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Mohrbooks Literary Agency Maren Wiederhold |
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NEEDLE LAKE
An intense novel from the author of KNIFE RIVER, where Champine showed she knew how to delicately expose the dark side of a small town life.
Thirteen-year-old Ida was born with a hole in her heart and is forbidden from exerting herself too much. She spends most of her time alone, reading and memorizing geography, and everyone treats her like she's broken. She secretly goes swimming and has her private spot at Needle Lake, and works at the general store/boarding house her mother runs in their tiny logging town of Mineral, Washington.
One day, her cousin Elna walks in. Ida is immediately drawn to her older cousin from San Francisco, who she hasn't seen for a while and who's everything Ida is not: mature, self-assured, charismatic, and daring. She doesn't treat Ida like she's a fragile kid whose heart might give out at any moment, but makes Ida feel alive and normal. Ida is enraptured.
But Elna's ideas for fun get a bit darker with each turn. On Christmas Eve, the two cousins witness a man drowning in the lake, and tsuddenly share a secret beyond the scope of anything Ida has dealt with before. Fear begins to mix in with the reverence Ida feels towards her cousin, especially as Elna suddenly becomes Ida's safest option - and potentially the most threatening.
This novel is for readers of character- and relationship-driven suspense, like SHARP OBJECTS by Gillian Flynn, IN THE WOODS by Tana French, and THE EXILES by Jane Harper; of propulsive, sharply observed, and ominous coming-of-age stories about obsessive relationships such as MILK FED by Melissa Broder, and BIG SWISS by Jen Beagin; and of strange, unreliable, yet loveable main characters in books like ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE by Gail Honeyman, LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY by Bonnie Garmus, and MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION by Ottessa Moshfegh.
Justine Champine's short fiction has appeared in Kenyon Review, Epoch, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is a founding staff member of No Tokens Journal. She lives in New York City.
One day, her cousin Elna walks in. Ida is immediately drawn to her older cousin from San Francisco, who she hasn't seen for a while and who's everything Ida is not: mature, self-assured, charismatic, and daring. She doesn't treat Ida like she's a fragile kid whose heart might give out at any moment, but makes Ida feel alive and normal. Ida is enraptured.
But Elna's ideas for fun get a bit darker with each turn. On Christmas Eve, the two cousins witness a man drowning in the lake, and tsuddenly share a secret beyond the scope of anything Ida has dealt with before. Fear begins to mix in with the reverence Ida feels towards her cousin, especially as Elna suddenly becomes Ida's safest option - and potentially the most threatening.
This novel is for readers of character- and relationship-driven suspense, like SHARP OBJECTS by Gillian Flynn, IN THE WOODS by Tana French, and THE EXILES by Jane Harper; of propulsive, sharply observed, and ominous coming-of-age stories about obsessive relationships such as MILK FED by Melissa Broder, and BIG SWISS by Jen Beagin; and of strange, unreliable, yet loveable main characters in books like ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE by Gail Honeyman, LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY by Bonnie Garmus, and MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION by Ottessa Moshfegh.
Justine Champine's short fiction has appeared in Kenyon Review, Epoch, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is a founding staff member of No Tokens Journal. She lives in New York City.
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Book Published 2025-12-01 by Dial Press |