CLAIRE LOMBARDO earned her MFA in fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois. A former social worker, she now teaches fiction writing and is at work on a second novel.
Mercy Hill (2026) Hannah Thurman "Mercy Hill blew me away. I haven't enjoyed a book this much in a long time - its expansiveness and its intimacy, its deep humanity. Hannah Thurman is a sensational storyteller; every character on these pages lives and breathes."
Dear Monica Lewinsky (2026) Julia Langbein "What a wild, wonderful essential novel this is. Julia Langbein has the uncanny ability to make a reader laugh out loud again and again while also laying bare - in her brilliant, singular way - the specific travail of being a young woman."
Until Alison (2025) Kate Russo "Until Alison so vibrantly captures a particular time and place in life - with its nostalgia, its tension, its fine-tuned depiction of class. Kate Russo is a deft and compulsively readable storyteller."
Slanting Towards the Sea (2025) Lidija Hilje "Oh, what a beautiful book this is - deeply felt, humane, gorgeously written. Hilje's prose is positively hypnotic - I sunk in and didn't want to come up for air."
The Listeners (2025) Maggie Stiefvater "The Listeners is cinematic and so very satisfying. This is a rich, multilayered ride of a novel not unlike the hotel at its heart - grand, patient, leaving no particulars unnoticed. A phenomenally immersive read."
Among Friends (2025) Hal Ebbott "Among Friends is a powerful, elegant novel that offers unsparing and lyrically rendered insight into the lives of others."
The Bright Years (2025) Sarah Damoff "This novel sparkles in its sentences, its texture, its big heart - THE BRIGHT YEARS is a vivid, forthright, and gorgeously written story of love in its many iterations."
Stag Dance (2025) Torrey Peters "Emotionally generous, richly textured, and deeply intelligent - a vibrant and kaleidoscopic portrait of complicated women and their colliding lives."
Green Dot (2024) Madeleine Gray "This book! What a gutting, funny, smart, smart, smart book it is, one that I absolutely inhaled while almost constantly emotionally bracing myself. Madeleine Gray is a hilarious, humane, and highly perceptive writer."
After Annie (2024) Anna Quindlen "After Annie is a novel about loss - and yet its pages are full of life and heart. With her deft interiority and spot-on depiction of the small moments that bring characters to life, Anna Quindlen tells a family story that's at once candid and complex - and ultimately quite hopeful."
I Meant It Once (2023) Kate Doyle "Kate Doyle's sentences are something to be savored, and the characters in these stories live and breathe and stand up fully from the page. Perceptive, funny, forthright, and often alarmingly relatable, I Meant It Once is a tremendously good debut."
Earth's the Right Place for Love (2023) (Mason) Elizabeth Berg "This is a warm, generous, and utterly satisfying novel, and its characters are vibrantly, terrifically human. I read it raptly, rooting for them all from the first pages."
What Napoleon Could Not Do (2023) DK Nnuro "What an intricately textured and deeply thoughtful novel this is. What Napoleon Could Not Do is a powerful debut, an exploration of family that's at once intimate and expansive."
A System So Magnificent it is Blinding (2022) Nichola Smalley and Amanda Svensson "This is a prismatic, hilarious, and deeply intelligent novel overflowing with wisdom about the complexities of being alive - I read it ravenously, and with pen in hand."
Fellowship Point (2022) Alice Elliott Dark "I positively inhaled this novel--and then stingily meted out the last few pages, not wanting it to end. FELLOWSHIP POINT is a marvel--masterfully executed, beautifully layered, huge-hearted and sharp-witted--and Alice Elliott Dark is a writer of great empathy and incredible skill."
The Lifestyle (2022) Taylor Hahn "Hahn's writing is lively, quick-witted, and sharp, and The Lifestyle piqued my curiosity from its first pages - what a fun and vibrant read!"
The Shore (2022) Katie Runde "The Shore is a sharp and affecting novel, a wholly original exploration of what it means to love and lose set against a fabulously vibrant backdrop. Runde's writing is both deeply felt and deeply funny--often in the same breath."
Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance (2022) Alison Espach "Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance is heartbreaking and funny, often in the same sentence--a deeply felt, finely wrought, and highly satisfying novel. Alison Espach has created a family whose every sorrow, joy, and idiosyncrasy is utterly, vibrantly real."
Lessons in Chemistry (2022) Bonnie Garmus "Lessons in Chemistry is a breath of fresh air - a witty, propulsive, and refreshingly hopeful novel populated with singular characters. This book is an utter delight - wry, warm and compulsively readable."
The Sisters Sweet (2021) Elizabeth Weiss "The Sisters Sweet is both cinematic and humane, an expansive and gorgeously written tale of a family that’s at once spectacularly offbeat and fundamentally human."
Chouette (2021) Claire Oshetsky "Chouette is deeply felt, linguistically gorgeous, and wonderfully disorienting up to its final breathless pages—a stunning meditation on motherhood and identity truly unlike anything I've ever read before."
Rock the Boat (2021) Beck Dorey-Stein "Brimming with wit and warmth, and peopled with a terrifically vibrant cast of characters, Rock the Boat is a delightful, whip-smart page-turner with an expansive heart."
God Spare the Girls (2021) Kelsey McKinney "God Spare the Girls is a thoughtful and candid meditation on faith, family, and forgiveness; it's also a tender portrait of two sisters reluctantly on the cusp of adulthood. McKinney's writing is sonorous, unsparing, and deeply generous--this is a fabulous debut."
The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano (2021) Donna Freitas "Ambitious, compelling, and provocative, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano delves deep into love, motherhood, and the complicated dance that is navigating the world as a woman—its intricate structure kept me turning pages and the questions posed therein kept me awake at night."
Brood (2021) Jackie Polzin "Oh, did I love this book and its magnificent cast of characters--human and avian alike. Brood is the most vibrant and compelling slice of life I've been privy to in a great while--it's generous, original, and witty, an absolute treasure of a novel."
Sophomores (2021) Sean Desmond "What a vibrant, propulsive, wildly intelligent and big-hearted slice of life Sophomores is, an intricate portrait of a family in crisis rendered with a great deal of humor and compassion. I loved this family, this corner of the world, this novel."
My Brilliant Life (2021) Ae-ran Kim "A moving, earnest, and deeply-felt exploration of a unique family in all its joys and disappointments . . . an utter delight."
Ordinary Hazards (2020) Anna Bruno "Seen through keen eyes and full of deep feeling, Ordinary Hazards delves into the psyche of a woman grappling with grief, loss, and the burdens of inheritance. Anna Bruno vividly renders the messiness of a single human life in all its joy and heartbreak."
The Boy in the Field (2020) Margot Livesey "I loved every single sentence of The Boy in the Field. This novel is so intricately woven, its world so vibrantly built, its characters so beautifully and empathically wrought. To experience the world as rendered by Margot Livesey is a singular, extraordinary delight."
