jews who have succeeded in settling in Palestine have had to overcome fantastically difficult obstacles of climate and terrain as well as politics . . . By intensive agriculture and massive irrigation programs they have made Palestine’s arid soil bloom with vast citrus groves . . . But an even more courageous and dangerous job was the carving of small communal outposts out of hostile territory where guards, stockades and watchtowers are still necessary protection against Arab raiders.”

Across my father’s archive, the story was almost disarmingly simple. Headline after headline described the Jewish immigrants as colonizers, pioneers, or modernizers forging bright futures—efforts, the magazines claimed, financed by outside capital, particularly from the United States. The truth was laid bare in black and white decades before the world learned to call it “complicated.”

Palestine and its people were presented as a challenge to overcome. One magazine stated: “The Arabs are still struggling up from medievalism.” The language was unmistakable—half wonder, half warning. Palestine was described as a place of “wandering tribes” and “ancient customs.” The journalists who wrote about Palestine sounded like the missionaries and surveyors who once wrote about the American West. They were romantic when describing the land and dismissive when describing its people. To them, the Arabs there were both relics and obstacles, proof of what progress must replace. In some instances, the magazines countered their own accounts.

One issue called the settlers pioneers, the next called them terrorists. The tone shifted only when the bombs landed too close to the British, most notably after the King David Hotel bombing. Before 1948, journalists used the word “terrorist” freely to describe the Jewish underground—the Irgun, the Stern Gang, the Haganah—names printed in LIFE and TIME beside images of smoke and rubble and dismembered body parts. But once the state of Israel was declared, the language changed. Terrorism became liberation. The vocabulary flipped overnight, and history pretended not to notice.

In every sentence my father underlined, every word he highlighted, every exclamation point he scribbled in the margins, I saw myself. And there was the proof, all of it, right here.

In every sentence my father underlined, every word he highlighted, every exclamation point he scribbled in the margins, I saw myself.

Over the next few weeks, without fail, I’d receive a text from him, as if he sensed I was struggling to make my way through the collection: Elena, go through all the links I’ve sent you. It’s page by page for each book and article. Make the comparisons. There’s gold in that material. I’d thumbs-up the message and keep going. By now he had concluded I was writing about Palestine, aimlessly but writing, nonetheless. Though he had recently told me to stop.

“I don’t want you to write about Palestine, I never did,” he said one evening over the phone after I’d asked another question about his father. “You need to be careful.” As always, his mind went to the worst places. Murder, stalking, exile. As if we weren’t already in exile. He once asked me where I learned to catastrophize. I didn’t answer.

“Then why do you keep sending me this material?”

“I have information to share if you ask. It’s your call. But leave my father and me out of it,” he said before hanging up the phone. Every time he told me to stop, he’d text me another article or a memory of how he’d once felt as a young boy trying to engage with his refugee father. Bottom line, he texted me one afternoon, my father did not prepare me. So I went out of my way to prepare you. I never knew what to reply. Sometimes he would text me advice: 3 words 4 ur back pocket: Expansion, Occupation, Provocation. I’d like the message, letting him know I was still listening.

Other times he’d ask me how I was doing, and when I’d reply that I was tired, he would respond: keep writing.

In the spring of 2023, at an art gallery in Chinatown, I met another Palestinian. For years, these encounters had a way of jolting me out of myself, as if I’d come across a mirror. I always imagined other Palestinians would say something I couldn’t say to myself, words that might soothe the ache I felt each time I read a headline about another midnight raid in Gaza, another journalist shot to death, another village burned down.

But this kind of reunion rarely happened. Instead, the Palestinian man asked: “So when did you get angry?” Laughter tore out of me before I could catch it. By now, I’d barely been leaving my house except for the two days a week I needed to commute to Columbia and teach. I was still counting the dead in Palestine, refreshing databases to see the numbers climb month after month. I didn’t know where to start.

“I think I was born angry,” I said. “Why?”

“Because I think there comes a point in every Palestinian’s life where they become angry, and I’m always curious what tips them over the edge.”

I realized then I had lied. I wasn’t born angry, not about Palestine at least. I did have natural tendencies toward anger; my closest friends had grown used to my random primal screams, even when mued by a pillow. But the coals of Palestine, I hadn’t let those burn until recently. I’d been my own kind of occupying force.

I left the art gallery and texted my father. I wanted to know when he started collecting his magazines, where he found them, how he knew where to search. I’d been searching on Google for evidence like a novice. How long had he been piecing this all together, this small pile of history he knew no one cared about?

Years, he replied. I asked again how he found them.

Research. I dig deep. Every possible source.

I told him I was just curious to know what year he started. I wanted to know at what age he too got angry. Had he always been angry? Or was it after reading all of this, searching on eBay and in random used bookstores in Cork, Ireland, that he realized the size of his grief?

My thumbs hovered over my keyboard. I couldn’t ask him any of this. It was too earnest, and I didn’t want to become his therapist. So instead, I asked again what year he started collecting.

Please stop, leave me alone, he replied.

The coals of Palestine, I hadn’t let those burn until recently. I’d been my own kind of occupying force.

Palestine was following me everywhere. In the middle of the night, I’d wake up thinking I needed to call my friend Rayan, though there was no Rayan in my life. For the rest of the day, I’d walk into rooms and forget why I was there. Rayan, Rayan, I need to reach out to my friend Rayan, I kept thinking to myself. A line on a to-do list I could never cross out. It took me a week to realize the Rayan I had been thinking of was the little boy who’d died of a heart attack in front of Israeli soldiers.

On my walk to yoga, I noticed graffiti scribbled at the bottom of a lamppost: Free Palestine. Underneath, someone had added from Hamas, now crossed out and replaced with from Israel. On the subway, when I’d spot someone wearing a keffiyeh, I’d smile—only for them to look bewildered that I was making eye contact. I obviously needed to get out of the house more, so I joined a coworking space.

At The Center for Fiction in downtown Brooklyn, a British woman named Donna showed me around. She asked what I planned to work on at the Center. I told her it was something to do with Palestine. By now I’d stopped caring about the reactions to my disclosure. She gasped and shared how she had a friend who was Palestinian who recently found an old book with pictures of Jaffa’s orange groves.

“That’s a coincidence,” I said. “I’m actually trying to write about my family’s orange groves in Palestine.”

“You’re Palestinian?” she asked. I nodded.

“Bless you,” she replied. I was confused. I had not sneezed. When I looked at her, I saw she was crying. No. Not crying. Sobbing. I peered into the reading room beside us, hoping someone was catching this exchange.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she kept saying as I patted her on the back like she were a baby who needed to burp.

“It’s okay,” I repeated.

“It’s so awful what’s happening over there.” I agreed, it was awful.

She continued sobbing and apologizing. I wanted to tell her it was not the first time I’d consoled a white woman crying about Palestine. This was becoming a trend; Palestine was frequently in the news after Sheikh Jarrah. I had joked with friends that we were now a trending topic, that our cause was about to go mainstream. They never laughed as I had. Through it all, rarely was I the one to cry about Palestine, because what could I possibly cry about?

She asked how I was doing and I told her the truth. I was exhausted. I immediately regretted this. I should have told her I was gutted, devastated, unraveling. But it all felt meaningless.

“It’s okay, really, it’s okay,” I assured her again. I wasn’t sure what I was saying it’s okay for. That she cried in my presence, that I was taking care of her, or that I was not blaming her, this kind British woman, for the world’s utter lack of humanity? I thought about adding, It’s not like you did it! But that wasn’t exactly accurate in this context either.

“You’re stronger than me,” she said, drying the last of her tears. I smiled because it wasn’t strength. It was something primal. It was anger and compulsion and ache. Most often it was simply numbness.

From then on, every time I walked into The Center for Fiction, Donna would greet me with her sheepish smile, which I always returned. Frankly, there was something soothing about watching a white woman sob over Palestine. Someone had to. Though I quickly concluded I couldn’t continue my daily research on Palestine, counting the dead, amongst the living. I’d arrive in the morning ready to work, but after two hours of clicking from one database to the next, I needed a nap.

I decided a project would do me good, and that project was painting my room the perfect shade of sage green. In line at the hardware store, I noticed Arabic music blasting from the speakers. It was modern and hip, nothing like the old tracks I had heard repeated at family weddings. The man at the counter was bopping his head to the tune and singing along. I suddenly forgot why I was in line or how this was my third time spending money on paint.

“I like the music,” I said when I got to the front. He clacked away at his register.

“Where are you from?” I asked. He looked up from his paperwork and, without giving me a once-over, said, “I’m from Palestine.”

“Me too!” I gushed. “My grandparents were born there—Ramallah and Jaffa.” He kept sorting through his receipts. He was so assured, so certain, so uninterested in this conversation. I pressed on, “What about you?” He told me the name of his village, but all I heard was that it was in a refugee camp in Gaza, which he had escaped seven years earlier. I nodded, immediately ashamed of my life. I changed the subject and told him about my painting dilemma. I just can’t figure out which shade of green! Paint is so hard! What would you do—do you paint? I kept saying, following him down the aisles. I hated myself. It was clear he didn’t like me either, that he thought I was a spoiled Manhattan girl, and there was no use in correcting him because I am a spoiled American.

“Have you ever been back home?” he asked while packing up my purchases.

“Yes, I have”—I was still thinking about Gaza and how he used the word escape—“but it wasn’t what I thought it would be, or as beautiful. It was . . .” I paused, looking for the right word. “Sad.”

He smirked and shook his head, somehow disagreeing with the one thing I knew to be true of Palestine: that its precarious existence was, at the very least, sad.

“No,” he said, “back home is always beautiful.”

18 Feminist Thriller Novels to Read When Society Feels Like a Horror Show

Sophia June — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

There are a lot of scary things right now: Grocery prices, A.I.'s exponentially evolving capabilities, a looming El Niño winter, and countless horrors committed by our own government. But with Halloween coming up, it’s the perfect time to trade worldly fears for fictional ones—namely feminist thrillers, or page-turners that’ll leave you saying, “Good for her,” or speak to political-social issues in innovative ways.

Luckily, we have a list of heart-pounding nail-biters for you to sink your teeth into this chilly—and chilling—season. Read on for a list of must-read thriller novels spanning everything from dark academia to body horror, all centered on women: a murderous understudy, a femme fatale food critic, a CIA-trained sex worker, and a college dropout who will go to great lengths just to pay off her medical debt. (Relatable!)

Pantheon

'Another Name for Red' by Amber Blaeser Wardzala

Set against the backdrop of the real-life humanitarian crisis of thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women, this thriller follows a young Anishinaabe woman hellbent on finding out what happened to her missing sister.

Vintage

'Attic' by Katherine Dunn

After cashing a bad check from a customer to whom she’s sold a magazine subscription, Kay is thrown in jail. What follows is a claustrophobic, stream-of-consciousness exploration of the cell where she’s held, and all the other people locked up with her.

Fitzcarraldo Editions

'The Birthday Party' by Laurent Mauvignier, translated by Daniel Levin Becker

This slim French tome takes place over the course of a single day in rural France, where a man plans a surprise party for his wife’s 40th birthday, when strange, nightmarish events start to encroach on the sleepy hamlet.

SCRIBNER

'Bright Young Women' by Jessica Knoll

Inspired by Ted Bundy’s murders, this true crime novel centers on the survivors of a deadly attack on a sorority house in 1978. Decades later, they join forces with a woman convinced her missing friend was a victim of the same man to seek answers.

G.P. Putnam's Sons

'Carrying' by Samantha Josephs

Everyone is about to be talking about this unhinged body horror debut—soon to be adapted into a film by Tommy Dorfman’s production company—about Martha, a stealth trans woman who, against all odds, becomes pregnant.

The Unnamed Press

'A Certain Hunger' by Chelsea G. Summers

This gruesome, scintillating, and delectable debut follows a femme fatale food critic with a taste for the finer things in life: food, sex, oh, and plunging an ice pick into a man’s neck on Fire Island.

Penguin

'A Dark-Adapted Eye' by Ruth Rendell, writing as Barbara Vine

This best-known work by the renowned British mystery author Ruth Rendell is a terrifying family saga. It follows Faith Severn, whose aunt Vera was hanged for a crime she committed. When a journalist comes searching for the truth of the crime 30 years later, Faith must reconsider an image she has tried to forget: Her aunt, with a knife in hand, walking into a child's nursery.

Riverhead Books

'Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead' by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Winner of the Nobel Prize, this internationally celebrated murder mystery is set in a remote Polish village, where animal-loving recluse Janina looks after the summer homes of the wealthy. When Big Foot, a neighbor, turns up dead and bodies start being discovered, she’s determined to help figure out who did it—but nobody will listen to her.

Grand Central Publishing

'Fledgling' by Octavia Butler

In Octavia Butler’s groundbreaking first novel, a young amnesiac realizes she's a 53-year-old genetically modified vampire. Whether you’ve yet to dive into the master of Afrofuturistic, feminist sci-fi and horror, or you’ve read her hits, you’ll be wowed by her prose and inventive storytelling in her debut.

Amistad

'Lakewood' by Megan Giddings

This page-turning thriller takes inspiration from the real-life horror of medical experimentation on Black bodies. In this modern take, Lena Johnson must pay off a mountain of debt after her grandmother’s death, so she takes a mysterious job in Lakewood, Michigan, where she’s highly paid to test foreboding medicines.

Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster

'Murder Bimbo' by Rebecca Novack

Catherine Lacey described this breakneck work as “Gone Girl for the Luigi Mangione era.” In this fresh take on the assassin thriller, a 32-year-old sex worker is tapped to assassinate a politician, only to realize they picked her because the government sees her as disposable. What is there to do but seek revenge on an investigative podcast?

Harper

'Penance' by Eliza Clark

A psychological thriller about the brutal murder of a 16-year-old girl in a coastal British town and the disgraced journalist who, a decade later, writes a so-called definitive account. Only, we’re left questioning what is real and what is fabricated.

Back Bay Books

'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier

This classic Gothic horror novel follows a nameless young bride whose life changes when she moves into Manderley, a sprawling estate haunted by her new husband’s deceased wife: Rebecca.

Blackstone Publishing

'Rosemary’s Baby' by Ira Levin

In one of the rare instances where the film is just as good as the book (it’s basically a frame-for-frame remake!), Rosemary’s Baby is the quintessential feminist horror that’s not only about motherhood, but about the lengths Rosemary will go to keep a good apartment in N.Y.C.—even if it means spawning the devil himself.

Ballantine Books

'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt

Vintage Classics

'The Talented Mr Ripley' by Patricia Highsmith

Even if you’ve seen the iconic film adaptation, you still won’t be able to guess what’s coming in this best-in-class mystery about an effeminate orphan turned murderous grifter on the run.

Modern Library

'Tokyo Express' by Seichō Matsumoto, translated by Jesse Kirkwood

From an acclaimed writer deemed the Agatha Christie of Japan, this classic mystery was first published in 1958. The haunting story kicks off when the bodies of a couple are found in a rocky cove; signs point to cyanide poisoning, but two detectives sense there’s more to the story, and they’re determined to unravel it.

Knopf

'The Understudy' by Morgan Richter

Kit is getting her big break in the world of N.Y.C. opera with a role in an adaptation of the 1960 film Barberella—at least until her understudy, Yolanda, tries to usurp it. When a murder rattles the production and threatens her chance at a leading performance, Kit realizes just how far she's willing to go.

Bonnie Garmus Got Angry About A.I.—So She Wrote Another Zany Novel

Sadie Bell — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

In this author-curated rendition, Bonnie Garmus—the author of the bestselling hit Lessons in Chemistry—shares her favorite books set in N.Y.C.

Bonnie Garmus taught herself the ins and outs of chemistry to write what became her bestselling debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry. For her highly anticipated follow-up, the copywriter-turned-author researched something just as complex: Poetry.

“I thought [it] would be easy, but [it] was every bit as complicated as chemistry,” Garmus tells Marie Claire.

Falling down a rabbit hole about the literary art form helped craft Peck & Peck, a dizzying, delightful novel set in Manhattan publishing circa 1982. The book, which hit shelves on October 13, follows Batter Gray, a recent college graduate who lands a dream gig at the renowned (and very chaotic) poetry magazine Peck & Peck.

Throughout the novel, Batter encounters an eccentric cast of characters—including the competitive twins who serve as joint editors-in-chief—and his ambition is put to the test. But at its helm, Peck & Peck is an optimistic story about the preservation of art and originality. These themes have long stuck with Garmus, who published Lessons in Chemistry just before turning 65.

Scribner

'Peck & Peck' by Bonnie Garmus

"I did hope to write a novel, but I also kept running into this one really annoying problem: doing it," Garmus reflects. "Most novelists write on the side; that was true for me too. But I was also working full-time as a copywriter, and after writing all day, I really didn’t feel like writing at night. But that’s how you do it—you write in the cracks in the day. Hope is just another word for persistence."

She explains that one hope that has been on her mind—and inspired her new release—is that creativity will continue to be valued in the age of AI. "Agents and editors aren’t looking for an AI voice—they’re looking for your voice. But AI buries your voice and makes you a plagiarist in the process. The strangest thing about it: you’re stealing from the very people you want to become. And worse, the world will never know what it was you had to say."

With that in mind, the author curated a list of her favorite one-of-a-kind books set in New York, from coming-of-age memoirs to other moving bestsellers about aspiring writers.

Back Bay Books

'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt

"Theo Decker loses his mother in a terrorist attack at the Metropolitan Museum in N.Y.C. and at the behest of an old man, takes her favorite painting, “The Goldfinch” from the rubble. A bildungsroman, the book is about the price of loyalty and the pain of unimaginable loss."

Vintage

'Bright Lights, Big City' by Jay McInerney

"A young man in N.Y.C. whose life takes a downward turn when his job as a fact-checker at an important magazine leaves him with an overriding sense of failure. But when his perfect wife leaves him, things get much worse. On a downward spiral of self-destruction, he must soon reckon with the superficiality of his choices."

Riverhead Books

'Trust' by Hernan Diaz

"Where there’s wealth, there’s deceit, and in this book, the author cautions us that those we put our trust in, whether it be financial, emotional, or professional, may not themselves be trustworthy. A fascinating exploration of human power, desire, fragility, and capitalism."

Vintage

'Sophie’s Choice' by William Styron

"The young Stingo is fired from his boring job at a publishing company in Manhattan and moves to a boarding house in Brooklyn where meets and falls in love with Sophie, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. But she’s already involved with the charismatic Nathan, a brilliant cellular biologist who isn’t quite what he seems. A devastating book of love and loss in the most traumatic of circumstances."

Ecco

'Just Kids' by Patti Smith

"Patti Smith moves to N.Y.C. in the 1970s and meets Robert Mapplethorpe; true chemistry results. They eventually take up residence in the Chelsea Hotel and not only meet and learn from the most creative of minds but become standout artists themselves. One of the best explorations of what it takes to be an artist, these pages sing with rebellion, recklessness, love, and commitment."

Simon & Schuster

'Livonia Chow Mein' by Abigail Savitch-Lew

"A Chinese family-owned restaurant in Brooklyn burns to the ground, killing one and displacing others. All fingers point at Mr. Wong, but it is a century of Wong family history that provides an extraordinary trail that weaves through the Black and Jewish neighborhood defined by accusation and misunderstanding. An amazing story of what living in harmony actually takes."

Seal Press

'Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York,' edited by Sari Botton

"Writers are drawn to N.Y.C. like no other city, and this insightful book of essays explores why. From the promise of potential to the excitement of chaos, they live the writer’s life with gusto. But eventually they must square the dream with the reality: excessive rent and never-ending noise. A great read."

16 Novels to Read If You Love Classic Literature and Complex Antiheroines

Sophia June — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Netflix recently released an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s heart-wrenching classic East of Eden. Helmed by Zoe Kazan, the miniseries remains relatively faithful to the source material and memorable piece of American literature—though it reframes its notorious villain, Cathy Ames. Whatever you may think of Cathy or star Florence Pugh’s unforgettable performance, she’s hardly the only antiheroine from the literary canon.

Since East of Eden was released on October 1, it’s already bolstered sales of the 1952 book. Whether you’re also revisiting the novel for the first time since it was part of your curriculum or adding it to your stack for the first time, you may as well add a few other classics to your TBR list. We rounded up several underrated classic novels also featuring flawed female characters, most of which are written by women—because, thankfully, women have always behaved badly.

'Villette' by Charlotte Brontë (1853)

Even more critically acclaimed than Jane Eyre at the time of its release, Brontë’s most autobiographical novel follows Lucy Snowe, a peculiar young woman who flees her English home after a family tragedy to make a life for herself in France.

Bantam Classics

'The Awakening' by Kate Chopin (1899)

This early American feminist novel follows 28-year-old Edna Pontellier, a Louisiana wife who, after learning to swim and meeting a man, refuses to stay home and be a mother. Instead, she takes up painting, which, naturally, leads everyone around her to think she’s fallen ill.

Penguin

'The House of Mirth' by Edith Wharton (1905)

This comedy of manners takes on the jaded wealth of 1920s N.Y.C., following 29-year-old socialite Lily Bart as she tries to find a husband amidst the newly rich rail and shipping tycoons. That is, until she’s accused of being the mistress of a wealthy man, and the book’s real tragedy comes to the forefront.

Majosta

'Plum Bun' by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1928)

Redmon Fauset called her classic Harlem Renaissance novel a “novel without morals.” In it, a light-skinned Black woman moves from Philadelphia to N.Y.C., where she decides to pass as white to pursue a career as a painter. Meanwhile, her sister, who has darker skin, stays in Philadelphia and proudly embraces her identity.

New Directions

'Nightwood' by Djuna Barnes, 1936

This novel captures the peacetime between World Wars I and II in Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, following an unforgettable crew, including a woman who cheats on her husband with a series of female lovers and a trans gynecologist.

W. W. Norton & Company

'Good Morning, Midnight' by Jean Rhys (1939)

A young woman tries to escape the tragedy of the death of her newborn and the dissolution of her marriage in a series of cheap Paris hotel rooms, where she takes sleeping pills and resolves to dye her hair blonde.

New Directions

'Near to the Wild Heart' by Clarice Lispector (1943)

Published in Brazil when Lispector was only 23—and earning her the nickname “Hurricane Clarice”—this novel takes shape as the interior monologue of a young woman named Joana, tracing her middle-class childhood through her unhappy marriage.

Vintage Classics

'The Makioka Sisters' by Junichiro Tanizaki (1948)

Set in 1930s Osaka ahead of World War II, this story of a prominent family in decline is a pillar of Japanese literature, featuring four sisters who are as lovable as they are flawed.

Penguin Classics

'The End of the Affair' by Graham Greene (1951)

Graham Greene’s juicy, heartbreaking novel is about the rise and fall, and complicated aftermath, of a love affair in World War II London. The object of the narrator’s obsession is Sarah, a woman who lives exactly according to her own desires, much to the pain of the men around her.

New York Review of Books

'Angel' by Elizabeth Taylor (1957)

Set in England at the turn of the century, Angel is a piercing satire of a schoolgirl who dreams of becoming wealthy. When she turns her imagination into a bestselling book, her fantasy starts to become real.

Penguin Random House

'The Best of Everything' by Rona Jaffe (1958)

The ultimate N.Y.C. workplace novel follows four working girls in 1950s Manhattan, as they gossip, gallivant, and navigate messy relationships in and outside of the office.

Penguin Classics

'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' by Shirley Jackson (1962)

This masterfully creepy Gothic classic follows Merricat Blackwood, who practices witchcraft and lives on her family estate with her elderly uncle Julian and sister Constance, who has recently been acquitted of killing the rest of the family with arsenic.

DAUNT BOOKS

'Cassandra at the Wedding' by Dorothy Baker (1962)

Good news for those already missing Florence Pugh on screen: She’ll soon star in the adaptation of this witty, strange, and unnerving classic. The book follows Cassandra, a lesbian grad student hellbent on sabotaging her identical twin sister’s wedding. (Flo’s also playing the sister!)

Harper Perennial Modern Classics

'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath’s first and last novel follows Esther Greenwood, an ambitious, lonely, and depressed young woman coming of age in the 1950s while grieving her father’s death and lamenting looming expectations of marriage and children. When she starts receiving electroshock therapy, it only drives her deeper into madness.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

'Play It As It Lays' by Joan Didion (1970)

Joan Didion’s most arresting and raw work traces the undoing of Maria Wyeth, a failed actress institutionalized in a psych ward, who recounts everything that got her there: a sick newborn, an affair and subsequent abortion, and long days driving on L.A. highways.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

'Fish Tales' by Nettie Jones (1984)

Written by Toni Morrison’s longtime editor, Fish Tales is a glamorous party-girl novel set in 1970s New York and Detroit, following champagne-guzzling Lewis Jones, whose life is upended by a handsome man. Who amongst us?!

24 Books Out in October You Absolutely Need to Read

Sophia June — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

October means a chill up your spine, the crunch of leaves under boots, and a blanket on the couch—and of course the books that hit shelves this month are made to match. Whether it’s the dark academia of Solace House or the horrors of a staticky screen in Public Access Underworld, or even the liminal space of being trapped in an airport with your estranged father in Passengers, we’ve got you covered. And for those who aren’t looking to be chilled to the bone, we also have a collection of dizzying coming-of-age stories like Scene City and The Brightness. Read on for our picks of the best must-read books coming out in October 2026.

The Best, New Books Coming in October 2026

The Best Fiction Coming in October 2026

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

'The Names of the New World' by Kawai Strong Washburn

Release date: October 6

In this climate disaster saga, a superstorm demolishes Minneapolis. In its wake, an unlikely alliance forms between Naomi, a lawyer/MMA fighter; Amaré, an investment banker; and Raheem, a mechanic. Their lives become intertwined as Naomi uncovers the evil corporate forces behind the storms, which threaten both her new relationship with Amaré and Raheem’s business.

William Morrow

'The Occidental Book of the Dead' by T. Geronimo Johnson

Release date: October 6

This wild new crime masterpiece follows George Washington Jonson, a Black cop in Atlanta in the early 1990s. When Jonson, who married a white woman and inherited a white stepson, has a run-in one night with a white teenager in an affluent suburb that turns violent, the veneer of his life starts to crack. So does the narrative, sawing in two a complicated, decade-spanning story about race, trauma, and America.

Harper

'Partita' by Barbara Kingsolver

Release date: October 6

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Demon Copperhead comes a story about first loves. The moving, prismatic novel follows Livia Cable, who has a husband and makes a modest living, but was once a pianist at a prestigious music conservatory. It’s a life that sat squarely in her past—until she receives a phone call from her former lover that causes her to revisit the affair that determined the course of her life.

University of Iowa Press

'Prairie Oyster' by Sophie Robinson

Release date: October 6

This bold, beautiful, laid-bare novel of obsession and addiction follows Pearl, a 30-something filmmaker who trades her drinking problem for a romance problem when she gets the chance to interview her favorite lesbian cult filmmaker Mitch Meyer—trading London for a summer together in New York. To further complicate her own addiction issues, she’s been working for years on a film about starlet Veronica Lake, the starlet who drank herself to death.

Simon & Schuster

'Vagablonde' by Anna Dorn

Release date: October 6

Before Anna Dorn was the acclaimed author of Perfume and Pain, a favorite of Lana Del Rey-vaping sapphics everywhere, she wrote Vagablonde, originally published in 2020. Now, it’s being rereleased, proving itself to be an ahead-of-its-time, dazzling gem of everything she writes best: Southern California, fame, psychotropic medications, and virgos. The novel follows Prue, a 30-year-old attorney with a good job and a good girlfriend—but what she really wants is to be a successful rap artist. When she meets a music producer and joins a collective that quickly catapults her to cult status, her dream begins to threaten everything.

Transit Books

'Vaim Hotel' by Jon Fosse, translated from Norwegian by Damion Searls

Release date: October 6

This strange triptych from a Nobel Prize winner follows a man who visits a hotel in a remote Norwegian fishing village. As his belongings vanish, he accepts that he has no way to pay or leave, so he continues to stay with Brita, the inn’s proprietor and only other inhabitant. The stripped-down prose is uncanny, beautiful, and essential as the condition of being human.

Mariner

'Her Kind' by Sophie Lefens

Release date: October 13

A woman invites her three closest friends: an unemployed seamstress, a gentle violinist, and a serious painter, for a weekend at her crumbling lakeside home to determine who would care for her son if she dies, in this contemplative debut novel about friendship, motherhood, memory, and the paralyzing fear of losing someone you love.

Knopf

'Luna, Phoenix, Queen' by Julie Orringer

Release date: October 13

An intricate, juicy story about love, art, and betrayal, this novel follows Midwestern university professor Dava Pennington, who is in love with her Russian studies colleague Svetlana White. The obsession inspires her new lesbian novel—that is, until early-onset Alzheimer's forces her into memory care and her husband Barr finds the manuscript and publishes it in his name. Spanning four decades and multiple viewpoints, it’s the story of what it really means to be together, in sickness and in health.

Europa Editions

'Passengers' by Alexander Maksik

Release date: October 13

Longlisted for the National Book Award, this wholly absorbing novel is about a father and daughter trapped in the ultimate liminal space: LAX. They pass the time doing what they’ve been unable to for so long: Talking. But once they’ve probed and healed some of their wounds, it becomes increasingly clear that something is wrong—and what started as a chance to reconnect becomes an urgent quest to escape.

SCRIBNER

'Peck & Peck' by Bonnie Garmus

Release date: October 13

For her second novel, the bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry turned her attention to N.Y.C. in 1982. When recent poetry grad Batter Gray joins the staff of the prestigious, chaotic poetry journal Peck & Peck, he finds himself in the middle of a feud between the two Editors-in-Chief, who also happen to be twin brothers.

Verso

'Scene City' by Róisín Tapponi

Release date: October 13

This fizzy debut novel follows Romy, an art history student who barrels into London's commercial art world as she explores the balance of chaos and stability, hedonism and self-destruction, and decadence and depravity—asking the crucial questions of a certain age, like in a quest for meaning, what matters most?

Grove Press

'Solace House' by Will Maclean

Release date: October 13

Dark academia meets haunted house horror in this gripping novel about a group of university students who discover a series of strange journals while clearing out Solace House, a dilapidated Victorian mansion. The journals lay out a theory of another realm—and instructions for reaching it.

The Unnamed Press

'Stories, Like Illnesses' by James Elkins

Release date: October 20

In the third volume of James Elkins’ Five Strange Languages—fans of which include Jacob Elordi—biologist Samuel Emmer attempts to focus on the people around him: the memory of his grieving mother, a potential romance with a crystal-loving co-worker, and his successful older brother. But despite his best efforts, mushrooms, crystals, and comets divert his mind and the text, threatening to vanish Emmer himself.

LITTLE, BROWN

'The Brightness' by Chad Harbach

Release date: October 27

Chad Harbach’s long-awaited follow-up to his best-selling debut, The Art of Fielding, masterfully captures the dazzling ennui of being in your 20s. The novel follows Pella and Irma, two best friends at a Midwestern college whose once-optimistic futures are totally derailed in this charming portrait of the promise and pain of coming of age.

Hogarth

'Public Access Afterworld' by Jane Schoenbrun

Release date: October 27

Jane Schoenbrun is the mega-mind behind the highly original, totally engrossing films I Saw the TV Glow and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Now, the filmmaker takes us deeper into their brain in their first novel. Cinematic and profound, this work of speculative horror traces the strange phenomenon of Public Access Afterworld, a pirated TV network that drives a weatherman to on-air suicide, changes the lives of two teenagers who become obsessed with the surreal broadcast, and eventually makes a hero out of a trans content moderator who becomes desperate to unravel the mystery of the strange network.

The Best Poetry Collections Coming in October 2026

Counterpoint

'Red Ants' by Kimberly Blaeser

Release date: October 6

You’re about to see this collection of intimate stories from renowned Anishinaabe poet everywhere; it has already been long-listed for the National Book Award. The collection takes inspiration from traditional tribal stories and weaves in the contemporary, highlighting an Indigenous America of jumping rope on the rez, fancy dog contests, social protests, and tree doctors.

Astra House

'To God' by Esther Yi

Release date: October 13

Esther Yi’s surreal first novel Y/N took on K-pop; now, her debut short story collection taps the existential. In this highly original, hard-to-classify collection of short stories, she taps a well of philosophical loneliness, capturing the bleakness of modernity, societal decay, what it means to fail at what you want—as well as where to find God in it all.

Small Harbor Publishing

'Lithic: A Hyperballad' by Caleb Nichols

Release date: October 1

Queer eco-poetry meets Björk in this poetry collection inspired by California’s central coast and North Wales. Caleb Nichols makes the collection even more ambitious by the simultaneous release of Stone Age Is Now, a spoken-word album that interpolates poems with indie-rock compositions.

Knopf

'Cameo Appearance' by Mary Jo Salter

Release date: October 6

Rippling with warmth, Mary Jo Salter’s ninth poetry collection is filled with her signature dark humor and penchant for capturing mundane profoundities. Whether it’s a single tear frozen at high altitude or your grandmother’s cameo ring finally fitting your finger, she makes you pay attention.

Nightboat Books

'The Hummingbird' by Matt Longabucco

Release date: October 13

Matt Longabucco's flitting, heart-thumping poetry collection explores the inertia of being alive and the hunger to be everywhere, from riverbanks and dive bars to deserted libraries and even your own coffin.

The Best Nonfiction and Books of Essays Coming in October 2026

Ecco

'We Radiant Things' by Franny Choi

Release date: October 6

A collection of essays from the celebrated poet excavates sci-fi representations of Asian femmes and what they say about race, gender, and sexuality. Charting the 2014 film Ex-Machina, which features a Japanese maid-robot named Kyoko, to other notable cyborgs with the faces of East Asian women, Choi combines her own diasporic Korean life with cultural criticism and critical theory.

Graywolf Press

'There's a Monster in the Lake' by Laura Fernández, translated from Spanish by Alexis Almeida

Release date: October 6

Laura Fernández’s witty, probing, and slim dispatch from the Scottish Highlands takes on the enduring myth of the Loch Ness monster and what it says about humanity.

Little Brown and Company

'Our Arab' by Zaina Arafat

Release date: October 20

From the award-winning author of the novel You Exist Too Much comes an emotional, lyrical, and very smart collection of essays chronicling with joy and righteous anger, what it means to be Palestinian today.

A24

'The Encyclopedia of Movie Cats: An A-Z of Felines on Screen'

Release date: October 26

From Puss in Boots to Holly Golightly’s orange tabby—whose real name was “Orangey”—cats have always been movie stars. Now, A24 is honoring the silver screen’s cutest working actors with a book featuring 1,900 film stills, plus essays on cinematic cat tropes and the history of cats in film.

Before Acting Became My Safe Haven, I Found It in a Chinese Restaurant

Ming-Na Wen — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Actress Ming-Na Wen is known for breaking barriers in Hollywood for Asian-American performers with her roles in The Joy Luck Club, E.R., and as the voice of the titular character in Mulan. But she'll always consider "restaurant daughter" one of her most important roles.

Wen grew up spending time in and eventually working at her family's restaurant, the Chinatown Inn in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Still operating today, it's considered a historic landmark for being the only remaining establishment from Pittsburgh's original Chinatown.

Because food has always been integral to the Star Wars actress' life, she's sharing her favorite recipes and the stories behind them in a new memoir/cookbook, Have You Eaten Yet?. As the book hits shelves, Wen has shared an exclusive excerpt with Marie Claire about her immigrant story and finding a second home in the Chinatown Inn.

When I was around 5, my mother met a man from America who would become my father—Soo Lim Yee. They met at a dinner party while he was visiting Hong Kong on a business trip. He was smitten. They began a long-distance relationship, writing flowery love letters to each other. They would meet up for dinners whenever he flew to Hong Kong. After a couple of years of courtship, he helped sponsor our move to the United States.

One morning, when I was about 7, my mother woke Jun and me up early and said we were going out. That was it. No details on where we were headed. Next thing I know, we were getting onto an airplane. Never having been on a plane or visited the airport before, I thought, Ohh, this is fun! Soon after takeoff, my mother told me we were moving to America. “What? What’s America?” I asked her.

Once we were there, life opened up in surprising ways. When we first arrived, we stayed in Brooklyn with my stepfather’s friends. There were so many new sights and sounds that I was overwhelmed, but I adapted as quickly as I could. What helped to ease me into America’s way of life? Pizza. One of my favorite new foods was New York pizza. We’d never had cheese before, and, in fact, my mom still doesn’t like cheese, with the exception of having it on a slice of New York pizza. Go figure. What is it about the magic of a good New York slice? It’s a universal comfort food!

S&S/Simon Element

'Have You Eaten Yet?' by Ming-Na Wen

We stayed in Astoria for about three years before moving to Pittsburgh to be with my stepfather and join him in running his restaurant, the Chinatown Inn. At first, we lived above the restaurant, and then my parents bought a small house in Mount Lebanon where I enrolled at Jefferson Junior High School for sixth grade. I went from a big city where I had friends, an urban lifestyle, and the diversity of New York City to . . . well, white suburbia. I imported all my New York attitude and energy in my 4'11" body. Being one of, if not the only, Asian people at that school with a very Chinese name, I attracted some unfriendly sorts who made fun of me for how I looked or what my name sounded like. I was bullied. But I was a tough New Yorker, so I responded with a threat: “You want to settle this? I’ll meet you after school!” Those innocent, sheltered suburban kids would give me a confused look and ask, “What do you mean? Meet you where?” I’m sure I wasn’t very intimidating with my baby face and small self, but no one met me after school, either. (Perhaps that was my first inspiration for Mulan, Agent May, and all the other tough warrior women roles I would go on to portray in my acting career!) But we eventually settled into our life in Pittsburgh—my mother started to work in the restaurant, and the Chinatown Inn became a second home to me, as well as my part-time job. That place shaped my youth.

Even now, I can close my eyes and return to the bustle of that kitchen—the controlled chaos, the clatter of dishes, the constant hum of diners. The red-and-green pagoda entrance. The blinking neon sign. The clang of the cash register. The bustling bar. The pristine white tablecloths, which were always stained with a bit of soy sauce or stray grains of rice before they were swapped out for fresh ones. And always, at the end of the meal: a fortune cookie. The quintessential symbol of the Chinese American restaurant experience. American diners mostly ordered the classics: chow mein, fried rice, General Tso’s chicken, shrimp with lobster sauce, our massive (not skimpy!) egg rolls. And our famous wonton soup. We made the stock fresh every morning using high-quality chicken and neck bones, simmering everything into a rich, clear, amber broth. My dad always said: Good ingredients make good food. Good food keeps the customers coming back, which is why I believe the Chinatown Inn is the only remaining business from the original Chinatown in downtown Pittsburgh. Our success story and longevity started with the basics. I’ve found that to be true in life, too—what you put in is what you get out.

Even now, I can close my eyes and return to the bustle of that kitchen.

The first time that I became interested in acting was in an Easter play in the third grade while we were still in New York. I was one of the bunny rabbits. My English was still a work in progress, and being a bunny rabbit (I played “Stumpy”) meant I probably had the fewest lines. I remember coming on stage and tripping because I had big bunny feet, and people laughed. Instead of being embarrassed, I loved the reaction that I got, and I thought, I want to do this forever! The acting bug bit me.

Growing up in Pittsburgh, the theater was a safe haven for me—I got to be with people of like minds, who were just the funniest, most intelligent, creative, and passionate people. We had a great training program at Mount Lebanon High School, and to this day, it's still incredible.

During my senior year of high school, I applied to Carnegie Mellon University because it had a great drama program and was in Pittsburgh, which made things easier. I knew I would go to New York City for the theater scene after college, so I figured this was a way I could spend four more years near my parents before pursuing my dreams to make it on Broadway. I didn’t know I actually had to audition to be accepted into the drama program. I went into the audition thinking they just wanted to see where my skill levels were. I did my monologues. I did improv scenes. I was having a great time! I found out later that all my classmates were terribly nervous during the audition process. It wasn’t until I got an acceptance letter saying “Congratulations. We loved your audition. We've accepted you into the freshman program” that it hit me. I didn’t apply to any other colleges, so it was a good thing that I did well enough to be accepted!

Over 70 Years Later, Cathy Ames From 'East of Eden' Is Still Too Complex for Audiences

Abby Monteil — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 14:29:18 +0000

This story contains extensive spoilers for East of Eden. Netflix’s East of Eden miniseries opens with a striking proclamation from Florence Pugh’s Cathy Ames: “I believe there are monsters born in this world to human parents.”

Readers will recognize this from John Steinbeck’s novel as the line that introduces Cathy, one of American literature’s most notorious antagonists. The book’s narrator, a fictionalized version of Steinbeck, doesn’t hide his derision of Cathy, going so far as to remark that “there was a time when a girl like Cathy would have been said to be possessed by the devil.” Steinbeck’s frontier-era epic retells the Bible’s Book of Genesis, making Cathy function as a living embodiment of original sin.

Yet from the beginning of Zoe Kazan’s new adaptation, it’s clear that this Cathy won’t be depicted only as monstrous, an alluring snake lurking at the edges of this familial epic’s version of Eden. This time, she is its focal driving force. Kazan places Steinbeck’s words in Cathy’s own mouth, spoken in voiceover as she drags her beaten, bloodied body to the Trask family’s doorstep. Her arrival further divides brothers Adam (Christopher Abbott) and Charles (Mike Faist), whose ongoing family turmoil forms the backbone of the novel’s sweeping explorations of generational inheritance and self-determination. Ironically, the backlash to Kazan expanding Cathy’s character says more about the black-and-white moralization audiences have come to expect of modern storytelling than East of Eden itself.

Actress/filmmaker Zoe Kazan adapted East of Eden into a seven-part miniseries—following in the footsteps of her grandfather Elia Kazan, who directed the 1955 movie. (Image credit: Geoffrey Short/Netflix)

For all Netflix’s attempts to market Cathy as an “indelible antihero,” her actions thankfully aren’t watered down or justified. She still murders her own parents (Simon Maiden and Elizabeth Ames), shoots her husband, and kills brothel owner Faye (Martha Plimpton) to run it ruthlessly in her place. Cathy rejects and downright sneers at the novel’s central theme, “timshel”: the idea that everyone has the capacity to be good to themselves and to others, regardless of the circumstances they’re born into.

Kazan and co. devote multiple episodes to her character, dwelling on moments that shaped her own relationship to “timshel.” That’s not to say all of these moments are elegantly done; a flashback in which Cathy’s father proclaims she’s his property and a later monologue in which she lays out the financial freedom she attains through sex work are overly on the nose and clash with the series’ naturalistic, period-accurate dialogue. But even if Cathy is a sociopathic character with no sense of morality, as Steinbeck considers, her worldview is nonetheless one informed by the misogynistic violence that came with being a woman at the turn of the 20th century.

“I think [Cathy’s] viewpoint that the world is bad, that the world is fully evil and folly makes her isolate herself more and more,” Kazan recently told WWD. “She never gains trust in any other person. I think that, for me, was the key to unlocking how an insistence on self-determination can become toxic to herself.”

Cathy (Florence Pugh) tells Adam (Christopher Abbott) that she will leave him and their sons, though he does not believe her until it's too late. (Image credit: Netflix)

Cathy’s disinterest in motherhood, too, is framed through a distinctly modern perspective. Sure, her rejection of her sons ultimately unleashes another instance of Cain-and-Abel-like strife within the next generation of Trask brothers. Wisely, though, Netflix’s East of Eden doesn’t cast her lack of desire for motherhood in a positive or negative light. Unlike in 1952, when Steinbeck’s novel was published, being an unfit or ambivalent mother isn’t an instant sign of evil, but much more complicated. In another scene pulled straight from the book, in which a doctor threatens to prosecute Cathy after she nearly bleeds out from a botched abortion attempt, her actions aren’t presented as devilish—if anything, they’re devastatingly relevant.

Predictably, as soon as promotional materials for the Netflix adaptation debuted with Cathy front and center, discourse quickly followed. I sympathized with some—I also hoped that, by centering Cathy, this East of Eden wouldn’t try to redeem her or diminish her actions to make her “likable.” But others took issue with the show’s decision to focus on Cathy, period.

The backlash to Kazan expanding Cathy’s character says more about the black-and-white moralization audiences have come to expect of modern storytelling than 'East of Eden' itself.

“Cathy is a sociopath who ruins the lives of everyone around her,” one person commented on the show’s teaser trailer. “She is NOT the main character, and to make her ‘misunderstood’ or sympathetic is against everything Steinbeck wrote.”

After East of Eden’s release, some viewers have walked away with competing takes: that in making Cathy sympathetic in any way, the series is wrongfully making people assume she isn’t a villain; or that because Cathy is an assault survivor and a woman who couldn’t access an abortion, she isn’t a monster but a victim of her surroundings.

Paradoxically, refusing to acknowledge the nuances of Cathy’s character disregards “timshel,” which is predicated on choice. (Even East of Eden’s narrator, who initially describes Cathy as evil from birth, later admits that he isn’t positive she is a monster, adding, “It is easy to say she was bad, but there is little meaning unless we know why.”) East of Eden draws inspiration from the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel, but it is hardly a straightforward moral fable. As villainous as Cathy can be, Steinbeck understood that people are too complicated to be defined as simply good or evil—a reality that the Netflix adaptation builds upon.

Steinbeck wrote, "When I said Cathy was a monster it seemed to me that it was so. Now I have bent nose with a glass over the small print of her and reread the footnotes, and I wonder if it was true." (Image credit: Kirsty Griffin/Netflix)

Of course, conversations about the ethics of enjoying media are nothing new. Whether cultural anxieties over reemergent conservatism and misinformation are stoking fear that media literacy is dead, or audiences are really struggling to dissect complexities more than ever, the issue remains: Too many of us expect fictional stories to have clear heroes and villains whose actions are cleanly rewarded or punished by the end. Within this black-and-white binary, any central character must be the hero, and the writers must endorse their actions. This year alone, some have assumed that Yesteryear author Caro Claire Burke shares the views of her novel’s unreliable tradwife protagonist, that we’re meant to feel sorry for Obsession’s Bear because he’s the lead character, and that Primetime director Lance Oppenheim is sympathetic to child predators because he criticized To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen’s complicity in a subject’s death by suicide. It’s no wonder that an iconic villain like Cathy is so emblematic of audiences’ inability to contend with more complicated themes.

Although East of Eden’s musings on human nature are universal, its existence as an American reimagining of the Bible befits a country whose culture has never fully disentangled itself from its Puritanical roots. It’s uncomfortable to face the fact that some modern viewers are as afraid to acknowledge the nuance of Cathy and other multi-dimensional female villains as many readers were when the book was first released. It’s a shame that this rigid sense of morality still keeps audiences from engaging with the richness of a story like East of Eden. They’d do well to take one of its most famous quotes to heart: “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”

Penguin

'East of Eden' by John Steinbeck

What It's Like to Go Through Disney Channel Media Training

Christy Carlson Romano — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

By the time Christy Carlson Romano was 6-years-old, she was already working full-time as an actress in the ensemble of various Broadway national tours. She booked her first film roles in middle school, and by her teens, co-starred in the Disney Channel series Even Stevens, voiced the titular character in the animated hit Kim Possible, and led movies like Cadet Kelly.

While Carlson Romano, 42, has continued acting on stage and screen, she's also become a vocal critic of child stardom and spoken out about the need for more legal and mental health protections for minors in Hollywood. Her "Vulnerable Podcast," for instance, features conversations with other former child actors—and now with her memoir, Once Upon a Trainwreck, she's getting more candid than ever about her own experience.

As the highly anticipated book hits shelves on October 6, Carlson Romano shares an exclusive excerpt with Marie Claire about what it was like to undergo media training at Disney Channel.

Before we start shooting, a Disney exec calls Shia and me over for a huddle.

“Okay, everyone, we have the upfronts coming up. If you haven’t been, it’s a yearly media event in New York where journalists can ask questions, and we’ll show clips and teasers of the show. Since it’s our first season, I need you guys on your A game, got it? We’ll be setting up press training ASAP.”

I know this is our chance to get the media excited about the show before it airs to the public so that we get coverage and hopefully enough of an audience to get us to a second season. I can’t make decisions like executives, but I can just enjoy the ride and hit my marks and memorize my lines. I just want to do exactly what Disney says, and if I do that, I’m sure they will take care of me.

S&S/Simon Element

'Once Upon a Trainwreck' by Christy Carlson Romano

“What happens during press training?” I ask.

“You’ll get a rundown of Disney rules and codes of conduct, things you can and cannot say. Things like that,” the executive says.

Oh, great. What if I say the wrong thing? Will I be fired? I don’t ask this; I just keep my mouth shut and listen.

“It’s such an exciting time for the channel,” the Disney executive says. He looks right at me and Shia. “You kids are our big, new stars. So get out there and wow ’em, okay?”

“Sure thing!” I say, as peppy as Ren would have said it. I can feel Shia rolling his eyes as the words come out of my mouth.

We can’t say anything “racy.” No cussing. No talking negatively about other Disney shows or people, even though the executives sometimes seem to pit the actors against one another by mentioning how well someone else’s show is doing. Because of this, Mom is always telling me that Hilary Duff is my competition. Mom gets so focused on how popular Lizzie McGuire is getting and how much the Disney star machine is pushing Hilary to be the next big thing. Now she thinks it’ll be good for my career to get to know Hilary.

We’ve been instructed to be upbeat and happy. To “keep it positive.” Disney is big on “synergy,” playing up how things are happening as they’re supposed to and how one good show leads to another. Even Stevens—and the network more generally—is for tweens, kids between 9 and 12, but Disney is still owned by the Disney family and shareholders, and they want all-American values, wholesome dress codes, and no funny business. Now Mom is always talking about synergy too and how we will say yes to anything Disney asks me to do to promote the show. “Say yes to everything, and they’ll love you for it. Be easy to work with, and they’ll put you in more shows and even movies,” she always says.

Christy Carlson Romano and Shia LaBeouf starred as siblings Ren and Louis on Even Stevens for three seasons from 2000 to 2003. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

The first day of upfronts is a blur. Shia and I put on our best “we love each other” act for the press, since we have to “keep it positive.” I answer every single question with a smile and talk about how much I love Ren and how great it is working with the whole cast, Shia especially. I talk about how wonderful it is to be part of the Disney family, but all I’m thinking about is hanging out with my friends later. Don’t get me wrong. I am grateful to be on the show, thrilled to be on TV, to be on the Disney Channel. But I still just want to be a normal high school kid sometimes.

Four hours straight of answering questions about playing Ren, working with Shia, and being a perfect girl, and I’m exhausted. Everyone was telling us we’re the “next big Disney stars” and that the show will just keep getting more popular, especially because of the Ren-Louis dynamic. I listened and put on my best “America’s sweetheart” smile, acted polite and upbeat, and did all the things they advised us to do in the media training. Shia was funny but off the walls like he always is. Almost all the reporters asked us how we get along and if we fight like Ren and Louis do on-screen, and we did our best to convince them that it’s one happy family on camera and off, blah blah blah. It’s not that I hate Shia. I just don’t really know the guy.

I am grateful to be on the show, thrilled to be on TV, to be on the Disney Channel. But I still just want to be a normal high school kid sometimes.

After the interviews, I meet my friends Carrie and Sybil in the lobby, and Carrie immediately zeroes in on Peter, another actor who’s here to promote his own Disney show. I promise I’ll introduce her to him later, and we head up to the room to change.

Carrie and Sybil start mixing vodka and cranberry juice from the minifridge. Carrie hands me a glass, and I take a small sip.

“Cheers!”

“Let’s hit the hotel lounge,” Carrie says. “I want to find that Peter guy.”

I’m half hoping Peter isn’t there because I just want to hang out with my friends and not have any drama, but there he is, sitting with Shia and some people from his show. Peter looks at us and waves us over.

“Hey, Christy,” he says. “Who’re your friends?”

“I’m Carrie, and this is Sybil. We went to school with Christy before Disney stole her away.”

Carrie is buzzed, so she’s flirting with Peter like crazy. Sybil and I are a little buzzed too, and hanging out with them makes me realize how much I’ve missed them, how much I loved just being a normal high school kid.

“Where’s Carrie?” Sybil asks.

I look around and can’t find her—or Peter—anywhere. “She worked fast,” Sybil says. “I bet she’s with Peter somewhere. Should we look for her?”

“Nah, let’s go back to the room,” I say.

Carrie and Sybil only took two mini bottles, and the drinks had so much ice. Hopefully Disney doesn’t notice those on my checkout tab.

I’m so tired, I feel like I’m sleepwalking, and I have a whole new round of interviews in the morning. I pass out immediately but wake up later when the door opens. I glance at the hotel clock. It’s past three in the morning.

“Carrie?”

“Sorry,” she says, shutting the door and tiptoeing in. “I’ve been with Peter. Don’t get mad!”

“I’m not mad,” I say. I mean, it wasn’t me who went to his room. “How was it? Did you have sex with him?!”

“Almost, but no. It was awesome, though. He’s an amazing kisser. It’s too bad he lives in L.A.”

“Well, maybe that’s a good reason for you to visit me,” I say. “I miss you guys.”

Ever since I was little, I’ve been under a microscope, judged by adults in a way that most normal kids don’t have to deal with, but that’s part of being a kid actor.

Carrie and Sybil leave early in the morning, so I get ready and meet Mom for breakfast before the interviews start again. The first two go well, but when we’re about to start our third, our press executive walks in, looking serious.

“Christy, can I speak to you alone?”

Crap. Did I say the wrong thing? Did I not look or act “Disney” enough?

I follow her into the hall. It’s never good when an executive pulls you aside like this.

“So, it seems a friend of yours went into the hotel room of one of the actors last night. How old is she?”

My throat feels like it’s about to close up, and my stomach churns. I can’t lie, but I don’t want to get Carrie or Peter in trouble.

“Um, she’s 16. Like me.”

“You know he’s 22-years-old?”

Shit. I am about to lose my job, be kicked off the show, and get sent home forever.

“I, um, thought he was a little younger than that.” It’s true, but I don’t think that will save me. “She went home this morning. She seems fine and isn’t mad at him or anything.”

“You need to watch it, Christy,” she says. “Disney is very specific about how you kids behave. You know this.”

“I’m so, so sorry. It’ll never happen again, ever. I promise.”

“Just think about your reputation, okay? I know it wasn’t you, but still. Guilty by association, right?”

“Right,” I say, even though inside I want to scream, WRONG! Why is this always the girl’s fault? It’s bullshit.

“I totally understand. I’m so, so sorry.”

As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I feel like a fake, but I don’t want to lose this job. Plus I’m used to this. Ever since I was little, I’ve been under a microscope, judged by adults in a way that most normal kids don’t have to deal with, but that’s part of being a kid actor. You have to just suck it up and be professional. And I’m not a kid anymore anyway, even though they are treating me like one.

“Thanks, Christy,” she says before I head back to the day’s interviews. “Oh, one more thing.”

“Yes?”

She glances down at my stomach and squinches up her forehead in a disapproving way. “I can see your belly button. You gotta make sure we can’t see your belly button.”

Carlson Romano and Hilary Duff played rivals-turned-friends in the Disney Channel Original Movie Cadet Kelly. (Image credit: Alamy)

For the last month, all the Disney executives keep talking about is how Hilary Duff is the “next big thing.”

They want me and Hilary to make a movie together during my Even Stevens hiatus. It’s called Cadet Kelly, and I would play Hilary’s rival at a military school. The executives keep saying we’ll be “perfect rivals” because we’re so opposite. Of course the blond girl is the sweet, fun one, and the brunette (me) is the bad, unlikable one.

I must be getting bolder with age, because I decide to tell the Cadet Kelly director that I don’t want my character to just be some villainous person. It’ll be more interesting if she changes in the end and if she and Kelly become friends. I don’t want to play just a one-dimensional mean girl. I’ve been in this business long enough; I can’t be afraid to speak up anymore.

At breakfast with the director, I explain my idea and tell him why it would appeal to girls more to see me and Hilary coming together in the end, like a form of female empowerment. I’m shocked when he says he’ll talk to the writers and change the script a bit. I want to give her a backstory and make her feel real. I want to play a strong person, someone girls can maybe be inspired by. If I’m being honest, I also just don’t want to be disliked. I know Cadet Kelly isn’t like Shakespeare, and Shia probably thinks it’s a dumb movie, but whatever. By the end of our first Even Stevens season, he’s gone from annoying me to filling me with anger. When we’re in the same room, the tension is palpable. I need this break.

Having the director and writers rework the script is a huge win for me. I don’t have to be just the good little Disney girl. I get to have an opinion. Finally.

Deesha Philyaw Wrote the Black Church Satire She Needed to Read

Quinci LeGardye — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0000

In this author-curated rendition, Deesha Philyaw—the author of the National Book Award finalist The Secret Lives of Church Ladies—shares the satirical reads that inspired her debut novel.

Author Deesha Philyaw has grappled with the contradictions of the Black church her entire life. The 55-year-old spent her early years following what she thought was a preordained path for women: Attend services every Sunday, marry young, and become a stay-at-home mom. In 2006, she found herself “churchy and miserable,” and tried to write her way through ennui by crafting a story about a First Lady, or a pastor’s wife, who was ambivalent about Christianity.

She set the piece aside and wrote short stories about women balancing piety and desire, forming her award-winning debut collection. When Philyaw eventually returned to the unfinished work, she realized satire was the key to turning it into her first novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman.

In the book, which hit shelves on September 29, no one would call the titular First Lady Scharisse Freeman a tradwife. Yes, she’s married to the pastor of a fictional Georgia megachurch. But she’s also built a merchandising empire that funds her luxury designer wardrobe and an ice-cream parlor on the grounds of her palatial mansion. She’s even so sex-positive that she held a Honolulu pastor couples’ retreat sponsored by a sex-toy brand.

Mariner Books

'The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman' by Deesha Philyaw

Through the convention-defying narrator, Philyaw’s hilarious, erotic romp lampoons the impossible standards that religious women try to meet, and the hypocritical, patriarchal culture that has turned younger generations away from the institution. The author distanced herself from organized religion at age 35, the same year she got divorced. But she tells Marie Claire that First Lady Freeman is fueled by a love of the community and an aversion toward the sex-negative tradition in equal measure.

“Around 2020, I took an online satire workshop. [I learned] George Saunders’ observation about satire, that you have to really know and have some affection for what you're critiquing, otherwise it’s just sneering,” she says. “That fits my critique of the Black church vis-à-vis sex to a T. I didn’t want to sneer at the church. I wanted to skewer the unchecked misogyny, patriarchy, hypocrisy, sexual double standards, abuse, and violence in the church.”

With her novel, Philyaw joins a long and vital legacy of Black satirical writers that challenge readers to question stereotypes, subcultures, and societal norms by pushing them to maximum absurdity. “Satire requires nuance. And we are currently in a literacy crisis and a critical thinking crisis and an empathy crisis and a nuance crisis. Reading satire kills all those birds with one tome.”

To coincide with the release of her highly anticipated new book, we asked the author to share the award-winning satires that inspired The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, from coming-of-age tales by Black female authors to genre-defying story collections.

New Directions

'Oreo' by Fran Ross

“Published in 1974, this slept-on OG classic is possibly the first satirical novel ever written by a Black woman. The Black biracial titular character goes on a wild, weird quest to find her Jewish father. Bonus: Ross plays with form, including menus, quizzes, and math equations. Fans of quirky Black girls will love this one.”

Vintage

'That’s How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor,' edited by Damon Young

“A hilarious collection of stories, essays, letters, and conversations by a who’s who of contemporary Black writers, including Hanif Abdurraqib, Mahogany L. Browne, Wyatt Cenac, and Kiese Laymon. My contribution is a short story about sibling rivalry, elderly parents, and a little blue pill.”

Riverhead Books

'Colored Television' by Danzy Senna

“My favorite book of 2024, hands down, satirizes race, art-making, parenting, marriage, academia, and Hollywood. It’s all through the lens of Jane, a middle-aged novelist who’s working on a mess of a second novel (‘a mulatto War and Peace’) and a TV show that promises to be ‘the Jackie Robinson of biracial comedies.’ I love a messy Black woman protagonist, and Jane had me cringing and yelling at the pages.”

Picador

'The Sellout' by Paul Beatty

“This brilliant tragicomedy about gentrification, police violence, and modern-day slavery and segregation opens with the main character appearing before the Supreme Court, high as a kite. Beatty is the blueprint; I wanted my novel’s satirical opening chapter to be just as jaw-dropping as his.”

Mariner

'Black Buck' by Mateo Askaripour

“Brace yourself for a wild ride with Darren, an underachieving New Yorker trying to figure shit out. Like Beatty with The Sellout, Askaripour hesitates to classify his propulsive novel as satire because Darren’s experiences in the shady world of sales, startups, and Starbucks resonate as all-too-real for many Black folks.”

Amazon Publishing

'Let Me Liberate You' by Andie Davis

“This laugh-out-loud, polyphonic debut novel set in Barbados takes on race, colorism, class, gentrification, and family dysfunction. The main character, Sabre, is an artist who stumbles her way into professional acclaim as well as political activism. Come for the humor, stay for the spot-on social commentary.”

'Walking on Cowrie Shells' by Nana Nkweti

“It’s impossible to pick a favorite story among the bangers in this genre-defying collection rooted in Cameroonian-American culture, featuring cosplaying teen girls, zombies, water spirits, a delusional white transracial adoptive mother, and much more. The humor here is razor-sharp and the characters unforgettable.”

Liveright Publishing Corporation

'The World Doesn't Require You' by Rion Amilcar Scott

“This collection includes a novella titled ‘Special Topics in Loneliness Studies,’ which refers to the name of a course taught on campus by a fired professor, despite not appearing in the course catalog. Like all of Scott’s stories, this one manages to be whip-smart, original, unsettling, and funny, all at once.”

The Major Changes Between Netflix's 'East of Eden' and the Book—Including Cathy's Role

Abby Monteil — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 15:56:10 +0000

This article contains major spoilers for East of Eden. Since East of Eden was published in 1952, John Steinbeck’s sweeping tale of intergenerational conflict and good versus evil has become widely regarded as a great American novel. A retelling of the Bible’s Book of Genesis, set in California’s Salinas Valley, it spans over 600 pages. In other words, faithfully bringing it to the screen is a tall order. Netflix is the latest to adapt Steinbeck’s magnum opus.

Penguin Random House

'East of Eden' by John Steinbeck

Its new East of Eden miniseries is helmed by Zoe Kazan, whose grandfather, Elia Kazan, previously turned the novel into a film starring James Dean. Although the Netflix show follows many of the book’s plot points closely, it also makes some adaptive changes to condense East of Eden’s familial epic into seven episodes. Read on as we break down the major differences between Netflix’s East of Eden and the original novel.

(Image credit: Geoffrey Short/Netflix)

How does Cathy's role change in Netflix's 'East of Eden?'

East of Eden’s central female character, Cathy Ames (played by Florence Pugh), is known as one of American literature’s most infamous antagonists. The book’s narrator even says early on, "There was a time when a girl like Cathy would have been said to be possessed by the devil."

However, from the beginning of the adaptation process, Kazan has been clear about her desire to explore Cathy more deeply, as Steinbeck wrote her to embody the Biblical idea of original sin. Rather than painting Cathy simply as a monster, the show centers multiple episodes around her, exploring what led her to make the dark decisions that she makes throughout the story.

“[Zoe] didn’t want to berate [Cathy],” Pugh recently told Vulture. “We were aware that we were going to have to do so much thinking to make this person watchable, and that was just a beautiful ode to this woman in that era who wasn’t really given much forgiveness.”

The show doesn’t shy away from Cathy’s misdeeds, which include murdering her own parents, as well as Salinas Valley brothel owner Faye (Martha Plimpton), whose business she takes over. Yet it also acknowledges that her worldview is shaped by surviving misogynistic sexual and domestic violence, and by the harsh realities of being a woman at the turn of the 20th century. For instance, she is unable to obtain a safe abortion upon discovering she is pregnant and nearly bleeds out from trying to perform the procedure herself.

“I think her viewpoint that the world is bad, that the world is fully evil and folly makes her isolate herself more and more,” Kazan said during an interview with WWD. “She never gains trust in any other person. I think that, for me, was the key to unlocking how an insistence on self-determination can become toxic to herself.”

(Image credit: Kirsty Griffin/Netflix)

How does the Hamilton family's role change in Netflix's 'East of Eden?'

The original East of Eden novel follows two interconnected families: the Irish-American Hamiltons, who are based on the maternal side of Steinbeck’s own family; and the Trasks, whose intergenerational conflicts mirror the Biblical story of Cain and Abel.

Although the Hamilton family patriarch, Samuel Hamilton (Ciarán Hinds), remains a key figure in the Netflix series, his wife Liza and their nine children only appear briefly as minor characters. Their own backstories and relationships are not expanded upon. During an interview with The Independent, Kazan explained that these parts of the novel were omitted to condense its sprawling story into seven episodes.

“There’s so much treasure in [the book] that you couldn’t possibly put it all into seven hours,” she said. “There are things I had to leave behind that hurt my heart—there’s so much of the Hamiltons’ storyline that’s not in there, and the Hamiltons are some of my favorite characters in the book.”

(Image credit: Netflix)

Do we see more of Lee's Story in Netflix's 'East of Eden?'

Yes. Lee (Hoon Lee), a Chinese-American man who Adam hires as a servant soon after moving to Salinas Valley, becomes the novel’s moral and philosophical center alongside Samuel Hamilton. He becomes a key member of the Trask family, acting as a second father to Adam’s twin sons, Cal (Joseph Zada) and Aron (Joe Anders).

At one point in East of Eden, Lee briefly leaves the Trask household and moves to San Francisco with plans to open his own bookstore. In both the show and the novel, he returns shortly afterward, telling Adam he missed home. The show expands upon Lee’s trip to San Francisco, following him as he reconnects with his uncle and struggles to rent a storefront from discriminatory white businessmen. When Lee returns to the Trask home, Adam agrees to listen and lets him run the household as a family member.

Speaking to Vulture, Kazan compared Lee’s time away from the Trasks to “a Wong Kar-wai movie.”

“I thought, ‘This character is so private.' I felt like he was even keeping secrets from Steinbeck,” she said. “I wanted to get to know him better.”

Does John Steinbeck appear in Netflix's 'East of Eden?'

No. Because the Hamiltons are based on Steinbeck’s family, a fictionalized version of the author as a child appears briefly in East of Eden. But because the Hamilton family’s storyline has largely been cut from the Netflix adaptation, he does not make a cameo.

(Image credit: Netflix)

Does Charles haunt Netflix's 'East of Eden?'

Like in Steinbeck’s novel, Adam’s younger half-brother Charles’ (Mike Faist) presence in the Netflix show can be felt long after he dies offscreen. In both cases, Charles haunts Cathy towards the end of her life. Earlier in the story, the two have a complicated relationship; Charles distrusts Cathy, but he sleeps with her—and is therefore potentially the father of her twins.

In the book, Cathy begins to sense Charles around her when she becomes paranoid that Ethel (Amelia Reynolds), a former sex worker at her brothel, will turn her in for Faye’s murder (“On this night, she felt that she was not alone,” Steinbeck writes, “Charles seemed to walk to the side and behind her”). The show takes things a step forward, with Cathy hallucinating entire conversations with Charles’ ghost shortly before her death.

“This is a story about these people who are dealing with their own inner demons and trying to keep them at bay, and some do a better job of that than others throughout the story,” Faist said of the scene while speaking to Netflix’s Tudum.

Four Years Ago, a Tragedy Stayed With Me. Then I Wrote a Novel.

Carola Lovering — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 17:05:22 +0000

Bestselling author Carola Lovering—known for hit psychological thrillers like Tell Me Lies, Too Good to Be True, Can't Look Away, and Bye, Baby—will release her next novel, Whiteout, on March 9. The Aspen-set domestic thriller centers on June, whose world is shattered when she loses her second pregnancy in a ski accident. Unable to recall anything about the incident—including why she was skiing so late in her pregnancy to begin with—she searches for answers, unraveling years' worth of secrets within her marriage and family.

In anticipation of the release, Lovering has shared an exclusive essay with Marie Claire about how she wrote Whiteout after finding herself struck by Lindsay Clancy and other cases of postpartum psychosis.

Content warning: the below contains references to and descriptions of postpartum psychosis and the death of children.

In January 2023, my husband shared horrific news with me involving the brother of a man who’d been on his sailing team in college.

Actually, I’m not sure I should tell you. My husband had hesitated, backpedaling, the color draining from his face. It’s the kind of thing—He shook his head. It won’t be easy for you to hear.

I forced him to spit it out, and he proceeded to tell me about Patrick Clancy, whose wife Lindsay had killed their three young children in the basement of their suburban home just days earlier. She’d strangled them with exercise bands before attempting to take her own life; a jump from a second-story window left her partially paralyzed. As I listened to my husband recount what had happened, it sounded like an actual living nightmare. A scene ripped straight out of hell.

At the time, I was more sensitive than usual. Fragile. A month earlier, in December 2022, I’d woken to a world that felt heavy with darkness. What began with intense anxiety that prevented me from sleeping for 48 hours soon spiraled into a depressive episode. The feelings had me shaken and afraid, even though they weren’t unfamiliar—it was a kind of sinister fear I had known before. I was also four months postpartum with my second child, who had been born at the end of July.

I’d wasted little time before reaching out to the psychiatrist who’s treated me on and off since my junior year of college. He knows me well, he knows my history, and I am lucky for that. He was quick to up the dosage of my antidepressant, which had been lowered during my pregnancy, and prescribed Ativan to help me sleep. We need to tackle the insomnia first, he’d said. That’s the gateway to the anxiety and depression.

St. Martin's Press

'Whiteout' by Carola Lovering

Several weeks later I was feeling better, the dark veil lifted enough for me to see—to trust in—the light. When my husband told me what Lindsay Clancy had done to her children, I felt solid enough to receive the information without letting it eviscerate me completely. But the truth is that the story opened a door inside of me; it kicked off an obsession that began to run wild in my mind. I felt rattled, distraught; I couldn’t stop thinking about Lindsay and googling her name. I couldn’t stop reading about postpartum psychosis and the circumstances that had led to this unfathomable reality. I studied Lindsay’s old Facebook posts that had resurfaced in the news, photographs that so clearly evoked a loving mother and her children. I read about her continued cries for help, her calls to suicide hotlines and visits to various psychiatrists and failed efforts to qualify for inpatient treatment. I read about the 13 psychiatric medications she’d been prescribed—a perilous cocktail—in the four months leading up to her children’s deaths.

An incomprehensible tragedy, and yet, it seemed obvious what had happened. Here was a mother who loved her kids unconditionally, who’d known something was off in her mind and sought help in all the right ways. This was a concept I could relate to on a cellular level. Lindsay Clancy had been dealt the cruelest, unluckiest hand.

At the end of 2022 and into the early months of 2023, I’d been brainstorming ideas for a new novel. My publisher had me contracted for another book, and I’d spent ages toying with a few different concepts, none of which inspired me enough to pursue in earnest. But I was working against a deadline. And, as the months went on, I failed to shake Lindsay Clancy from my thoughts. As I continued to research postpartum psychosis, I learned about other women who had suffered the same fate, but without the high-profile media attention. As Eren Orbey wrote in The New Yorker, “The Clancys were the kind of family whom true-crime enthusiasts often find irresistible: young, white, well-off, photogenic.” Many others fly under the radar.

In 2022, a Black woman named Erin Merdy drowned her three children in the ocean near Coney Island. Merdy’s youngest child was 3-months-old at the time, and there was speculation of postpartum depression and psychosis, but because she admitted guilt, there was never a trial. In May 2026, Merdy received a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.

There is also Latarsha Sanders, a Black Massachusetts woman who was found guilty of murdering her two children in 2018. Sanders pleaded not guilty to her original charges, citing that she had suffered from psychosis. And although a neuropsychological evaluation found that Sanders was indeed “grossly psychotic” at the time of the killings, her medical records weren’t permitted to be shown in court by the defense the way Lindsay Clancy’s were. The jury never saw these records, and Sanders received two life sentences without parole; as of August, the Massachusetts’ highest court granted her a new trial.

In the spring of 2023, with Lindsay Clancy and Erin Merdy on my mind—I did not yet know about Sanders—and my deadline inching closer, I began writing a novel that aims to shed light on the dire state of maternal healthcare. My books are not social commentaries so much as suspenseful beach reads, and I did worry—do worry—about this undertaking. But if there’s one topic that gets me truly piqued, it’s the persistent stigma around mental health and the inadequacies of a broken system.

The urge to acknowledge these similarities and examine them under harsh light feels almost unconscious—perhaps we do it to validate her, and also to try and grasp her outcome. Why Lindsay? Why not us?

It took me two years to write a first draft. All the while, I kept tabs on Lindsay Clancy in the news. I watched her trial date postpone, then postpone again. I read Patrick Clancy’s interview in The New Yorker (the Eren Orbey piece), and forwarded it to family and friends. It sort of has to do with the book I’m writing, I would explain, tentative. I felt somewhat insecure in admitting my interest in such chilling darkness. To live in this headspace for years was not exactly a healthy choice, especially for someone with a history of depression.

I finished the novel in the spring of 2025, then spent seven months in deep revisions, an intense period that coincided with an unexpected third pregnancy. I submitted the novel in the fall, six weeks before my son was born.

Like countless women in America, I spent the second half of this past summer captivated by the Lindsay Clancy trial as it unfolded in Plymouth, waiting with bated breath for a verdict that would acknowledge the incontestable ways Lindsay was failed. Her story is one that has taken certain corners of the internet by storm; it’s unleashed a wave of long-simmering feminine rage that’s hard not to feel. I can’t speak to the personal experience of postpartum psychosis—and neither can most women who rally behind Lindsay—but we recognize ourselves in her old Facebook pictures, in her blissful smile, cheek pressed against the child in her arms. We recognize ourselves in her effusive captions describing the love and gratitude she felt for her babies, in the gift of getting to be their mother. And we recognize ourselves in her diary entries during the months she was struggling, in the anxiety she harbored over sleep training and insomnia; the crushing guilt over an inability to parent her third child like her first.

The reality is that no matter how much we love our children, no matter how much a pregnancy is wanted, the process of giving birth is physically and psychologically transformative in ways that no woman can prepare for.

In a recent interview on 60 Minutes, Patrick shared that he first knew something was wrong with Lindsay when she didn’t sleep for two nights at five months postpartum, after which she went to the hospital. I didn’t sleep for two nights at four months postpartum, after which I reached out to my doctor. Many women share my inclination to hyperfocus on pieces of Lindsay’s trajectory that feel eerily similar to their own. The urge to acknowledge these similarities and examine them under harsh light feels almost unconscious—perhaps we do it to validate her, and also to try and grasp her outcome. Why Lindsay? Why not us?

The reality is that no matter how much we love our children, no matter how much a pregnancy is wanted, the process of giving birth is physically and psychologically transformative in ways that no woman can prepare for, even if they’ve gone through it before. In late August, more than 400 supporters gathered outside the Plymouth courthouse to stand in solidarity with Lindsay. They wore pink and carried signs that read “Listen to Mothers,” “She Needed Help,” “Compassion Before Judgment.” Women from all political backgrounds have been vocal in their support for Lindsay, and in this I sense a female camaraderie that I haven’t in recent years––a bone-deep understanding that sometimes, the early days of motherhood ask more of us than we can bear. Most women come out on the other side; Lindsay didn’t. For those of us who have been consumed by the case—and dejected by the declaration of a mistrial—bearing witness feels like the only grace we can offer.

Tomi Adeyemi Is Ready to Move On

Quinci LeGardye — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:14:57 +0000

Tomi Adeyemi is in her defiant era. While her fans have sent each release of her Orisha trilogy to the top of bestseller lists, the author went viral like never before when she posted a TikTok in July, publicly severing ties with the forthcoming Children of Blood and Bone adaptation. Months earlier, she also challenged book industry conventions when she revealed the divisive cover for her new novel, The Siren, featuring a photo of her face. Adeyemi sees the choice as a way of looking directly at the reader with a message: "I dare you not to see me this time."

"It’s fitting,” Adeyemi tells Marie Claire over Zoom, ahead of The Siren’s September 29th release. “My first work started with me wanting to see myself in the story. Now I’m literally right there. We're not even illustrated at this point.”

Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

'The Siren' by Tomi Adeyemi

The author sees the choice less as main-character energy and more as an act of reclamation. Since 2018, Adeyemi’s Orisha trilogy has sold over 3 million copies worldwide and created a cultural phenomenon that opened the door for other Black female writers to find success in YA fantasy. But the author explains that becoming a near-overnight literary success at 23 also left her wrestling with fame, public scrutiny, and how depersonalizing it can be to feel like little more than a symbol after breaking the concrete ceiling.

It’s not just the cover of The Siren that makes a statement. The campus-set thriller—Adeyemi’s first contemporary novel and first standalone—puts a feral woman of color in the typically white genre of dark academia. It centers on Emery, a Black girl from Detroit hoping to reinvent herself during her freshman year at Dartmouth. Emery struggles to see herself thriving in a world of keggers and bids until she encounters the Sirens, a magnetic self-made sorority that promises true transformation, if you can survive the sacrifice.

“I put almost everything I used to be in this work,” says Adeyemi, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs before graduating from Harvard. While the book’s moonlit, psychedelic rituals are pure fiction, she likens crafting Emery's journey to her own—rejecting the box she’s been placed in and embracing her boundless self.

“You cannot erase me this time,” she declares. “ You cannot expand this to represent the plight of all people. If [Orisha] was for all, this was for one.”

The author says she hopes "the next Tomi Adeyemi...doesn't feel the need to carry the weight of her people. She just carries the weight of who she is." (Image credit: Caroline Fiss)

Below, Adeyemi chats with Marie Claire about taking inspiration from the “rich teen” subgenre, the importance of autonomy, and whether we can expect to see The Siren on the big screen.

Marie Claire: What inspired you to pivot to dark academia? Are there any books from that genre that you thought of while writing The Siren?

Tomi Adeyemi: It's funny because if I think of dark academia, I don't really think of anything that's come out in the last 10 to 15 years. I think about more of that Gossip Girl, Private era of books: A new girl goes to a boarding school, and suddenly she's brought into this new world. I do like to go back to the stories that I loved when I was younger. I find there's something untouched about it [that’s lost] once you become a part of the world. When you go from reading 19 Minutes borrowed from your seventh-grade best friend's bookshelf to sitting with Jodi Picoult at BookCon and being like, Whoa, how did this happen? So it's really freeing for me to go back to those works, and I find they still really hit. I love joining someone as they step into a new world and decide that they might want a part in it. Because they come from a different grit, there's something underestimated and raw, and quite beautiful.

MC: Do you hope that this book will maybe help bring back that vein of dark academia YA, versus what it has become?

TA: Jean Feiwel is the head publisher at my imprint. She worked on The Babysitters Club and Goosebumps. She is a titan in this industry. Something she helped me understand is, when I did my first work, I actually changed things. When I go into a Barnes & Noble, the dream used to be to see someone like me. Now there's a whole shelf.

If I was going to hope for anything [with The Siren], it would be for us to no longer be asking for seats at tables or asking to be on screens, but just asking for authentic, raw, full, complex individuation. To me, true progress would be the next time someone's called “the next Tomi Adeyemi,” she doesn't feel the need to carry the weight of her people. She just carries the weight of who she is. It's meaningful to me that both my fiction and my reality can allow us and those who look like us to be free to be us in a world that taught us we weren't allowed to.

MC: The Siren touches on serious topics regarding mental health and abuse. How did you prepare yourself to write about those issues?

TA: I don't think it was about preparation as something external. It was more about how deeply I feel. [My preparation] was about taking a screenshot of the pain, and how it’s carved in the crevices. It's almost like it becomes a geological formation, and then that's what you bring to the page. I think I have evolved as a creator and evolved in my craft. The compass with which I navigate a new story has always been what I'm feeling. So—as opposed to painting while I'm in the midst of feeling all these things—it's like a snapshot, and now we're going to bring that up.

I know it's very simple for people to be like, ‘Yes, this is a book that touches on mental health.’ I think it touches on pain. We all know pain so intrinsically, and so specifically. Anyone who was going to paint a picture of their pain, it would not look like anything else, because none of us process the same way. It was more like an excavation of what it feels like to be in that deep of sorrow. That's traveled across all the characters, when we learn the backstories of even the ones we thought were just glamorous and perfect, and you're like, Oh, you've been through that? Because that's always what it is when you learn what someone's been through. You're always like, ‘What? But you seem so fine.’ And they're like, ‘Well, am I supposed to seem something different? I still have to get up the next day.’ I think there's something beautiful about rediscovering who you can be after pain.

MC: How would you describe Emory’s journey throughout the book?

TA: We're all born into a really rigid sense of who we're meant to be, and it almost doesn't leave room for you to actually [explore]. What does it feel like when my lungs actually expand and contract? Who am I? Those big questions. I think the story is about taking an active role, because we all know what it is to go through something internally or externally and then change because you're forced to. I think it's something else to be like, Actually, I want to start spinning some of this thread. I want to be a part of my own fate, and what's possible if I start touching the loom?

If you think about what someone can take away from that story, it’s the idea that, Okay, I might not want to be a siren, but do I want to be a mystic? Do I want to make room for my intuition? Do I want to embrace my ambition? Do I want to create who I am, not just be who I thought I was supposed to be?

Adeyemi has publicly distanced herself from the upcoming Children of Blood and Bone film and has no plans to adapt her future books. (Image credit: Lephatse Motshana/Paramount Pictures)

MC: Are you open to The Siren, or any other of your future works, being adapted into a show or movie?

TA: No. I think it's really valuable to do things. Something I am routinely brought to is the fact that, Whoa, you made it. You're 33-years-old. You had 2,012 dreams, and you actually achieved all of them. I am so grateful to have experienced everything I have ever dreamed of. My childhood energy was like the Tasmanian Devil of Dreams, and I followed it. Once you have those experiences, whether they're the best things ever or you're like, Wow, this was awful, you still have yourself at the end of it, but you also don't have these dreams and what-ifs. I don't think I would've felt okay to not see what I embarked on to its conclusion. That would've made it difficult to carry forth and feel like every new day has exciting, infinite possibilities. So I'm proud of it—but in terms of doing it again, I don't really care. That's not where the joy is for me. The joy is in that beautiful internal space where only you know about this world. It's not all the logistics and the coordination. When you bring it all to fruition, and suddenly you're on sets with 400 people, I find that overwhelming. So I asked myself, If you're not doing this for you, why would you do it? And if you don't enjoy the process, what would be the point?

When I started writing years ago, I was so obsessed with the fantastical. Now that I'm at some form of a conclusion, I don't understand what happens next, but I don't need to understand. I can feel peace that has come from going through the journey with all four of my books, from having this insane vision and seeing it through to the end. I'm in awe of myself. It doesn't really matter if I loved it, if it went well, if it didn't. I did what I dreamed of doing. The most mystical thing to me now isn't that you could have a big celebrity embody a character. It's more that I can ask life for what I want, and I can undergo the trials, hardship, and triumph to actually manifest it into the three-dimensional reality.

Square Fish

'Children of Blood and Bone' by Tomi Adeyemi

MC: The book does seem like a declaration of agency in a way.

TA: I don't know why anyone would work this hard if not to leave the journey with agency. I think the process of becoming who you actually are is something that you need years to grow into. Some of us are blessed to know that really early. Shout out to my Capricorn suns. I meet 16-year-olds who are like, 'Well, here's my book, and yes, I accept Venmo, PayPal.' And I'm like, 'Girl, you got it. I love that.' For others of us, if we're given the time and space, and if we're courageous enough to consistently be like, What do you need? What do you want? What do you desire? What do you want a morning to look like and feel like?

I think after you’ve done all the things, you've also earned the right to be who you want to be and live how you want to live. As someone who has worked insanely hard for 14 years on everything, I'm enjoying the stillness. It's really satisfying to finally feel like you can chill and you're not carrying a huge mission or a goal. There's a gentleness that I'm finally being able to experience, and I'm obsessed with it, and I'm excited that it will grow exponentially. If I do decide, Hey, maybe you do want to write a series like Private, that's beautiful, but it can come from a really still, gentle place. It doesn't have to come from the Tasmanian Devil of Dreams. She did a lot. I'm proud of her, but I'm more excited to be who I am after all of that.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

13 Psychological Thriller Books That'll Keep You Guessing Until the Very Last Page

andreap617@gmail.com (Andrea Park) — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000

A good book can whisk you away to a different time, far-off places, and even inside someone else’s head. And if that person’s perspective is clouded by bad judgment, warped by invisible forces, and/or downright unreliable, you've hit the jackpot: That's a psychological thriller just waiting to be unraveled.

Though there’s quite a bit of overlap between mystery thrillers, suspense novels, and psychological thrillers—which typically revolve around some mysterious event or circumstance—the latter is usually defined less by the mystery and more by the inner instability, fear, turmoil, or paranoia experienced by the characters. That makes for incredibly gripping, twisty, and often unsettling stories where you simply can’t trust anything you read until you’ve made it all the way through. So, consider it an absolutely perfect genre to explore as spooky season approaches.

Here, we’ve rounded up some of the very best psychological thriller books out there, from all-time classics (Gone Girl, anyone?) to newer offerings that have already shaken us to the core. Enjoy the ride, and remember: Trust no one.

Classic Psychological Thriller Books Worth Reading

'Before I Go to Sleep' by S.J. Watson

Every morning, Christine wakes up with no memories and a man next to her in bed who claims to be her husband. As time goes on and she pieces together snippets of her past life and current circumstances, she begins discovering inconsistencies that point to a more disturbing reality than she realized.

'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn

If time travel ever becomes real, I’m going straight back to read this book (and feminist favorite) for the first time again. It starts with a woman going missing from her idyllic suburban life, with all the evidence seemingly pointing straight at her husband. From there, the tangled web of lies, high drama, and deceit keeps unraveling.

'In the Woods' by Tana French

On the surface, this 2007 novel seems like a standard whodunit, kicking off with a pair of police detectives investigating the murder of a young girl in an Irish forest. But it soon becomes much more complicated, as one of the detectives' own childhood friends disappeared in those same woods decades ago, and he becomes increasingly haunted by his memories—or lack thereof—while unraveling the case.

'Shutter Island' by Dennis Lehane

In the mid-1950s, a U.S. Marshal and his partner arrive at a psychiatric hospital to investigate a patient’s disappearance, but find themselves falling down a creepy rabbit hole of purported mind control and illicit drug trials. No spoilers, but let’s just say everything is not as it seems.

'The Silent Patient' by Alex Michaelides

Famous painter Alicia Berenson hasn’t spoken a word since she killed her husband and was locked up in a high-security forensic facility. However, criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber (and our narrator) is determined to get her to open up...while simultaneously detangling his own recent actions.

'The Talented Mr. Ripley' by Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel remains a classic of the psychological thriller genre for a reason. Decades later, it still envelops readers in the titular con man’s unnerving psyche, pulling you into his web of lies and along for the ride as he does just about anything—and becomes just about anyone—in pursuit of a higher-class life.

'You' by Caroline Kepnes

The basis for the hit Netflix series of the same name, this 2014 novel takes readers inside the mind of intelligent, funny, hopeless romantic Joe...who also happens to be a murderous stalker who will do whatever it takes to be with the woman he’s obsessed with. Pro tip: The book is written in the second person from Joe’s POV, so for an exponentially creepier, more immersive reading experience, listen to the audiobook.

New Psychological Thriller Books Worth Reading

'Count My Lies' by Sophie Stava

This story starts with Sloane Caraway signing on as the nanny for the wealthy couple, Jay and Violet Lockhart, and soon becoming irrevocably enmeshed in their lives. But Sloane is a pathological liar, making her a completely untrustworthy narrator—and that’s just the tip of the very twisty iceberg that is this unputdownable novel.

'Daisy Darker' by Alice Feeney

Another psychological thriller posing as a classic murder mystery, this 2022 best-seller is a locked-room mystery, as members of Daisy Darker’s family begin dying one by one while they’re gathered on a remote island. But there’s more to Daisy’s story, as Darker family secrets threaten to resurface years after a horrific event.

'A Good Person' by Kirsten King

The title of this book is very much tongue-in-cheek, as our narcissistic, maybe sociopathic narrator Lillian is really anything but. One of my personal favorite novels of 2026, it follows Lillian as she attempts to piece together the cloudy circumstances of her ex-situationship’s untimely demise, including whether she was involved. Inevitably, she makes reliably makes shockingly, hilariously awful decisions at practically every turn.

'The Housemaid' by Freida McFadden

In this 2022 #BookTok runaway hit, after Millie takes a job as a live-in housekeeper for the wealthy Winchester family, she’s constantly unnerved by erratic Nina and irresistibly attracted to even-keeled Andrew. But the dysfunction in that house might be deeper than Nina’s unpredictable cruelty.

'One of Us Knows' by Alyssa Cole

Years into her career as a writer of contemporary romance and historical fiction, Alyssa Cole waded into psychological thrillers with the excellent (and excellently eerie) When No One Is Watching. She dove even deeper into the genre with this 2024 novel, in which a woman whose career has been derailed by a dissociative identity disorder diagnosis finds herself trapped on an island with a group of strangers. When someone from Kenetria’s past winds up dead, she’s the prime suspect, forcing her and her alters to come together to figure out what’s really going on.

'We Used to Live Here' by Marcus Kliewer

This horror-tinged thriller starts innocently enough: A family arrives at Eve’s door, claiming their patriarch grew up there and asking to look around. When they won’t leave, however, things take a turn for the creepy, with Eve trapped in a truly nightmarish situation that only gets more terrifying and confusing as time goes on. And if you don’t want the confusion to end, an entire Reddit community is dedicated to decoding the novel and its broader universe, spurred on by additional content from Kliewer himself.

'Love Hypothesis' Costume Designer on Dressing a Scientist like a Rom-Com Lead

Meguire Hennes — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 16:10:11 +0000

During The Love Hypothesis press tour, Lili Reinhart's red carpet and street style looks paid tribute to some of the most iconic fashion moments from '90s and 2000s rom-coms. But the Prime Video film, based on Ali Hazelwood's popular romance book, features a swoon-worthy wardrobe of its own.

In the movie adaptation, Reinhart plays Olive Smith, a biology PhD candidate at Stanford University. While lab coats are a fixture of her character's fashion (she wears one for almost half of the film's duration), outfits with splashes of personality emerge from beneath the coat's crisp white collar. "Science plays a role [in Olive's closet], but she's still a young student," costume designer Myriam Hanahem tells Marie Claire.

Lili Reinhart as Olive Smith in The Love Hypothesis. (Image credit: Prime Video)

Whether Olive is working in the biology lab or faking her relationship with Professor Adam Carlsen, crop tops, feminine florals, romantic color trends, Adidas Samba sneakers, and linen-looking blouses are part of her regular rotation.

According to Hanahem, effortless French-girl fashion became the blueprint. "The mood board was a mix of vintage inspiration, like Jane Birkin on a bike, vintage dresses, the jeans and a T-shirt [uniform], just comfortable," she says.

Leset

Pointelle Classic Tank Top - White

Isabel Marant Étoile

Florine Blouse

Adidas

Samba Og Shoes

Hanahem and Reinhart created "an organic collaboration" inside the film's fitting room: "She's been doing this for a while, so she knows her body, she knows what she wants, which is great," Hanahem adds. "She would try something on and then it [brought] us to something else, and then we mixed and matched things that we didn't think of at the beginning."

As Olive Smith, Reinhart often wears florals and jeans beneath her lab coats. (Image credit: Philippe Bossé/Amazon MGM Studios)

While the costume designer was, of course, inspired by the book, Hazelwood kept her characters' outfit descriptions to a minimum. Chapter 16's unicorn socks (IYKYK) scored a starring role in the film's sauciest scene, but beyond that, Hanahem trusted the actors to choose costumes that they felt their characters would wear in real life. "[It was important to] honor the people who play [the parts] so they're the most comfortable they can be," she says.

Receiving Reinhart's input led Hanahem to Olive's signature shade: red. The film's romance genre didn't inspire the 26-year-old character's go-to color, though. "It all started with the Isabel Marant cardigan," she says, remembering the strawberry-dyed sweater that Olive wears the first time we see her in the lab. (By the way, the Newton Cardigan is still available in a slightly darker shade.) "Then it became a red world," Hanahem adds. "In the fitting, we just kept going towards the red pieces."

Isabel Marant Étoile

Newton Cardigan - Burgundy

On her first (faux) coffee date with Dr. Carlsen, Reinhart's Olive layers a ruby raglan tee beneath an identical crocheted cardigan. Later, at the faculty cocktail party, she makes quite an impression in a crimson-colored midi dress, courtesy of Reformation (Hanahem's preferred retailer for Olive's dresses).

"We would buy from [Reformation] and then just make [the look] our own, [either by] shortening it or changing a strap," she says. "We had more expensive pieces and then pieces that people could relate to because she's also a student with basically no money."

Guizio

The Perfect Classic Tank

The Elder Statesman

Crochet Boxy Cardigan

Reformation

Maribella Dress

Speaking of Hanahem's favorite outfit from the film, during a picturesque post-party stroll with Dr. Carlsen, Olive layers a dark denim jacket over the spaghetti-strap, floral-print slip. "We tried a bunch of different jackets, [including] blazers, and yet we ended up with denim, because it's relatable and you can put higher-end pieces underneath and it looks like it's still something that people can afford," she says.

Quince

100% Organic Cotton Denim Jacket

Olive wears red for some of the love story's most pivotal scenes, but the color wasn't right for a major moment in her career. So, Hanahem went with black. "At first, she wasn't supposed to be in black," she says. "We tried green and red [before deciding] that she should be in black, I think two or three days before the scene."

But because they were filming in Montreal, which "doesn't have that many stores," Hanahem flew to New York City for 24 hours to buy 15 black dresses. In the end, Reformation came to the rescue again, as the foundation of the look: "We changed it a lot—the length, the straps—we changed almost everything."

Reinhart recreates The Love Hypothesis book cover, while wearing Olive's lab coat. (Image credit: Prime Video)

While presenting her research, Olive wears a "classic" black blazer by Theory over the LBD's V-neck. But why—after wearing bold blues, greens, and reds on repeat—did she switch to all-black attire? "Adam is always wearing black, so it's kind of like she meets him in his world," Hanahem says, reflecting on their (accidentally) romantic dinner scene.

During one of the most romantic scenes, Reinhart's Olive wears the ultimate little black dress. (Image credit: Philippe Bossé/Prime Video)

Reformation

Joni Knit Dress

Theory

Carissa Blazer in Good Wool

Just like in any rom-com, all of these looks led up to the grand finale. "Everyone has the ending in their mind," Hanahem says. So, she asked herself, "How would most people picture Olive [during] the final kiss?" Once again, Hanahem went with a red Reformation dress, "but with a sleeve and something more casual compared to the other dresses she wore, because she knows her place now." And her wardrobe reflects that.

Lauren Blakely Has Written Over 120 Romance Novels. I Ranked Her 10 Best

Nicole Briese — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Some authors write one book every eight years. Lauren Blakely, on the other hand, averages roughly eight books per year.

A former journalist, Blakely doesn’t believe in writer’s block, and it shows: She’s penned more than 120 titles since self-publishing her first romance novel, Caught Up in Us, in 2013. And she’s not showing any signs of slowing down; she’s got three more books set for release before the end of 2026 alone.

Blakely isn't just extremely prolific, but her books are diverse, tackling every kind of romance trope you can think of, from sports romances (she’s got several hockey series to dive into) to tropes galore (friends-to-lovers fans, you're in for some treats). And those love stories are extremely inclusive, featuring steamy scenes for both heterosexual and queer characters across her multiple series.

“We all want to fall in love, we all want to give love and feel love, and I think that's what [I] delivers on,” she has said.

If you’re ready to dive into the author’s swoon-worthy universe, you’ve come to the right place. Read on for the best Lauren Blakely books, ranked—and everything else you need to know about the beloved romance novelist.

The Best Lauren Blakely Books, Ranked

10 'A Guy Walks Into My Bar' (2020)

Blakely rounded out her The Guys Who Got Away series with an MM twist—and it’s so hot, it comes with a warning. (“Contains hot hotel sex, loads of dirty talk, PDA all over London, and two sexy, witty, charming alpha heroes.”) This one’s more than just sex, though; it’s an unexpected faceplant into love for British bartender Dean when Fitz walks into his bar. Unfortunately for him, Fitz lives in America—and he’s leaving town in five days. But the story takes place within that time frame has readers longingly retracing their banter time and time again.

9. 'All In With Him' (2021)

All In With Him delivers an epic finale for Grant and Declan, whose story Blakely has been developing over the two previous novels in her Men of Summer series. More than that, however, she’s developed them as characters, which is ultimately what won the hearts of her readers. You simply can’t help but fall in love with these two as people.

8. 'The Boyfriend Goal' (2024)

Blakely kicked off her Love and Hockey series with a bang with The Boyfriend Goal. It’s the type of book that makes you fall in love right alongside the characters, who just so happen to be roommates. And that’s not all: Hockey player Wes is also teammates with Josie’s brother. Needless to say, it’s all a wee bit complicated, but the giddy butterflies Blakely provokes through their interactions? They couldn't be better.

7. 'The Best Men' (2022)

File under incredible beach read. This joint effort between Blakely and author Sarina Bowen is about a no-strings fling that occurs between a bride’s big brother and his new brother-in-law’s “wingman”—and it definitely landed with Blakely’s audience. Although it's a more surface-level story, many have found beauty in its simplicity. The chemistry that erupts between these two opposites makes for a fun, steamy romp.

6. 'Forbidden Nights' (2015)

Forbidden Nights is one of Blakely’s best standalone novels, with readers likening it to a “sexual haze.” What starts as a physical arrangement between Nate and his best friend’s little sister Casey (purely for educational purposes, of course) inevitably develops into something deeper—only Nate's unsure whether he’s ready for those kinds of feelings. We won’t spoil the outcome, but let’s just say the journey they share is, well, hot. As one reader put it: “I thought I might burst into flames!!!.”

5. 'Big Rock' (2016)

Big Rock was an instant best-seller and the book that put Blakely on the map. It has a uniquely male POV for a rom-com, with Spencer—a fuck boy with no plan to settle down—as its main narrator. When he needs to soften his image for investors, however, his BFF Charlotte comes to the rescue. She’s agreed to play the part of his doting fiancée, so long as they maintain a strict no-touching boundary. Any guesses how that turns out?

4. 'Wanderlust' (2018)

Who doesn’t fantasize about a romp in Paris from time to time? Wanderlust delivers exactly that, following British translator Griffin as he crosses paths with American tourist Joy for a steamy no-strings-attached fling. Things get a whole lot more complicated when he realizes she’s his newest client, however, and that his numbered days in the city of love have just been extended. Between their chemistry, the magical setting, and Joy’s joie de vivre, this one had fans falling head over heels.

3. 'Mister O.' (2016)

The second book in the Big Rock series did not disappoint—in fact, readers savored it even more than its predecessor. While it has a similar premise to Forbidden Nights—Nick has been enlisted to teach his BFF’s little sister the ropes when it comes to all things O-related—this one offers more of Nick’s internal struggle as he weighs betraying his oldest friend against his desire for Harper. It’s the perfect mix of sweet, funny, sexy, and deeply endearing—A.K.A. a home run in the romance novel department.

2. 'Here Comes My Man' (2022)

Here Comes My Man is Blakely’s highest-rated novel on Goodreads, and for good reason. Its central characters, TJ and Jude, leave readers in “a constant state of swoon” with their faux-but-kinda-real relationship for the sake of the cameras. Sure, their chemistry is off the charts, but it’s the romantic longing between these two exes that really sets this one apart from the pack. And don’t even get us started on the utterly perfect ending!

1. 'The Real Deal' (2018)

Time and time again, Blakely readers have cited The Real Deal as their all-time fave. The kooky boyfriend-for-hire plot suddenly takes a very real turn for Theo and April when they unexpectedly have the time of their lives at her family's summer reunion. It’s a classic case of falling in love when you least expect it, and the swoon factor is through the roof.

How many books has Lauren Blakely written?

Blakely has 128 romance novels listed on her official website, but has penned even more. Before finding success in her current niche, Blakely wrote YA several titles under an undisclosed pen name, as she revealed in a 2018 interview. She has also published several novellas.

How spicy are Lauren Blakely's books?

Readers tend to think Blakely’s books are "medium spicy."

While she describes intimate acts in her book, it’s not gratuitously physical. Her scenes tend to focus on the feelings each kiss, caress, or anything else might provoke. “Are you going up in flames? Does it feel like fireworks are igniting in your chest?" she once told Cosmopolitan are things she considers. "Those are the things that I certainly try to do when I'm writing sexy-times scenes so that it doesn't just feel like a manual.”

What is Lauren Blakely’s most popular book?

Blakely first tasted critical success with her first romance novel, Caught Up in Us, in 2013. However, her popularity was cemented with the 2016 release of Big Rock, which secured a recurring spot on the New York Times Best Sellers list. 2017’s Full Package also earned a top spot for E-Book fiction.

How to read Lauren Blakely’s books in order

Many of Blakely’s books can be read as standalone novels, even if they’re part of a larger series.

If you’re looking to check out our selections, one of Blakely’s oldest gems is Forbidden Nights (2015), which is one of two Joy Delivered books. Both are standalone novels featuring rich heroes.

The Joy Delivered Duet

Nights With Him (2014)
Forbidden Nights (2015)

Next up is Blakely’s romantic comedy series Big Rock, which includes Big Rock and Mister O. The books in this series can be read in any order, though many share a light-hearted tone and a fake relationship or friends-to-lovers plot.

The Big Rock Series

Blakely’s most lauded novel, 2018’s The Real Deal , is about a boyfriend-for-hire and stands completely on its own.

Those with the travel bug might prefer to start with the Paris With Love series, however. The series features two standalone novels about forbidden romance overseas, starting with Wanderlust.

The From Paris With Love Series

Wanderlust (2018)
Part Time Lover (2018)

The popular 2020 novel A Guy Walks Into My Bar is part of Blakely’s The Guys Who Got Away series. As you might expect, they feature second-chance romances.

These books aren’t linked, so you can read them in any order. They also include both MF and MM leads, depending on the title.

The Guys Who Got Away Series

All In With Him, published in 2021, is the final book in the forbidden MM sports romance Men of Summer series. Though the finale is our top 10 pick, you’ll want to read its predecessors, Scoring With Him and Winning With Him, to get the most out of this read.

The Men of Summer Series

The Best Men, co-published with Bowen in 2022, is one of Blakely’s eight standalone romances, with no adjacent series to explore more of its queer enemies-to-lovers trope.

2022’s Here Comes My Man, on the other hand, is the MM sequel to Hopelessly Bromantic about an American and British roommate who bunk together in more ways than one.

Hopelessly Bromantic Duet

Hopelessly Bromantic (2022)
Here Comes My Man (2022)

Last but not least on our list? The Boyfriend Goal. Published in 2024, it’s the first of seven standalone sports romances revolving around the ice.

Love and Hockey series

Check out Blakely’s full list of romance novels here.

Are any of Lauren Blakely's books being adapted into movies or TV shows?

As of now, none of Blakely’s books are being developed into film or television projects. But with the number of adaptations in the works, it feels like it's only a matter of time. In the meantime, there's certainly no harm in assembling your dream fan casts!

Why Trust Us

No one could ever possibly get through all the great books the world has to offer—but we’ve made it our mission to try. Love romance? There’s a book ranking for that. Can't get enough gothic lit? We’ve got you covered. Missing the mythology you loved as a kid? We’ve found the adult version. No matter what you like to read, Marie Claire has a review, an interview, or an adaptation for you to check out—and our library is always expanding.

10 of the Best #BookTok-Approved Dark Romance Novels

andreap617@gmail.com (Andrea Park) — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000

With the rise of #BookTok and other bookish online platforms, the romance genre has skyrocketed to unfathomable heights of popularity—which only continues to grow. Key to the category’s ongoing success is that there’s truly a subgenre for every reader, no matter what gets your eyes on the page and your heart a-flutter. Case in point: One of #BookTok’s favorite subgenres is "dark romance," which typically features morally gray characters, high stakes, power imbalances, lots of spice, and, often, problematic or taboo themes. But don't worry: Dark romance books typically still end with the same happily-ever-after that general romance readers are accustomed to.

If you’re looking to dabble in the sultry subgenre, we’ve rounded up some of the best, most beloved dark romance books out there. But before you dive in, be aware that some of these books feature intense scenes and themes, so you may want to look up any content warnings.

The Best Collegiate Dark Romance Books

'God of Malice' by Rina Kent

God of Malice kicks off a sextet of dark college romances about high-powered crime families. The first in the series introduces the charming yet cold-blooded Killian, the headstrong Glyndon, and the all-consuming, psychologically twisted connection between them.

'The Ritual' by Shantel Tessier

Shantel Tessier’s seven-book The Lords series launched with this best-selling novel, introducing the world of Barrington University and its secret society of violent, powerful men. It focuses on Ryat, one of the society’s members, who selects Blakely as his assigned “chosen one” to manipulate and control—as she remains conflicted about her new role.

The Best Crime Dark Romance Books

'Hooked' by Emily McIntire

Each book in Emily McIntire’s Never After series offers a dark romance take on a beloved childhood tale. The first in the series riffs on Peter Pan, in which the Captain Hook-inspired character is a dark, brooding criminal who can’t seem to shake his addiction to Wendy, the daughter of his sworn enemy, a certain guy named Peter.

'Nine Minutes' by Beth Flynn

At 15, Ginny is abducted by a violent motorcycle gang and forced to start a new life with them. But the gang’s brutal leader, Grizz, has a soft spot for Ginny, resulting in a very disturbing, very passionate connection between a young girl and her captor-turned-protector.

'The Sweetest Oblivion' by Danielle Lori

Elena is the adored, innocent daughter of a powerful mafia family. However, her charmed life gets a lot more complicated when she realizes she can’t get her sister’s hot but arrogant fiancé—and another powerful figure in the criminal underworld—off her mind. Further complicating the matter? The fact that the feeling is very much mutual.

The Best Fantasy Dark Romance Books

'Haunting Adeline' by H.D. Carlton

After moving to Seattle for a fresh start, Adeline quickly finds herself being haunted by a possessive spirit in the gothic mansion she’s inherited. As she grows irresistibly attracted to her paranormal stalker, she unravels the mystery of her great-grandmother’s own ill-fated entanglement with a dangerous phantom.

'Her Soul to Take' by Harley Laroux

With its combination of paranormal romance, dark academia, and dark romance, this novel basically hits every #BookTok-fave subgenre. It follows paranormal investigator Rae, who accidentally awakens the ancient demon Leon and soon becomes the object of his undying passion and obsession.

The Best Thriller Dark Romance Books

'Corrupt' by Penelope Douglas

Erika can’t get over her obsession with her boyfriend’s very scary older brother, Michael—and when her boyfriend goes off to the military, no one is around to protect her from Michael’s own dangerous plans. And there’s more: Corrupt is followed by three more dark romances in Penelope Douglas’ Devil’s Night series.

'Lights Out' by Navessa Allen

This 2024 best-seller features a fast-paced plot, charming banter, and plenty of spice—yet it’s very far from your typical romance novel. Instead, it centers on Aly, who fantasizes about a masked man breaking into her home to reach her. Much to her delight, that fantasy comes true with one of the masked social media stars she follows online...but another, even scarier predator is waiting in the wings for his own chance to pounce.

The Best Rom-Com Dark Romance Books

'Butcher and Blackbird' by Brynne Weaver

The first in Brynne Weaver’s best-selling Ruinous Love series, this one’s a dark and spicy take on a friends-to-lovers rom-com. Sloane and Rowan start as rivals—rival serial killers, that is—until they decide to team up to take on other killers across the country and soon realize that the chemistry between them is…ahem…to die for.

The Moment I Realized My Mom Was a Mail-Order Bride

Katya Suvorova — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Katya Suvorova's coming-of-age story speaks volumes about her resilience—and about how broken immigration is in the U.S. In her equally poignant and witty debut memoir, Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter, the writer and activist unpacks her childhood living undocumented in Houston, Texas. A unique story of survival and complicated parent-child relationships, Suvorova explores how she lived precariously alongside her mother, who fought for their safety and citizenship as a Russian mail-order bride.

Suvorova writes about how she distanced herself from her mother (and later wrestled with their estrangement) after she realized the truth about her mother's profession at 17. Before the highly anticipated book hits shelves on September 29, the author has shared an exclusive excerpt with Marie Claire in which she recalls the moment she realized her mother was a mail-order bride and confronted her about it.

Eleventh Grade, 17 Years Old

It’s Houston humid and my skin is boiling off my bones. I hate being outside right now—it feels like you’re stuck in someone’s mouth and they’ve gargled with gasoline. And the worst part is that it’s not even summer yet.

My stepdad says I need to spend the day cleaning the garage. I hate being out here, but I like this chore because my nosiness is sanctioned for the sake of organization.

Halfway through rifling through his stuff I’ve decided my stepdad has never been interesting in his life. This whole four car garage is filled with his shit and all of it sucks. There is a box of Megan McLachlan CDs and posters, another box containing “Most Improved” awards from what looks like a summer camp he went to 100 years ago, and a binder with several emails printed out and put in plastic sleeves of other people giving him kudos at his job. I don’t know what I was hoping to find, but it’s not this garbage.

When I go to put everything on the curb for trash collection, I find a box belonging to Mom. It’s not marked as hers, but I can tell it is because it looks like a family of rats was living inside of it. The lid is torn, there is a weird, peppery smell coming from the opening that I’m sure is probably her Russian witch medicine. Everything Mom owns is disheveled, but it surprises me that she has a box in here, because she usually keeps all her things in her closet behind lock and key. After her last husband had torn and burned her clothes and the family photos, she is vigilant about her things.

I flip open the box, hungrily. There are some tiny Russian horoscope pamphlets, Houston newspapers from the '90s, and a magazine I would recognize anywhere. Mom showed it to me when I was little. I remember it as her modeling catalogue. I was so enthralled with it.

Alcove Press

'Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter' by Katya Suvorova

Rose Russians.

“Rose Russians,” I mumble. “Rose Russians?”

I scan the pages.

This does not look like Russian Vogue.

This doesn’t look like a fashion magazine at all.

This catalogue is clogged with women, but they don’t look like they’re advertising clothes. They’re posing in front of beds, in front of houses, up close, on chairs, crossing their legs.

My hands are buzzing as I slide down to the concrete floor of the garage.

I flip to a dog-eared page and find Mom’s face quickly. Her photo takes up a quarter of a page. It’s tiny compared to some of these other women’s photos. There is a smattering of text next to it. I read the words slowly, carefully. I’m looking for a family and eternal love.

My stomach drops.

“Son of a bitch,” I whisper. “She’s a mail-order bride.”

I walk out of the garage, my mind racing, and head to my room. I think back on where I had first seen the catalogue with my mother’s face looking out from the glossy pages. I remember going home to my mom after career day in first grade and asking her what she did for a job. She told me she was a model. She showed me the same magazine I have in my hands now. I didn’t know how to read, so I assumed she was holding the Russian equivalent of Vogue. My mom had always told me she modeled and waitressed in Russia. She had a degree, but she could make more money with her appearance than her brains.

I feel angry, thinking about all the weird details of my life. Details I knew weren’t normal for other kids but were normal for me. My stepdad is so much older than her. We have a huge house. I remember how she had a salary requirement when she was searching for a husband.

I scoff.

I think about Jen’s mom, who is a lawyer. Maritzia’s mom cleans houses, Layla’s mom raised Layla and her siblings.

All my friends have issues with their parents, but they have mothers they can respect.

A chilling feeling emerges in my gut.

I have to be better than my mom. If I’m not better than her, I will end up like her.

Dependent on a man.

I can’t have that life.

A chilling feeling emerges in my gut.I have to be better than my mom. If I’m not better than her, I will end up like her. Dependent on a man. I can’t have that life.

I go downstairs, ready to put the magazine back where I found it.

My hand is on the doorknob of the garage when I hear Mom’s bedroom door open.

“Katyusha,” she says. I look around me and realize I don’t have anywhere to hide the magazine. “Are you done cleaning the garage?”

She comes closer to me and her eyes brighten when she notices what’s in my hands.

“Where did you find this?” Mom asks, a crease in her forehead, her tone sharp.

When she asks me this, I realize I am so angry I could explode.

“In the garage, when I was cleaning.”

“I don’t appreciate you going through my stuff,” she says, back.

“You told me you were a model for Coke,” I say, “I didn’t know you were actually a mail-order bride.”

“A what?” she asks, like she is confused.

I point to the magazine. “Mail-order bride. That’s what we call women who sell themselves.” Mom is usually the mean one. Now it’s my turn.

Mom sighs, closing her eyes. I can’t read what she is thinking. I can hardly ever read what she was thinking.

Finally, she says, “Everyone I know was doing it,” in her chopped Russian accent.

I don’t respond.

She adds, gently, “It’s how we got out.”

Mom is wearing a mini skirt and a tight, hot pink, spaghetti-strapped shirt. When I was little, I remember asking her to wear pants and regular-sleeved shirts like my friend Dream’s mom. I always wanted my mom to be the same, and this just proves how different she is. I hate it.

Mom comes closer to me, her face red. I don’t know if she’s angry or if she’s ashamed.

“You could have had a more respectable occupation,” I say. I stand up taller; I feel better than her. More powerful.

“A what?”

“A job. You could have had a regular job. Come here on a worker visa or something.”

I am more American than she is. I’m not as low as she is. I speak in words she doesn’t understand.

“I— You don’t understand how it was back then. Besides, I didn’t marry anyone until later.”

“Who was Joe?” I ask.

Our story is clicking into place for me, and I hate it.

“He helped us cross the border. It was different with him.”

“Did you promise him sex to do it?” I spit the words, aiming them at her.

She looks away. “It’s none of your business,” she responds.

I want her to stand up for herself, to stand up for me, to not have had to sacrifice everything, including her own daughter.

I bite down on my teeth. I want to call her a prostitute. I want to keep pummeling her. I want my words to hurt.

“Why did you tell me you were a model?” I seethed. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“What else did I have?” She shouts, her eyes watery. For a moment I think she is going to slap me. “You came back from school and talked about how everyone had a job for this fucking job fair. What did you want me to say? I show you the magazine. I—I had nothing else.”

I feel deflated. I want a normal mom. A mom who respects herself. An American mom, who wouldn’t be caught dead in a catalog, waiting to be bought.

I want her to be more than a mail-order bride. I want her to stand up for herself, to stand up for me, to not have had to sacrifice everything, including her own daughter.

I want her to be strong. I want to be proud of her. I want her to use her fucking voice instead of this chopped accent that she has, this accent that people label as whorish because she is Eastern European.

I slam the magazine down, leaving it for her.

“You sold me too!” I yell, walking away.

R.F. Kuang Shares Her Favorite Reads About the “Hilarious Friction” of Learning a Language

Quinci LeGardye — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0000

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

In this author-curated rendition, R.F. Kuang—the scholar and best-selling author behind Babel, Katabasis, and Yellowface—shares which novels about language-learning inspired her seventh novel, Taipei Story.

R.F. Kuang’s fascination with language has made her a literary superstar. Her bestselling works—from historical epics with complex magic systems to a biting contemporary satire of the publishing industry—explore the ways words can be warped and co-opted in search of power, fame, and influence. For her latest release, Kuang turned to a place that can strike fear in the heart of any linguaphile: the immersion classroom.

Taipei Story, Kuang’s first contemporary coming-of-age novel, follows Yale student Lily through her summer attending an intensive Chinese-language program in Taiwan. The first half of the book is a travelogue of fumbling miscommunications inside and outside of the classroom, as Lily navigates inscrutable teachers, roommate woes, and that diasporic dissonance of feeling like an outsider in her ancestral homeland. In a way, the fictional Lily is walking in her creator’s footsteps; to write the novel, Kuang pulled from her own study-abroad era in the summer of 2023.

“While I went to many of the same places and did many of the same activities as Lily did, her reactions and interpretations are wholly invented,” Kuang tells Marie Claire. “I wanted to explore loss and alienation from the perspective of someone much younger and worse equipped to deal with it all.”

William Morrow

'Taipei Story' by R.F. Kuang

Though Kuang is best known for revitalizing the “dark academia” novel, with its innately gifted protagonists, the Cambridge, Oxford, and soon-to-be Yale graduate embraced the natural conflict that misapprehension brings for her latest novel. “You don’t speak the language. You keep blundering and violating cultural norms,” she describes. “You don’t know the right way to interpret anything you’re witnessing. All of that friction is hilarious.”

Kuang counts these types of novels, ones that explore the gap between intention and comprehension that foreign-language speakers face, among her biggest literary influences. The big question of Taipei Story is whether Lily will ever cross that chasm. When her grandfather passes away in the middle of her program—as Kuang’s did in real life—she has to parse through her family’s unspoken history without the complete fluency she’d been chasing. The lesson that comes from this struggle is one that Kuang would give to her young self today.

“Miscommunication is inevitable, and so is falling flat on your face,” she says. “The only way to get better at a language is to make mistakes over and over again, so just put yourself out on a limb and learn to laugh at yourself.”

To coincide with the release of her highly anticipated new book on September 8, we asked the author to share the books about miscommunication among language-learners that inspired Taipei Story, from globetrotting fiction to campus novels.

Penguin Books

'The Idiot' by Elif Bautman

"Elif Batuman’s hilarious coming-of-age novel about a college freshman learning beginner Russian, and then proceeding to teach English during a summer abroad in Hungary, is a longtime favorite and served as a template for the comedic opportunities involved in foreign-language pedagogy. Batuman understands perfectly how when you are nineteen, the world seems designed for you. Every time Selin learns something new about history, philosophy, or linguistics, she wonders: how does this apply to her budding relationship with Ivan?"

Coffee House Press

'Leaving the Atocha Station' by Ben Lerner

"Adam Gordon, the protagonist of Leaving the Atocha Station, is an asshole. He pretends his Spanish is better or worse depending on what will get him the most cultural clout in any situation, he’s milking a poetry fellowship in Madrid despite little real interest or expertise in Spanish poetry, and he defaults to pretending the people around him are not real when faced with any linguistic strain or embarrassment. The result is hilarious."

Anchor Books

'A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers' by Xiaolu Guo

"We might read Zhuang Xiaoqiao, the protagonist of Dictionary, as a perfect foil to Atocha Station's Adam: she wears her lack of fluency on her sleeve. She’s a newcomer to English, and each sentence is evidence of Zhuang’s struggle to get a better grasp on the language, on cultural norms in London, and on her mysterious, distant lover. Guo takes the stylistic risk of writing the novel in 'broken' English – the grammar and vocabulary both become more sophisticated as Zhuang progresses through her program."

Riverhead Books

'My Year Abroad' by Chang-rae Lee

"In Lee’s My Year Abroad, protagonist Tiller Bardmon is whisked around the world by an eccentric and charismatic Chinese businessman, Pong. Hijinks ensue; a year later, Tiller is hiding out in the suburbs in witness protection. If foreign language study is often marketed as a pathway to a career in international business, then Tiller and Pong’s absurdist capers poke fun at what those advantages of linguistic and cultural capital really carry in a world of global capitalism gone awry."

Riverhead Books

'Intimacies' by Katie Kitamura

"Kitamura’s unnamed protagonist is a translator working for the UN in the Hague. She’s evidently talented with languages, and yet her mobility across several tongues does little to help her understand the people around her in thorny situations such as her romantic entanglement with a Dutch man who may or may not be leaving his wife, or the mugging witnessed by her friend. (There is a sequence where the protagonist is asked to interpret for a war criminal that chills me to my core.) What remains untranslatable, incommensurable, and unknowable even when you speak the same language?"

Tessa Bailey Has Published 65 Books—Her Latest Is Like Nothing She's Ever Written

Sadie Bell — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Readers often look to Tessa Bailey's romance novels because of their heart and relatability. Her books bring on the charm (plus ample spice!), but her love stories always feel grounded and resonant with working-class protagonists undergoing periods of transition.

Since 2013, Bailey has published 65 books—ranging from hit sports-romance titles like the Big Shots franchise to rom-coms like the Hot and Hammered series—and sold over 4 million copies. But this fall, the best-selling author will release a novel that's unlike anything else she's written thus far.

Cue Broken Rival, a high-concept time-travel romance. The sci-fi melodrama centers on 18-year-old Magnolia, who just so happens to be the daughter of the inventors of time travel. When her parents leave her in the past after the technology becomes corrupted and leads to their persecution, she finds herself trying to adjust and searching for answers in her new reality. That's all but complicated when she's caught in a love triangle between two brothers—including one who works for a militia group that hunts time travelers.

Before Broken Rival releases on October 6, Bailey has shared an exclusive excerpt with Marie Claire. Read on for the advanced chapter, which features a sweet moment between Magnolia and her boyfriend Fallon just before danger begins to loom in the distance.

Drumbeats pepper the crisp fall air.

The scent of hot chocolate and corn dogs drift through the gaps in the metal bleachers. Sparkles painted onto the cheeks of students catch the spotlights, never staying still. Shimmering, moving, going silver to pink. A horn signals the start of the second half and I smile, watching Fallon and his teammates take the field, the white knees of his football pants soiled with grass stains, his helmet dangling from his fingertips. He always leaves it off until the exact second official play resumes. One of his numerous good luck rituals.

Like kissing me in the parking lot before a game.

Taping his pinkie and ring finger together with white strips of athletic tape.

Parting his golden coif of hair to the left for away games.

Feeling eyes on my back, I turn and seek out Fallon’s mother, Camille, in the top row of the bleachers, her honey-colored hair pulled into a high ponytail, his jersey number—9—painted on her cheek in red, outlined in black. Looking nervous, she tilts her head toward the scoreboard, which shows a tied score. I hold up my crossed fingers and she does the same.

See you at home later, she mouths. Whatever happens.

Comfort steals through me and I smile, nodding. Home.

Home is a big house in the southeast corner of Aubrey with an entryway full of crosses. The opposite wall is painted pitch-black, but if you look at it from an angle, you can see where someone used a finger to draw the outline of a six-foot-two human figure in the wet paint. A nod to the boy who used to live there.

Home is dirty cereal bowls stacked in the sink, the smell of acrylic paint and daisies gathered from the fields surrounding the house. It’s the sound of the pastor muttering his sermons to himself in the study, his feet creaking the floorboards while he paces. It’s crop dusters flying over the Overmeyers’ farm to the north.

Home is Fallon.

I sigh gustily enough to emit a white cloud in front of my face, my gloved hands wedging between my thighs in my lap. When I came home with the Willoughbys two years ago, I slept in the guest room for three months until the pastor caught Fallon kissing me in the downstairs bathroom. He bought a small trailer after that and parked it in the backyard. Since then, the trailer has been my home. “I’m not harboring any notions this is going to keep you two away from each other,” he’d said wryly, opening the door to the trailer and gesturing us inside. Fallon laughed at my furious blush and tickled me up the stairs. “But if y’all are going to insist on holding hands in church, I think we’ll need to consider appearances.” The pastor dragged a long-suffering hand down his face.

“You two couldn’t keep this platonic, could you? Had to make it hard on me, huh?” Fallon laughs. “Sorry, Dad. She’s way too cute.”

Two years. Gone by in a blur. I’m eighteen now, but at sixteen, I still wasn’t used to being told I was pretty. My parents never once told me so, nor did I have access to a lot of kids my own age. As a child, I’d been close friends with another scientist’s son, but they left our station when I was six, leaving me isolated at our perfunctory employee housing near the lab. My thick brown hair always seemed kind of ordinary. Brown eyes, unremarkable.

Avon Books

'Broken Rival' by Tessa Bailey

Fallon called them bronze, though. He declared that, somehow by looking at me, a person could tell by these bronze eyes that I’m smart. He told me I smelled like fresh, wild raspberries. That my lips were soft, my voice was like music. He’d lean over and hug me out of the blue.

Still does.

Eager to set my sights on my boyfriend, I return my attention to the football field and frown. Where are the players? I swear I saw them return from the locker room just a minute ago.

I stand up and lean over, trying to determine if the team are out of sight or if maybe there is a problem and—

“Magnolia Brown.”

Hearing my name over the announcer’s speaker, my skin immediately shrinks around my bones. The fear of being trapped and removed, like a spider on someone’s bedroom ceiling, has never quite gone away. But it’s Fallon’s voice, which doesn’t make me nervous—God, no, just the opposite—it’s just that everyone seated in the bleachers has turned to stare at me now.

And they knew right where I was sitting, because they always do.

I’m a moving landmark, no matter where I go.

Sounds grow tinny and distant in my ears, but I smile through the temporary discomfort and find my boyfriend where he stands in the announcer’s booth, the ends of his hair brushing his filthy shoulder pads. Those familiar white teeth are stretched in a smile, hovering just above the silver microphone. His teammates flank him on all sides, giving him good-natured slaps and shoves of encouragement.

“Magnolia Brown, I love you. Will you go to prom with me?”

Briefly, I catch Camille’s eye, and she gives me a beaming eye roll that says exactly what I’m thinking: There he goes again. Fallon being Fallon. There are no small gestures with my boyfriend. No minor commitments. He only leaves behind big, boisterous, memorable marks. Everyone loves him for it, too.

That fondness for Fallon is why the people of Aubrey have slowly accepted me as one of their own over the last two years. There might be an asterisk beside my name in the town records forever, but to Fallon, I’m just Magnolia. I’m not simply the girl whose parents negatively impacted the course of history.

To Fallon, I’m just Magnolia. I’m not simply the girl whose parents negatively impacted the course of history.

You’re just Magnolia. Good through and through. Nothing like her parents.

Not a threat.

Sweet and helpful and most importantly, grateful to still have her head.

I push an effusive smile onto my face, pressure leaking out from behind my eyes. “Yes,” I whisper. Then louder, “Yeah, I will.”

The game buzzer gives several noisy toots, the audience erupting into cheers. Many of those clapping are the same people who called for my death when I was sixteen. I shake their hands now and accept their kisses on the cheek, agreeing when they tell me how incredible Fallon is. How lucky I am. Don’t I know it?

I blow a kiss to Fallon as he takes the field a second time, waving to me while he runs backward. I want to watch the second half from the bleachers, but it’s my turn to volunteer at the Helping Hands booth, drumming up support for the canned food drive I’m organizing with my cochair, Vetta.

I’m scooting past a row of underclassmen when gunfire rat-a-tats in the distance.

All the motion in the stadium fades to stillness.

Every head in the audience turns in the same direction. Three miles north. Toward the Burn Line.

The black ring of burned earth that separates Aubrey from the Breach.

Residents of Aubrey were ordered long ago by Cyrus to stay inside the Burn Line, for their own protection. We do not venture to the other side. No one, not even the wiliest troublemakers in our school, is self-destructive enough to attempt it. This close to the Breach, they could be mistaken for a Taker and executed by the Deterrence on sight.

As the Breaches have been declared disaster sites by the federal government, populations who live the closest to those holes in the atmosphere have shifted away, migrating to towns and cities they deem safer, leaving many southeast Kansas towns deserted. Not Aubrey, though. Everyone is either too stubborn to leave or their faith in Cyrus Royse is so great, they seem to believe we’re surrounded by an iron dome, rather than a man-made Burn Line that circles the town.

No one comes in. No one goes out. But we all proceed as normal.

The crowd is silent as a prolonged firefight ensues, parents folding children into their sides in the glow of the Friday night football game. Meanwhile, a sickly yellow hue reaches its fingers into the air above the Burn Line. A fire, perhaps. Bodies burning.

Not everyone is staring into the distance anymore.

Prickles on my skin tell me I’m being observed. Covertly, sure, but the silent judgment is not subtle. It’s always there. They think I can’t feel it.

A very intense part of me doesn’t want to seek Fallon’s comfort. He’ll mope if I don’t let him give it to me, though, so I look over and meet blue eyes that are hunting for mine from the football field, nodding back at him when he mouths, Are you okay?

Yes.

As soon as a full minute has passed without gunfire, the buzzer sounds, a blast of cheers go up and the game resumes, as if nothing happened. Pom-poms wave in the stands, cheerleaders call to the audience through a bullhorn, the Tiger mascot dancing out of rhythm to the delight of the children in the front row.

There’s no name for what watches me from the darkness. Or I won’t name it. I’m not willing to admit which. But it’s always there in moments like this.

I duck my head and move through the tunnel leading to the concessions area, waving at Vetta, hustling forward with an apology on my lips. “Sorry I’m late to relieve you. How’d we do on pledges?”

“Good. Really good. People love to get rid of their verging on moldy green beans.”

“Don’t they, though?” I scoot behind the waist-high table and hip bump her out from behind it. “Go watch the rest of the game. I’ve got this.”

She tilts her head at me. “So you’re just going to pretend like your live-in boyfriend didn’t ask you to prom in front of the whole town?”

“Like I always say, Fallon is going to Fallon. And he’s not . . .” I sigh. “Okay, fine. I guess he’s technically my live-in boyfriend. Weird circ—”

“Weird circumstances. I know. We all know. And we hate you for it.” She smiles to let me know she’s at least partially joking. “You’re already shacked up with your man, and mine will only take me on a date if his boys are there, too.”

“Maybe he wants to show you off.” I waggle my eyebrows at her. “Hell, I would. A kickboxer and an uncompensated volunteer? You’re a catch.”

“Bah. Enough of that.” She laughs, her smile slowly ebbing from her face. “Did you hear those gunshots? They sounded . . . close.”

“Yeah, I did,” I reply, averting my eyes by scanning the pledge sheet, turning to a fresh page and uncapping the pen. “Sounded like it was near the Burn Line, as usual.”

“Yeah, but it’s been a while since the Deterrence had to intercept anyone trying to cross from the Breach into Aubrey, right? Like . . . at least three, four months?”

“That’s a good thing,” I point out, making it clear where I stand on the issue of Takers. Forever making it clear. “I’m sure the gunfire is nothing to worry about or they’d be issuing a curfew for tonight.”

“On a game night? The horror!”

I raise an eyebrow. “A game night you’re missing, standing here talking to me.”

A collective “ohhh” emanates from the stands. “Fine, twist my arm. I’ll go watch.” She skips backward toward the packed bleachers, nearly running into a couple returning to their seat with two loaded chili dogs. “As if Fallon Willoughby ever loses.”

That statement lingers in the air long after Vetta is absorbed by the stands.

Everyone has gotten their mid-game snack now and used the bathroom. It’s just me, waiting in case the odd spectator happens by but mainly to field the postgame rush. For now, though, I’m alone in the muffled roar behind the stands. In the filtered spotlight.

That’s when I let myself acknowledge the Presence. At least to myself.

The ringing in my ears grows more tense, more suspenseful, my mouth turning dry as a bone. Electricity dances slowly up the length of my arms and wraps around my throat, forcing me to cough to release the pressure. There’s no name for what watches me from the darkness. Or I won’t name it.

I’m not willing to admit which.

But it’s always there in moments like this. In the silent, finally alone moments, it reminds me that I’m never actually alone. It’s watching. Keeping tabs. Entertained by my actions. My very normal actions designed to help me blend in.

The Presence is not buying my serene act for a second. There’s something different about it tonight, though.

A sizzle of warning that drips down my spine and leaves a burn behind.

There’s change in the air.

This Is What Postpartum Psychosis Feels Like

Jodi Picoult — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:19:10 +0000

Content warning: the below contains references to and descriptions of postpartum psychosis and the death of children.

As bestselling author Jodi Picoult considered potential themes for her thirtieth novel, an email arrived. It praised Picoult's famously extensive research process and suggested a topic for her next novel. "You see, I also want to be a voice for those who suffer in silence, mainly those women battling the darker side of postpartum," the letter-writer wrote. "Unfortunately, my reach is limited, as I write to you from a jail cell."

The author of the letter was Solange White, who on August 18 pleaded guilty, but mentally ill, to the third-degree murder of her three-year-old daughter in 2022. White, who told Picoult in her letter that her life had been "hijacked by an evil mix of postpartum hormones, insomnia, and the wrong medical treatment," was sentenced to 16 to 40 years in prison. Weeks later, the highly publicized trial of Lindsay Clancy—who in 2023 fatally strangled her three young children—ended in a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

As Picoult considered White's request for a novel that contained themes of postpartum psychosis, she began to research. Picoult learned that the condition affects one in five hundred women. "PPP can literally affect anyone, regardless of socioeconomic status, educational status, or race," she writes in the author's note for Hollow Bones, out September 15. "As difficult as it is to believe, the motive for a woman who commits altruistic homicide is not malicious. She truly thinks she is protecting her child from evil and that the only way to do this is to end their life. A woman with PPP is not a perpetrator but a victim of her own mind ... The most shocking thing I learned about PPP during my research is that since PPP often presents like anxiety and depression at first, doctors use SSRIs to treat it as they would postpartum depression—however, antidepressants exacerbate PPP, leaving the woman in an even more disturbed state."

In the following excerpt from Hollow Bones, a character named Eloise begins to suffer symptoms of postpartum psychosis following the birth of her daughter, Molly. Picoult notes: "Much of Eloise’s frame of mind as she suffered from PPP came from the hundred-plus pages of interviews I did with [White]."

I am inventing colors. These are hues that have never been recorded, ombrés that waver in front of my eyes and metallics so sharp I can taste them. I start writing down their names. The three-dimensional ivory twined with white—I call that “westminster.” The green slide to brown: “crepuscule.” The bubbling orange of the sun as it melts into night: “fervent.” One day, when Molly is older, I will mix these in paints, so that there can be a visual record of them.

Although I am still not sleeping, it is no longer an issue. It was almost as if I had to hit rock bottom before I could hit my stride. As it turns out, I don’t need sleep; my body only had to level up, unlocking new reserves. I now sense when Molly is going to wake to feed seconds before she cries.

I’m buzzing, all the time, my skin conducting electricity. I am suddenly so aware.

I do wonder if it’s just me, or if all women who have babies become so superhumanly attuned. But the one time I get up the nerve to ask someone—a stranger at the pediatrician’s office with a baby roughly the same age as Molly—a thought curls like smoke in my mind: We do not speak of this.

I remember once hearing that autism is the brain’s inability to filter out stimuli—that people on the spectrum experience everything all at once, unable to tune out the extraneous bits. I, too, am being bombarded. Stimuli come at me in tidal waves; it’s all I can do to stay afloat. As a result, something has to give. So while my mind is spinning like a pinwheel, I sometimes forget which buttons to push on my washing machine to do laundry. I can’t remember how to roast a chicken, although I’ve done it a hundred times.

Ballantine Books

'Hollow Bones' by Jodi Picoult

The flip side of this hyperfocus is that, now, I also am aware of everything that can go wrong. What if there is a fire and I can’t get Molly out of our building? I pull the couch away from the window because twice a year or so a bird smacks into the glass, and who knows if the next time it will smash through. I am so scared of tripping when I’m walking down the front steps of the apartment with Molly in my arms that yesterday, I sat on my butt and scooted down. I put away all the glass tesserae of the unfinished mosaic—choking hazards. There are a million and one ways that I could inadvertently hurt my child. You could, says the smoke in my head. You might.

Five days after Molly is born, Evie asks to visit. Adam is still in California, and I haven’t seen anyone but the pediatrician. I am about to say no—I want to make sure Molly has a little more immunity from disease before I expose her to the world—but I cannot force the word out. “Eloise?” Evie says, worried. “Don’t move. I’m coming.”

Don’t move. As if I could! Where would I go? I find myself laughing uncontrollably, while Molly’s tiny face peers up at me. And then, the laughter coagulates, and suddenly it’s dripping down my cheeks. Molly starts crying, too. I should walk with her—motion soothes her—but what if I drop her? So instead, I rock back and forth as her cries get louder, sharper, spiked.

Evie lets herself in with her key—she takes care of our apartment when Adam and I go away—and finds me sitting on the floor with Molly shrieking. She plucks the baby out of my arms. Molly immediately stops wailing.

You see? You are bad at this.

“Why are you sitting on the floor?” she asks, her eyes cutting to the couch, which is still pulled far away from its spot beneath the window.

I am about to say So I would not hurt her when I realize how that will sound. Evie may be my best friend, but she is practical, and if I tell her the truth—that I’m being watched, that I have so much energy I can see it moving around me like an aura, that I’m afraid of injuring my child—she will think I’m insane. She will tell Adam, and I’ll get taken away from Molly.

I don’t know how long I sit there in silence, but Evie touches my shoulder. The baby is not in her arms anymore, and I startle. “She’s just over there,” Evie says, and I see Molly on the couch.

(She could roll off.) She can’t roll yet. (It could still happen.)

I do wonder if it’s just me, or if all women who have babies become so superhumanly attuned.

Evie strokes my hair off my forehead, the way she did the first time I drank at RISD and spent the night projectile vomiting into the toilet. “When was the last time you ate?” she asks.

“She nursed twenty minutes ago . . .”

“I asked when you ate. Never mind. Molly and I are going to whip you up something while you take a nap.” She hugs me. “I’ve got you.”

I do not remember getting into the bedroom, but I lie down dutifully on the bed. I stare at the ceiling. I take deep breaths. But even though I’d trust Evie with my life, or my daughter’s, all I can think about is the distance between me and the baby. Fifteen feet, maybe, with a door between us.

I get up, wrench open the door. Evie is in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove. It smells cheesy and rich and my mouth waters. She holds Molly in her free arm, careful to keep her far from the flames.

(Which is more than I can say for you.)

Evie grins. “Look, angel. Your mama’s awake.” She turns to me. “How do you feel?”

“So much better,” I lie.

Evie looks at me gently. “Listen. This is hard.”

I nod. “I know.”

My neck prickles. I do not have to turn to realize that Evie has moved the couch to its original spot beneath the living room window. Dragging it back to the middle of the floor is the first thing I do when she leaves.

Sometimes I look at my baby and calculate the mathematics of her existence: the sweet parabola of her cheek, the constant of her heartbeat, the daily derivative—her rate of change. The limit I can feel for her, which skates along the axis of infinity.

And sometimes I look at her and think she will be the death of me.

Excerpted from Hollow Bones by Jodi Picoult. Copyright © 2026 by Jodi Picoult. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Spooky Season Is Nearly Here—Get Ready With Jeneva Rose's Horror Debut

Sadie Bell — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Author Jeneva Rose has been dubbed the "Queen of Twists" by her mystery-thriller contemporary Colleen Hoover and readers alike. After building a devout following on #BookTok, her debut novel The Perfect Marriage propelled her to success, selling over 1 million copies in just three years after its 2020 publication. It's since sold 1 million more, and she's published a sequel, The Perfect Divorce, in addition to several other genre-defying page-turners.

While the most astute armchair detectives may not be able to predict where Rose's gripping plots go, her latest move certainly feels inevitable. On September 22, the No. 1 New York Times bestselling author will release her first proper horror collection—which all but makes sense after she's written about crime, survival, and zombie-like outbreaks.

The book, Sometimes I Scare Myself, features three short stories about how ordinary situations can lead to terrifying circumstances. Before the highly anticipated title hits shelves, Rose has shared an exclusive first look with Marie Claire. Below, read Rose's introduction and a preview of her story, "The Nightmare House," about a family moving to a desolate town.

Introduction

Sometimes I scare myself. It starts with a thought. The kind that makes me pause and wonder where it came from, or how it slipped past whatever part of my brain is supposed to keep things normal. It’s the kind of thought that, if someone knew what I was thinking, they’d lock me up and throw away the key. Not because I want to hurt anyone—let’s be clear—but because some ideas feel dangerous simply for existing.

They arrive as what-ifs.

What if you opened the door?

What if you answered the call?

What if you didn’t?

And once the question is there, it doesn’t leave. It makes itself comfortable.

The three horror stories in this collection were born from those thoughts—the ones that refuse to behave. The curiosities that turn corrosive. The split-second choices that rot everything from the inside out. These stories live in that narrow space between impulse and consequence, where something terrible happens simply because someone wondered if it could.

If you find yourself unsettled, good.

If you laugh nervously, even better.

And if, at any point, you think, I wish I hadn’t read that—

Welcome.

You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Sweet dreams,

Jeneva Rose

Blackstone Publishing

'Sometimes I Scare Myself' by Jeneva Rose

"The Nightmare House"

Kristin

I didn’t fully register the sign until it was already behind us—a split, weather-scarred plank nailed crookedly to a post that looked one strong wind gust away from surrendering.

Welcome to Tillington

Population: 256

The number two was so faded it was practically a ghost of itself.

“Make that two-sixty,” Patrick said, drumming the steering wheel, pleased with his joke.

I attempted a smile, but it didn’t quite reach my lips. It wasn’t him or anything he’d done. I just felt . . . fragile, like if I bent even a little too far or forced anything, I’d snap. I blamed exhaustion, hormones, the way my body still didn’t feel like it belonged to me.

Outside, frozen fields unspooled in every direction—rolling waves of dead corn and wheat, bowed and brittle under the January sky. Patches of thin forest punctured the land, skeletal branches clawing at the horizon. There was something exposed about it. Nowhere to disappear into or crowds to blur the edges.

Hailey sighed dramatically in the back seat. At fifteen she’d perfected teenage contempt, and her whole body radiated it. Her hood was up and pulled down past her eyes, and her earbuds were in but not actually playing anything since her phone lost service miles back. Every little thing she did now was a quiet punishment directed at her father and me.

“You don’t have to keep reminding me that we’re moving to the middle of nowhere,” she groaned.

I turned slightly in my seat. “We moved because we needed a change.”

It came out sharper than I intended. Everything did these days. I didn’t add the rest—that the city had started to feel too loud, too close, like there were always eyes on us. That every siren made my pulse spike. That even familiar streets had begun to feel unfamiliar to me. My emotions lived just under my skin, waiting for the smallest excuse to break through.

Patrick shot me a look—not reproachful, just tired. We were all tired.

“How ’bout you try and look on the bright side, Hails?” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Think of just one thing that might be better here. One positive thought.”

She snorted. “Fine. I’m positive I’ll hate it here.”

Patrick’s hand found my knee and squeezed, our unspoken way of saying everything we didn’t have the energy to voice. We’re doing our best. We’re trying. This is supposed to help.

The road narrowed as we turned off the highway, the pavement rougher now, less maintained. It was the kind of road people only used if they had a reason to. Henry stirred in his car seat, a small whimper slipping out.

Twelve weeks postpartum meant no boundaries or warnings. It was just instinct firing whether you wanted it to or not.

My chest tightened automatically, my body responding before my mind could catch up. Twelve weeks postpartum meant no boundaries or warnings. It was just instinct firing whether you wanted it to or not.

“It’s okay,” I murmured more to myself than to him. He quieted down and fell back into a slumber.

The road dipped and rose again, and that’s when I saw them.

Two people stood across from one another at their mailboxes. An older man and a woman, mid-conversation. They were laughing—real laughter, shoulders lifted, mouths wide—until our SUV crested the hill. Their mouths snapped closed, and they turned in unison.

The man was tall and narrow, his coat hanging off him as if it belonged to someone else. He held his mail loosely at his side, fingers slack, like he’d forgotten it was there. The woman stood unnervingly still, her hands folded in front of her, chin tipped down as she watched us approach. There was no curiosity, no smiles. Just . . . observation.

Patrick slowed without meaning to.

“Uh,” Hailey said, leaning forward. “Who are these fucking weirdos?”

“Language,” Patrick said. “They’re . . . the neighbors. Just wave.”

He lifted his hand first. I followed and so did Hailey, reluctantly. All three of us waving as we rolled past.

“They’re not waving back,” Hailey muttered.

“That’s fine,” Patrick said. “Just keep waving.”

I forced my smile to hold, even as something cold settled in my stomach. It was the same feeling I’d been living with for months now—the sense that safety was temporary, conditional. That doors didn’t always stay shut just because you remembered closing them.

I forced a smile, and I told myself—for the hundredth time—that this was what safety looked like.

That afternoon in the city flashed through my mind uninvited: coming home from a walk, Henry bundled against my chest, our front door standing open like an accusation. The certainty that followed had been immediate and unshakable. Someone had been in our home.

That was why we were here now. Why I’d needed somewhere quieter, somewhere with fewer people. Somewhere I could breathe without checking locks twice, without replaying every sound, every doubt. I’d wanted this. Or at least I thought I did.

The road curved again, the neighbors disappearing from view, and I let my hand fall back into my lap.

“They’re just curious,” Patrick said, glancing at Hailey in the rearview mirror and then at me. “New faces in a town this small. It’s normal. We’ll settle in, wave a few more times, and before you know it, we’ll be borrowing each other’s snowblowers.”

I forced a smile, and I told myself—for the hundredth time—that this was what safety looked like.

To Be Taken Seriously As a Line Cook, I Had to Shed My Femininity

Carla Lalli — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000

After decades of cooking, developing recipes, and writing about food, chef Carla Lalli has learned her appetite is best met when she eats her feelings. That's exactly the crux of the former Bon Appétit Food Editor at Large's new book Food is a Feeling, a cookbook/memoir about her lifetime spent in kitchens, and particularly the role food played after her divorce.

But long before Lalli hosted hit YouTube cooking shows and published bestsellers like Where Cooking Begins and That Sounds So Good, she got her start studying at the French Culinary Institute and working as a line chef and kitchen manager in New York restaurants. There, she honed her craft and fell even more in love with it—but also learned how to hold her own in traditionally hyper-masculine environments.

As Food is a Feeling hits shelves on September 8, Lalli has shared an exclusive excerpt with Marie Claire about her days in the late '90s spent working in a Tribeca kitchen. You can read the chapter, titled "Restaurant Haze," below.

Restaurant work began for me in 1998, at Montrachet, a three-star restaurant in Tribeca run by a tall French chef who seemed proportionally oversized for the short and narrow kitchen. I arrived as a twenty-six-year-old culinary student, a baby whale, ready to inhale every scrap of instruction that came my way. I wasn’t passive: I wanted to contribute, earn approval, and, most of all, I wanted to fit in. I was there for about a year. When I left, it was with a fledgling cook’s swagger and skills that are foundational to the way I prepare food, almost thirty years later.

I was “hired” as an unpaid intern while still in culinary school and went to Montrachet straight from class. After I changed, I’d set up my workstation right on the other side of the swinging kitchen door, between a janky toaster oven and the stainless countertop where the salad cook whisked vinaigrettes in massive metal bowls. It was good that I was small. My body slid into a spot that was barely wide enough for a slim kitchen trashcan, and I could stand comfortably beneath an open shelving unit without having to crouch. I can remember feeling my hip bones press into the lip of the counter as I worked, but I can barely conjure the posh dining room. When I passed through it, I kept my eyes lowered on the red carpet and moved quickly. The kitchen staff were meant to be invisible to the guests.

In addition to helping the cooks with menial prep work—trimming vegetables, mostly—I was tasked with the amuse-bouche. This was a little bite from the chef that went out to each guest after they were seated, which meant I’d have to keep up with service, too. On my first day, Chef gave me a container of gently roasted mini sweet bell peppers and a large metal pan of cold braised rabbit. My job was to debone the rabbit and tear the meat into pieces that would fit into the cavity of each pepper.

The most efficient way to do this was by hand, digging the pieces of rabbit out of the gelatinized braising liquid, then sliding the meat off the tiny bunny bones. Once I had separated the usable bits from the discard, I would coax a pinch of shredded rabbit into the pepper, being careful not to tear the silky, floppy skin. I hadn’t been at it long when the chef swooped in behind me and said, in a searingly derisive tone: Do you know there are oils and bacteria on your hands that you are putting into that entire batch of rabbit, causing it to become contaminated and spoil, and we will have to throw it into the garbage? This was his way of telling me to wear gloves. Enveloped in shame and embarrassment, I knew enough to say, Yes, Chef. Heart pounding, I washed my hands, put on gloves, and continued with my task.

Clarkson Potter

'Food Is a Feeling' by Carla Lalli

An hour later, dinner service began and orders rolled in. I stood silent and rapt, watching the cooks call back orders and fire their dishes. As though automated, they grabbed skillets and dropped them onto already-lit burners, spooned into their mise en place, squirted oil, lemon juice, and vinegar from squeeze bottles, slid aluminum trays in and out of the eye-level broiler, and monitored multiple types of proteins at once. Heeding internal timers, they bent to extract fish fillets and chicken legs from the blasting oven, then used their heels to swing the door closed behind them. My adrenaline soared.

The dance would slow when it was time to plate. From the opposite side of the counter, the chef would bend forward to scrutinize each dish being presented to him. If all went well, he’d dip a tightly rolled white napkin in a bowl of diluted white vinegar and use that to wipe the plate rim. The food runners lined up behind him, listening for him to call table numbers and positions before gliding out to the dining room with the hot plates.

The loop was closed when the runners returned with empty china, pausing in front of the chef so he could see how much (or how little) had been consumed. From there, dishes and silverware landed noisily at the dishwashing station. The porters transformed them into stacks of clean plates that made their way back to the cooks’ warming shelf. I was electrified. The dining room was pomp, performance, a show. The kitchen was unedited, raw sport, a coordinated mosh pit. It seemed like the most beautiful transaction imaginable. The diners order the food, we cook the food, they eat the food, we wash the dishes, they give us money, they leave, we leave.

I made sure to be on time, take up a minimum of space, heed the chef, help the cooks, and keep up with the amuse. Soon, I was offered an actual staff position: $350 for a six-day week; we worked a double on Fridays and the restaurant was closed on Sundays. No sick days, no vacation. It was a low wage for the overtime hours and the nonexistent benefits. But it was a line position. I’d be an entremetier, preparing the vegetables that went with the fish entrées. I accepted on the spot. The shitty pay and punishing conditions were, unfortunately, a big part of the draw, my chance to rebel against my privileged upbringing and fancy education. I wanted to be tough; I wanted to be a player in the behind-the-scenes ruckus of it, anonymous to the diners but indispensable to the team. There was something so sexy to me about being a woman in this masculine space, where I’d get dirty and sweaty flinging skillets all night. I had no idea what I was doing, but I desperately needed to prove I could do it. To them, and to myself.

At Montrachet, cooking went from a hobby to grueling work that destroyed any desire I had to cook on my days off. Or, day: Sunday. I arrived for my shift in a state of panic, which ebbed and peaked depending on factors out of my control—how many reservations were on the books, when food deliveries arrived, the amount of prep on the to-do list, Chef’s mood.

There was something so sexy to me about being a woman in this masculine space, where I’d get dirty and sweaty flinging skillets all night. I had no idea what I was doing, but I desperately needed to prove I could do it. To them, and to myself.

I reported to the fish cook, Max, a six-foot-tall, effortlessly cool woman with spiky, platinum hair; long, graceful fingers; and several years of kitchen experience. She intimidated me, I needed to please her, I was a little bit in love with her, and I wanted to be her. She was mysterious, humorless, and unflappable. Hot. Most of the time, I assumed she wanted to throttle me, which felt warranted given my naiveté. Fucking something up and wasting product was my main fear; as was falling behind during service. Like being sucked into a tornado, you have time to recognize your demise coming, but not enough to avoid it. No matter what was happening, I actively tried not to anger or annoy Max.

The hierarchy of a French kitchen is based on a battle brigade, and that kitchen was assigned macho at birth. My performance anxiety was coupled with the culture shock of existing in an overwhelmingly masculine environment. I expected to be ogled and I was waiting to be belittled. There was no escaping my femaleness, yet femininity had no role in the group dynamic. The process of shedding my girlhood started in the co-ed changing area when I disrobed alongside four men, then slid into a boxy white chef’s jacket and the polyester checkered pants that were cut for a man’s body. I did this as quickly as possible, staring straight into the wall. Earning respect and being less femme were entwined.

In the kitchen, I wanted to transcend “not bad for a girl.” I refused to be seen as weak, and wouldn’t let my male colleagues hoist heavy pots for me. Eventually they stopped offering. If something was out of reach, I didn’t ask long-limbed Max to get it for me, either. She’d signaled early on that she couldn’t interrupt her flow every time I needed something. Like a stubborn toddler set on doing whatever the big kids could do, I’d climb up on the stainless counters in my socked feet to fetch the tall stockpot, the steamer basket, the giant colander stored on the highest shelves. My war paint was the olive oil I’d rub on my lips when they got chapped from ducking in and out of a 500°F oven all day. I lost weight from the long days of physical labor, and Max showed me how to twist strips of plastic wrap into makeshift belts that we used to keep our pants up.

I kept up my tough-guy masquerade and assimilated to the job. I diligently followed Max’s directions, leaning into the corrections she gave me, and parroted her motions when we were in service. Within a couple of months, I went from my amuse-bouche station to finding my own physical flair on the line. I could juggle multiple skillets at once. I knew when to add water to a pan of sautéed vegetables to create a blast of steam that would finish cooking them through. I liked to hook my first two fingers into the butter at my station, then whip my wrist to launch that knob of dairy into a sauté pan and swirl it to emulsify a sauce. I was good at memorizing the combination of dishes the chef fired, murmuring, You ready? to Max at the exact moment her branzino was cooked through, the two of us turning in unison to plate the next dish.

I wasn’t excellent, but I tried really hard, and I started to feel Max soften toward me. She was always quiet and stoic during rare lulls in service, not engaging in frivolous side talk, while I wiped down our station, refilled our squeeze bottles, checked and triple-checked our backup containers. After especially long nights, she’d sometimes decide to prepare a second family meal for the cooks, and I’d help her throw together ingredients for a quick puttanesca pasta that we’d eat standing up. She told me about her fantasy of opening a super-casual fish restaurant in Northern California, with intentionally uncomfortable wooden benches for seats and a view of the coast. The concept was about as different from Montrachet as I could fathom, and it made me realize her dreams diverged radically from the predictable course we were on. She was the most punk rock, the coolest of the cool girls.

In the kitchen, I wanted to transcend 'not bad for a girl.'

One night after work, Max invited me to get drinks at the bar on the corner, a legendary local spot that was popular with the staff. I was surprised, excited, and nervous about socializing with her, even though we were bonded at the hip for twelve hours a day, six days a week. To cope, I got absolutely shit-faced on anise-flavored Pernod and water. (Don’t ask why that old-guy aperitif was my drink at the time.) I remember realizing with embarrassment that I had never changed out of my kitchen clogs, and when I accidentally knocked over a drink and sent sticky Pernod flying all over the bar, I decided to call it a night.

The next day, I woke up to the most horrific, crushing hangover of my life. Blind with nausea, head like cement blocks grinding together, and on shaky legs, I could barely stand up without gagging. The usual antidote—a bacon-egg-and-cheese with a Coke—was out of the question. I was ill and incapacitated, but I could not call out of work. There was no one to cover my shift. Certainly not on this day, because it was Saturday, and Valentine’s Day, a notorious night to be a line cook. The dining room would be packed with two-tops to squeeze in as many doe-eyed couples as would fit. There was lobster on the prix fixe menu, which meant Max and I were going to get clobbered. If I didn’t show, she’d have to do the two-person job alone, and all of my gains would be blown to bits.

Duty called. I walked into the kitchen late, wearing sunglasses. Max took one look at me, rolled her eyes, and went back to her cutting board. Sympathy was not on the menu. First up: We had to cook and shell about sixty lobsters. I set up opposite Max; she would cook and I would process, in an assembly line. When the first batch of lobsters had met their steamy demise, she plopped them into a long metal pan, slid it across the counter to me, and turned around to do more murder. I was expected to shell as quickly as possible.

I wanted to die, but I could not quit. I twisted the tail of the lobster’s body, releasing a fragrant gust of steaming lobster guts into my face. I immediately dropped to the floor in a crouch, with one hand pressed into the rubber kitchen mat on the floor. This seemed like a logical place to wait for the nausea to pass. When I could stand again, it was back to business.

Are you going to make it? Max asked, irritated.

Me? Oh yeah, I said, I’m good.

That initial lobster established the pattern I was locked into until my crustacean circle of shell was over: liberate the tail, unleash tomalley facial, succumb, stand, proceed. This, dozens of times. When the chef walked in, he found me down on one knee, prayerful and remorseful. I heard him ask, Is she okay? Max replied: Hangover. From the floor, I chimed in: It was Pernod. He let out a groan. Pernod! You were drinking Pernod?? This is the worst hangover you can ever have. He went on and on about it, how bad Pernod hit the next day, as if I didn’t know. When I stood back up he looked me in the eye and said: Once you get on the line and start sweating, you’ll be fine. You’ll sweat it all out. Trust me. I did not believe him, but when I took my place on the hot line, either the sweat cured me, or we were too buried in tickets for me to have body awareness. I made it through the night, earning some sort of battle badge, surviving a rite of passage. I didn’t ditch. I faced the consequences. And I’m pretty sure I never drank Pernod again.

Working while sick was an unspoken part of the job, not only because we weren’t entitled to paid sick days. There were heaps of other injustices that I filed under Stuff That Toughens You Up. The suffering wasn’t saved for me, and in fact, people who had been there longer were vulnerable to far worse.

It was a package deal. I was learning to cook for real, and I was learning what it took to be a cook. I was getting paid, which meant I would stay quiet when our chef threw a molten-hot sizzle tray straight out of the salamander at the cook standing next to me, hitting him in the chest. He would do this when, say, a duck breast was undercooked. Sometimes Chef would just berate him, viciously, for overreducing the demi-glace that went with the sweetbreads. When the chef let loose, the rest of us would stand respectfully silent. I squirmed through mixed feelings of empathy for my coworker and gratitude that I wasn’t in his shoes. On more than one occasion, the captain came into the kitchen to tell the chef that his yelling was audible to the guests in the dining room. When the tantrum was over, we’d swing right back into it like nothing had happened, the kitchen noticeably more quiet afterward.

I had officially romanticized being a professional cook, the beauty and ugliness of the job balancing each other like butter and salt. Sure, the pay was shit, and no, it’s not okay to normalize workplace violence. But (here comes the irrational upside), I got to touch the most beautiful ingredients I’d ever seen—wild black trumpet mushrooms delivered in shallow cardboard boxes littered with pine needles and scraps of wet leaves from where they were foraged. Dayboat sea scallops so fresh the flesh undulated when the chef cut into them, the muscle still alive. I tasted delicacies for the first time: crosnes, Tristar strawberries, sea beans, black truffles, sweetbreads.

Every night I stood elbow-to-elbow with the fish cook on one side and the meat cook on the other, watching and learning how hot a pan had to be to sear tiny Taylor Bay scallops and encase them in lemony brown butter without overcooking them. (I still make a version of this at home with sea scallops and a spicy cumin butter.) I ate chewy nubs of duck breast anchored to crisp fat off the meat cook’s cutting board; we never sent out the end pieces, only the prized slices from the widest part of the breast. My obsessive brain was subdued by being consistent, nailing the cookery, getting my dishes up on time, not running out midservice.

It has taken me this long to detangle the hardness of that work from the nostalgia I feel about everything I learned.

It has taken me this long to detangle the hardness of that work from the nostalgia I feel about everything I learned. I believed that starting out in kitchens should be brutal; we were warned about it in cooking school the way actors are prepped for audition rejections. Surely if I wasn’t worthy of this occupation, I’d be asked to leave. In late-90s logic, being “cut out for it” meant I could (must?) handle the hardness, too. The physically taxing and emotionally draining environment validated my world view that work should be tough. (Throw every eldest daughter trope at me—I will overachieve ’til I drop.) Being a line cook was outrageous and incredible. It was exploitative and thrilling. It was a job that made me both expect and tolerate bad behavior, and unfortunately I internalized that perspective and brought it to every other workplace I entered afterward, in ways that I deeply regret. But, still. I never wanted to be anyplace more.

Montrachet taught me that fear and growth are intertwined. It helped me realize I enjoy being at the bottom of a learning curve. That’s made it easier for me to take risks ever since. I don’t miss the people I worked with; I can’t remember most of their names, except for Max, whom I’ve tried (and failed) to track down many times. I no longer accept that restaurant kitchens should be run like that. How to shell a lobster, though—I still do as I was shown, and have taught my sons to do it that way, too, minus the hangover. I preheat my carbon-steel skillet until it’s matte and near-molten to get the most glorious sear on my scallops. I can flip food in a skillet with my left hand while salt cascades from the fingers of my right, and I know how to get fish fillets to lie flat in the pan from watching Max do it over and over, all night long. It was many years before cooking at home was fun for me again, and I never want that feeling to go away. If I overcook a steak, I don’t throw hot plates. We eat it anyway, of course, with some spicy mayo to camouflage the error.

Montrachet is gone now, as is the bar on the corner (it closed and then reopened as a J.Crew, which was sad). The stinky phone booth where I used to call my husband-to-be after work doesn’t exist, either. Uber drivers don’t argue with me about going over the bridge to Brooklyn, like cabbies sometimes did when I’d splurge on a taxi home. I don’t have a single photograph from that time. In a way, I’m glad, because everything that happened there can stay exactly how I remember it. When I’m on that block in Tribeca now, I have to search to find any familiar landmarks from when I walked out of the restaurant. But if I close my eyes, it rolls like a movie. It’s hard to fathom that young woman was me, diving into a world of cooking that would become her entire life. It wasn’t a dream. The adrenaline that hit me that first night of service was a thunderbolt of pure love that I still feel for the job I chose. I’m grateful the hardness is mostly gone, and not a bit sorry for finding out who I am.

Excerpted from FOOD IS A FEELING: Recipes & Stories, With Love by Carla Lalli. Copyright © 2026 by Carla Lalli. Photographs copyright © 2026 by Lucia Bell-Epstein. Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

21 Must-Read Books Coming in September 2026

Sophia June — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000

It’s back-to-school season! On our syllabus this month is a collection of smart new novels, nonfiction, short fiction, and poetry to reset your brain from summer to fall. Ahead: Emma Cline’s highly anticipated latest, The Bell Jar, if it were set in contemporary Japan, and a reissue of a 1970s cult classic satire about modern dating that still rings true. Read on for our picks of the best must-read books coming out in September 2026.

The Best Novels Coming September 2026

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

'The Living Realm' by Jordan Tannahill

Release date: September 8

From the playwright of the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway play Prince Faggot comes a moving novel about time. A man cruising a glacial lake on the edge of Berlin spots a handsome stranger who resembles one of his former lovers who died 30 years prior. As he continues to encounter the man, along with other past lovers, he questions his past selves and his own sanity.

Random House

'Switzy' by Emma Cline

Release date: September 8

An Emma Cline release is a literary event: Get ready for the group chat to fire off and for book clubs to place bulk orders. Cline’s latest novel follows a retired executive on his private plane sojourn over Greenland. First, he can’t recognize his own handwriting, and then he begins to unravel in this moving portrait of regrets, the spectre of achievement and the depths of the subconscious.

Knopf

'Exit Party' by Emily St. John Mandel

Release date: September 15

From the bestselling author of Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility comes a speculative story about surveillance and resilience amid massive societal upheaval. It’s 2031: It’s been one year since the U.S. has collapsed, and there’s a party in Silver Lake. A man disappears from the festivities, and it’s up to one woman—a gunrunning art collector state operative—to find him.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

'Fallow' by Sarah Anderson

Release date: September 15

Natalie signs up to be the world’s first in-house corporate surrogate. Soon enough, she finds herself trapped in a social experiment she didn’t sign up for in this smart and sly send-up about the lengths capitalism will go to survey every aspect of our lives.

Ecco

'Female Life on Planet Earth' by Laleh Khadivi

Release date: September 22

A woman grieving the death of her mother undergoes a quest for truth when she receives an unmarked package containing photographs of her mother in her younger years–pointing a gun at a group of women in front of a burning building. The revelation, and the questions it brings, call into question lineage, inheritance, and all the ways our mothers are unknowable.

Dutton Books

'Hollywood, Ending' by John Green

Release date: September 22

The first adult release from the master of the high school romance (looking at you, The Fault in Our Stars) follows Kai and Juniper, two burgeoning actors cast in a hot Andy Warhol biopic. The novel juxtaposes Warhol's relationship to celebrity and attention with the young actors’ lives in a modern world. And of course, a romance ensues.

Cardinal

'American Hagwon' by Min Jin Lee