Summer Booo oks Preview

First Time’s the Charm

EW GATHERED THIS SUMMER’S HOTTEST DEBUT AUTHORS FOR A BRAINY, DISHY, VIBRANT CONVERSATION ON ALL THINGS LITERARY. MEET THE FUTURE OF BOOKS.

Written by David Canfield @davidcanfield97 Photographs by Elisabeth Caren @ecarenphoto

On a sunny May afternoon, EW’s Los Ange- les offices are catching literary fever. Five buzzy debut authors—Taffy Brodesser- Akner, 43; Sarah M. Broom, 39; Linda Holmes, 48; Lisa Taddeo, 39; and De’Shawn Charles Winslow, 39—have arrived, con- verging for their first major round of press. The mood is excited, anxious, slightly overwhelming. The publishing world has changed hugely over the past decade, pro- nounced to be near-extinct more than a few times, only to find a post-Kindle (and Instagram-worthy) renaissance. And here are the people behind the stories affirming just how alive books remain, whether they’re hitting the heart of our cultural moment, vitally reframing histories, or unfurling the kind of sparkling romance perfect for a lazy summer day. Taking their seats on a cozy sectional, the Taffy Brodesser-Akner, writers discuss the cultural power of books, De’Shawn Charles Winslow, Sarah M. Broom, Linda the struggle of becoming an author today, Holmes, and Lisa Taddeo photographed exclusively and how exactly to define a “beach read.” for EW on May 13, 2019, in Los Angeles

SUMMER TVMONTH PREVIEW XX, 20192019 EW.COM 75 Tell us a little bit about your books. Sarah, in telling your family’s story, do you forget very often right now is that this has LINDA HOLMES Evvie Drake Starts Over is a fear how they’ll react? always happened. There have always been book about a young widow. She has an BROOM Absolutely. The entire act of being distractions. The thing that I think is more apartment in the back of her house, which the baby child of 12 and telling this story felt crucial to the question than the political she rents out to a recently washed-up pro- like a major transgression. It landscape is technology—the fessional baseball player. It takes place in took me a long time to give Lisa amount that we’re able to read coastal Maine, so you get your small-town myself permission to [do so]. Taddeo and the amount that we are able lobster community and lots of fun back- All of my siblings are alive; my to absorb right now. That’s the and-forth. It’s a little romantic, a little fun. mom is alive. I was approaching thing that has made it hard in TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER Fleishman Is in it in certain ways as a journalist my magazine writing, but also in Trouble is about a man who’s recently would, trying to interview all of this novel—you have to work divorced and starts dating for the first time my family members and record very hard to keep people’s atten- through apps, and whose ex-wife drops his them. That provided a level of tion now, and you just have to kids off for his weekend and detachment. But even now it’s be dancing in every sentence. If then disappears. horrifying. I have dreams about there’s nothing that a new book Sarah M. July 9 LISA TADDEO Three Women is Broom it. The smallest thing can make can offer you, people are going [a nonfiction book] about someone uncomfortable. I’m Did You Know? to put it down because there’s three women: their sexual trying to tell a story, which I Taddeo's just too much to read. reporting for desires and lives. One is a think of as this epic, big story. Three Women WINSLOW I think the role of housewife in rural Indiana. One But for me, the big thing was: I took a total of books is to teach and entertain is a restaurateur in the North- put myself on the line. I needed eight years. at the same time. That can be east whose husband likes to to put myself on the line, even done in a quiet way, and it can watch her have sex with other more than I put anyone else on the line. be done in a busy way. But I don’t think that men and women. The last is a BRODESSER-AKNER Have they all read it? books have an obligation to address the Aug. 13 young woman in Fargo, N.D., Broom and Taddeo BROOM No. They have not. I don’t think moment. I don’t think [that] personally. who’d allegedly had a relation- Did You Know? they can read it before. I’ve read [my mom] But all writers do—but unintentionally. Broom’s part- ship with her teacher when she Hurricane Katrina happened, men and women, all kinds of people, but it the things I really love about Taffy’s a lot of sections for fact-checking, and I’ll BRODESSER-AKNER I agree with that. I ner is Bessie was underage; the trial has set and Mudbound and then the house wasn’t there became about female desire. book is that there are moments where it give her, over the next few weeks, the entire don’t know that the turns that Lisa and I their town upside down. director anymore. I was writing now seems to be going in a direction of a book thing. But having 12 voices saying “I don’t took in our books would’ve happened in Dee Rees. DE’SHAWN CHARLES WINSLOW about absence. In 2011, I sold Lisa, you write, “As I began to write this about the “American literary man.” It has like this” would drive me insane. [Laughs] another time. We talk about masculine cul- In West Mills is about a woman the proposal for the book; I book, I thought I’d be drawn to the stories this wonderful turn in approach. There’s a ture now. I think 10 years ago, I might’ve named Knot who refuses to live her life turned it in last year. It’s com- of men.” Why did that change? commonality in what you guys are talking You’re all entering the literary landscape. just been happy writing “the literary man.” based on societal norms. She has some ing out now, so seven years of De’Shawn TADDEO I’d been writing for about, in terms of whose POV people are How does it look to you? Has it changed? addictions, she likes to read a lot. She has a writing—and a lot of thinking Charles Esquire a lot. I was very in tune interested in. BRODESSER-AKNER The thing that we Sarah, you mentioned telling a bigger story, well-meaning, meddling neighbor who just about it. Winslow with this male audience. It was too. The house, particularly, is such an wants to fix her. We watch these two people WINSLOW In West Mills...has the opposite gender from mine, Holmes and Winslow iconic symbol of the American dream. What grow and deal. been with me since I [was] a and I was intrigued by it. But story did you find you were getting to? SARAH M. BROOM The Yellow House is teenager. I didn’t even know I then I started talking to a lot of BROOM From the place of the house, the about my growing up in New Orleans was interested in writing until I men and actually moved to L.A. story for me became about New Orleans beyond the tourist map. I have 11 brothers was nearly 30. But the ques- to profile one of them. There and the way that New Orleans is mytholo- and sisters; it’s about this house that we tions that I try to answer in the was a lot of ego involved. Not in gized—the way that people feel so deeply grew up in, that my mother bought when book through fiction are ques- all the men, but...women felt that they know it. Within the mythology of she was 19 years old with her life savings. It tions about people I knew when more complex and interesting. New Orleans, the actual people who make June 4 tells the story of that house, what happened I was a child, that I didn’t get to BRODESSER-AKNER [Mine] New Orleans the place that most people to the house, and our lives now. know a lot about. Dynamics Did You Know? was the same way: I thought I love are just completely out of the story. I that I didn’t understand. I made Winslow was was interested in the story of a saw the act of writing the book as [cartog- named a black What were your paths to getting these up the answers because I could male writer male divorce, but in the end I raphy]: reimagining, revising, expanding a books published? not access the real answers. “for our time” was interested in everyone’s map to include all the people I know, all the by T Magazine. BROOM I started thinking about this book TADDEO I started the book in points of view. places I know that I never see on the literal the moment I left the Yellow House for col- 2011. I read [Thy Neighbor’s HOLMES Lisa was talking about and also theoretical map. This then became lege in the ’90s. I was haunted by the Wife by Gay Talese] and I was like, “This is the difference in [how] men [and women] about America, and mapping in general, spectre of the house itself: In 2005, very male.” [Laughs] I started talking to think and talk about desire. And one of and meritocracy. What it means to have

SUMMER TVMONTH PREVIEW XX, 20192019 EW.COM 77 came out, I had not read any of [Toni Mor- don’t think of these people as voiceless at rison’s] work. I went and saw the movie, all. I think of centering their voices as they and someone said, “Oh, you’ve got to read exist in my world, every single day. the book.” I read the book, and HOLMES Listening to all these I was a Toni Morrison addict. I stories of how people write watched [The Color Purple] Taffy books—no matter what kind of growing up as a child. My cous- Brodesser- book it is, they resonate with Akner This Season’s ins [and I] watched it over and me in some way or another. over and memorized the lines. When I was trying to talk about Finally, in my mid-20s, I read [beach reads], I’m like, “Why the book for the first time. am I trying to explain ‘This book Then I became addicted to is diverting and maybe Lisa’s is Alice Walker’s written work. less diverting’?” They’re all HOLMES 35 Hottest Reads I’ve read a lot of love books! Everybody writes think- stories that influenced the way ing, “I have something I want to June 18 Illustrations by Stéphane Manel @stephanemanel that I wrote this. I’m a romantic- talk about and that I want to comedy fiend. Nora Ephron is Did You Know? say, and I hope other people will one. The whole run of ’90s rom- She profiled be willing to listen.” Gwyneth coms. I do also read books, I Paltrow, Brad- Brodesser-Akner ley Cooper, and Linda, your book naturally fits into just want to say. [Laughs] Liz college. She lands in more in 2018. Mostly Gilbert is one, but also writers the “beach read” category. What the city’s theater scene Dead built a house on sinking land: If the ground like Jennifer Weiner, Rainbow are your thoughts on the term? and meets an endlessly entertaining group of Things is poison, then where do we go? Rowell—people who write really good rela- HOLMES [Sometimes] those terms—[like artists. “There’s some- Kristen Arnett tionship stories that I like a lot have been “beach read”] or “chick lit”—are used in thing about dipping into Lisa, your book is landing in the post– very influential on my writing. diminishing ways. When distinctions that world that was so JUNE 4 #MeToo moment. How do you view this between what’s literary and what’s commer- exotic to me,” says Gil- If you’re in the bert, a New Yorker for book in conversation with that? A few of you have written period pieces. cial are used like that, it’s...worth having that market for a 30-plus years. “I thought, blackly comic and TADDEO For Maggie, the young woman who De’Shawn, yours spans decades. The dia- argument. But for me personally? I’m ‘Oh my God, New York deeply weird Florida story, you’re in had an alleged relationship with her teacher, logue reads so specific. extremely lucky to have written this book and City in the 1940s? I want luck: This debut finds aimless Jessa- if the trial had happened [now], WINSLOW The dialogue and dia- published it. Read it at the beach. Read it in to write about that!’ ” Lynn taking over her father’s taxi- The product of years I think it’ d have gone a different lect were easy because I grew up book club. Read it in the tub. Someone told me dermy business after he kills himself of research, Girls gave Linda in the shop. But no coming-home is way. For Lina, the woman in hearing that sort of speech. Not she read it in the tub. It made me so happy. the Eat, Pray, Love author Holmes complete without family resentments Indiana, a lot of people I spoke to so much now; but [growing] BRODESSER-AKNER I’ve never understood the chance to have and secrets boiling to the surface. in Indiana while Harvey Wein- up, I didn’t go to day cares—the “beach read.” I understand when it’s used some fun. The dialogue crackles, the costumes —David Canfield stein was going down had never day care was the old lady across aggressively, but my tastes don’t change at receive lush descrip- heard of him. There’s this chasm the road or the old lady who the beach. We never talk about the fact that Elizabeth tions, and the plot between the #MeToo movement babysat your mother. That’s the everyone reads on the toilet. [Laughs] Like moves like a perfectly and people who aren’t on the way [they] spoke to me. And Linda, I don’t care. Mostly, [the term] is escapist romp. It’s no On Earth Gilbert wonder Gilbert calls coasts or in big cities. For Lina, until I went to school, I spoke being used to put my book on lists. Girls her “love letter” to We’re in particular, her desire existed that way too. HOLMES I think sometimes it means slightly BY DAVID CANFIELD June 25 the city she calls home. Briefly on its own. more diverting; I do think my book is more “Vivian’s feelings about New York are exactly Gorgeous Did You Know? Sarah, was it hard to learn about diverting than Lisa’s book, for example. I City of Girls JUNE 4 Holmes my feelings about New Ocean Vuong Did you find, reporting it out, New Orleans East beyond your can understand people thinking there’s [a] hosts the Pop York—the place where JUNE 4 that as these things started Culture Happy own experience? valuable distinction between those things. Elizabeth Gilbert still the hell wants to f--- the she got to become An award-winning happening, your sensibility Hour podcast BROOM Yes, really hard. Just BRODESSER-AKNER I’d read it on the beach remembers the moment same man for 60 years?’ ” herself,” she says. on NPR. when City of Girls came Such unabashed, Gilbert may be best poet, Vuong can about the book changed at all? finding people who wanted to to distract me from the beach, because I together. She was inter- candid hilarity is embed- known for her best- already count Marlon James, Celeste TADDEO Kind of. I don’t know talk about the history of this don’t like the beach and I love your book! viewing a 95-year-old ded in Gilbert’s delicious selling memoirs, but here Ng, and Emma Straub among the fans that I ever vacillated on how I felt. I always place. No one [was] paying attention to TADDEO I hate the beach. former showgirl, and the new novel. City of Girls her knack for good old- of his wrenchingly powerful debut. was like, “Women have to win.” [Laughs] New Orleans East. It never appeared in any BRODESSER-AKNER Tips for how to read conversation took a turn. immerses readers in fashioned storytelling On Earth is a novel about the power “I asked her, ‘Do you ever the bustle of ’40s New is on full display. “I think and limits of love, framed around the of the narratives. But I’m always drawn to beach reads if you don’t like the beach. regret never getting mar- York, where 19-year-old of this book as a tray of letter a queer man in his 20s writes to Whom do you all consider influences? places like that, that no one is paying atten- HOLMES I don’t like the beach either. I burn ried?’ ” the author, 49, Vivian Morris moves after champagne cocktails,” his mother, with whom he emigrated WINSLOW When the film Beloved (1998) tion to—that are completely off the map. I like a lobster. recalls. “She said, ‘Who getting kicked out of she says. Cheers to that. from Vietnam as a child. —DC

Guides to Life That Are Also Good Reads MAY 28 • Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered by Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark JUNE 11 • Howw to Skimm YourY Life by theSkimm JUNE 11 • More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say) by Elaine Welteroth

SUMMER TVMONTH PREVIEW XX, 20192019 EW.COM 79 sparks fly. Their fling continues, but each agrees to an expiration date: Alexa’s wedding. The Tenth The Chaos How Guillory, 43, who is Muse Travelers Tom O’Neill Could She known for her fizzy plot- Catherine Chung Regina Porter with Dan Lauren ting and feel for sexual Piepenbring Mechling tension, is feted in the JUNE 18 JUNE 18 JUNE 25 JUNE 25 romance community Chung (Forgotten American history for the way she’s cham- Country) traces comes to vivid, What if everything Mechling (Dream pioned women of color generations of engaging life we thought we Girl) gives the as her heroines. “Black female geniuses in this tale of two knew about the time-honored women tell me they’ve in her fascinating interconnected Manson murders moving-to- seen themselves in [my] portrait of Katherine, a mathematician families (one white, one black) was wrong? O’Neill spent 20 years New-York-City novel a refreshing books—they love the looking back at the obstacles she’s that spans from the 1950s to Barack wrestling with that question, and update: failure. Three thirtysomething celebration of a black faced in her career—as a woman of Obama’s first year as president. The Chaos is his final answer. Timed to the friends reckon with seemingly woman as a whole per- great ambition and intelligence push- backdrop of events may be familiar 50th anniversary of the Manson mur- successful lives that aren’t living up son, who loves her job ing up against societal norms—and (the Vietnam War, racial protests ders, it’s a sweeping indictment of the to expectations, thanks to mediocre and her family and finds in her personal life, as she learns the in the ’60s), but the complex, beauti- Los Angeles justice system, with apartments, marital strife, and the love,” the author says. truth about her mother and where fully drawn characters are unique— cover-ups reaching all the way up to gradual dissolution of their chosen “It makes me so happy.” she came from. —DC and indelible. —CC the FBI and CIA. —SR industry—print media. —SR Jasmine Another thing that, unsurprisingly, makes Guillory her happy? Weddings. “You’re bringing together BY MAUREEN LEE LENKER all these people to Mrs. announce this is the Everything person you want for the The Wedding Party JULY 16 rest of your life,” she Jennifer J. Ryan says. But they, as do Guil- Weiner Since The Wedding Date more than a month on lory’s stories, also center JUNE 11 first hit shelves almost The New York Times’ on the power and beauty Stradal The best-selling a year and a half ago, best-seller list. Now read- of female friendship. author’s latest, BY SEIJA RANKIN Jasmine Guillory has ers are invited to The “Brides pick their [best her most sprawl- become one of romance’s Wedding Party, which friends] as bridesmaids. ing and intensely brightest new voices. Her introduces Maddie and That’s one of the great The Lager Queen of Minnesota JULY 23 personal novel to date, attempts second book, The Pro- Theo—best friends of things about a wedding,” to answer the question “How should posal, was selected for Date’s heroine, Alexa. she explains. “It cele- J. Ryan Stradal first tour: He stopped in many a woman be in the world?” It follows Reese Witherspoon’s When we meet the pair, brates the other women bubbled to the surface small towns, all sporting two sisters, Jo and Bethie, from their Hello Sunshine book club they hate each other; in your life.” That’s worth in 2015 with his beloved, big brewery businesses. 1950s childhood to the present day, in February and spent after a one-night stand, swooning over, too. best-selling debut, Kitch- Lager Queen centers tackling racism, sexual identity, abuse, ens of the Great Midwest, on two sisters whose and how women are shaped—but a beautiful family saga childhood rivalry not defined—by their choices. —CC that followed three eventually spawns two generations of cooking competing beer ven- habits. “I like to see how tures. Given this specific Midwesterners stand milieu (beer lovers take Patsy Bunny The up to conflict,” says the their industry seriously), author, 43, who lives Stradal did extensive Nicole Mona Awad History in Los Angeles but hails research. He visited more Dennis-Benn JUNE 11 of Living from hardy Minnesotan than 30 brew operations, JUNE 4 stock. “That’s something occasionally for casual A misfit MFA Forever I’ve been intrigued by research, other times in What does it student at a Jake Wolff since I was a kid.” an official author capac- mean to leave thinly veiled Stradal’s second ity. One brewery in Hast- a child behind? New England Ivy JUNE 11 novel, The Lager Queen ings, Minn., even let him Dennis-Benn (located in “a The mystical of Minnesota, has similar peek behind the scenes. follows up her town named after and the romantic selling points: complex Though he’s com- acclaimed Jamaica-set debut, Here a godly gesture of gratitude and fate”) combine for a love story that also female characters, sud- pleted his yeasty tour, Comes the Sun, with Patsy, a pained is seduced by a group of Heathers- confronts the meaning of life. After den tragedies, culinary Stradal isn’t quite the look at the consequences faced esque classmates—they call one his chemistry teacher—and secret descriptions that awaken beer aficionado one by a Jamaican woman who abandons another “Bunny”—whose seeming lover—Sammy Tampari dies, 16-year- all your senses. But this might expect. “If I had her family—including her young attempts to foster creativity take old Conrad attempts to see the man’s family’s legacy is rooted my druthers, I’d probably daughter, Tru—for the freedom of New a sinister turn. A surreal, darkly mission through: by creating a drug in beer, not lutefisk have a Citra IPA,” he says. York City, where she can pursue the funny take on art, power, and female that extends the human life span. casseroles. Stradal was “I know it’s a normcore woman she’s fallen in love with. —DC friendships. —Clarissa Cruz —Seija Rankin inspired by his first book choice, but I’ll own it.”

Juicy Thrillers That Will Keep You Up at Night JUNE 18 • Girl in the Rearview Mirror by Kelsey Rae Dimberg JUNE 25 • The Van Apfelel Girls AreAr Gone by Felicity McLean JULY 2 • We Came Here to Forget by Andrea Dunlop JULY 30 • Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson

SUMMER TV PREVIEW 2019 EW.COM 81 Very Nice The This Is Reasons Marcy Nickel How You to Be Hollywood-Bound Dermansky Boys Lose the Cheerful THESE SCI-FI EPICS ARE ALREADY BEING ADAPTED FOR THE SCREEN, JULY 2 Colson Time War Nina Stibbe LONG BEFORE THEY HIT STORES THIS SUMMER. By David Canfield This darkly funny Whitehead Amal El-Mohtar JULY 23 book vies to JULY 16 & Max Glad- The reliably hilari- answer the age- Whitehead won a stone ous Stibbe (Para- old question: Just JULY 16 Pulitzer Prize and dise Lodge) may The future of book crumble, Recursion I was a kid,” Hart says. how huge is our collective appetite a National Book Award for his previous Sci-fi favorites El-Mohtar and Gladstone have outdone herself with this witty, adaptations is looking (June 11) was acquired “Ron Howard was one for tales of male novelists behaving novel, The Underground Railroad. In write alternating sections of this ’80s England-set exploration of one bright—and, well, a in a huge deal last Octo- of the first directors that badly? Dermansky (Twins) uproari- The Nickel Boys he returns to another time-travel romance, centered on two woman’s struggles in early adulthood. little terrifying. Hollywood ber: Netflix announced I could cite by name. ously follows a Great Literary Man as pivotal, painful setting in American agents on opposite sides of a vicious Cheerful just won the Bollinger Every- is hungry for speculative that Shonda Rhimes All of these years later, he’s seduced by his college pupil— history: a reform school for boys war who find themselves impossibly man Wodehouse Prize, the only U.K. epics imagining alter- and Matt Reeves would for him to be interested and her recently divorced mother— in the Jim Crow-era South. The book drawn to each other. Already optioned literary award for comic literature, so nate realities grim jointly adapt it—as both in a book that I wrote? against the backdrop of a wealthy should further cement Whitehead as for TV, Time War intimately operates dig into this one expecting a very enough to shake your a movie and a series. It’s completely surreal.” Connecticut enclave. —SR one of his generation’s best. —SR within an immersive space opera. —DC good time. —DC faith in humanity. How “There are single sen- Finally, there’s do we know? Some tences in the book FKA USA (June 18)— of this summer’s biggest that could be an entire an absurdist depiction genre titles have been season of television,” of the U.S. on the verge in development for Crouch says. “This isn’t of collapse, complete Inland months, well before a two-hour movie, but with talking goats and Téa Obreht film and TV executives it feels bigger than the narcissistic billionaire Candace could even take a look small screen, too…. presidents. (Maybe AUG. 13 at a finished copy. Net flix is breaking down it isn’t that absurd.) Obreht’s novels The man behind the boundaries between The novel was written Bushnell are capital-E this season’s splashiest film and television, over nearly a decade. Events—big, screen-bound novel and was sort of made “The satire has to be BY CLARISSA CRUZ ambitious, pro- is experienced in this for a book like this.” more than reality,” says vocative reading arena. Blake Crouch’s Going a more tradi- author Reed King. The experiences. books were the inspira- tional route is “I kept having to go back Is There Still Sex in the City? AUG. 6 Warehouse But it’s been a long wait since her tion for TNT’s Michelle (Aug. 20) and change things!” lauded 2011 debut, The Tiger’s Wife. Dockery vehicle Good by Rob Hart, the author Picked up by Warner It’s hard out there for a of catchphrase-worthy Behavior and the behind the Ash McKenna Bros. in a pricey seven- At last we have Inland, a bracingly cougar. But for Sex and sentiments—cubbing M. Night Shyamalan- crime books. His new figure deal, FKA is epic and imaginatively mythic journey the City author Candace (when a woman dates produced Wayward dystopian tale, which shrouded in mystery: across the American West in 1893, Bushnell, it’s exactly a much younger man), Pines. “But,” says Crouch, explores capitalism run King is the pseudonym in which the lives of a former outlaw the age when women MAM (Middle Age Mad- “I haven’t seen anything amok, was acquired at of a best-selling author and a frontierswoman collide and need her the most. ness), and the Mona on par with the way auction in April 2018 by and TV writer. The “When I wrote Sex Lisa treatment (we’ll let intertwine. —DC people are responding Ron Howard’s Imagine author’s identity may and the City, I was writ- you Google that one), to Recursion.” Entertainment; Howard never be unveiled, but ing about single women among them. “This isn’t A mind-bending is expected to direct chances are he/she in their 30s because your mother’s middle thriller probing the the film. “Apollo 13 and knows a thing or two there weren’t supposed age,” says Bushnell, Going power of memory as Backdraft were two of about making the leap to be single women in who is in a relationship reality starts to (literally) my favorite movies when from page to screen. their 30s—you’re sup- with an MNB (“my new Dutch posed to have figured boyfriend!”). “This can James it out,” she says. Her be a time of rebirth.” Gregor latest, Is There Still Sex Fittingly, the book has AUG. 20 in the City?, addresses already been acquired a different demo: women by Paramount Television Call this a comedy in their 50s and 60s and Anonymous Con- of manners for who suddenly find them- tent for development. the (very) modern selves dating again. While it’s too soon to say age. Set in the “This is another passage whether TV lightning will isolating vastness of New York City, that nobody tells you strike twice, the author Going Dutch develops a complex, about,” says Bushnell, remains clear-eyed unusual relationship between a strug- 60, who split from about matters of the gling young gay writer and graduate her husband, Charles heart. “I don’t think I’ve student, the ebullient female class- Askegard, in 2011. ever considered myself mate who yearns for his company, As with its predeces- a romantic,” she says. and an attractive lawyer who exhibits sor, there is no shortage “I am far too practical.” interest in both of them. —DC

Crime Masters That’ll Keep You Guessing JUNE 25 • Big Sky by Kate Atkinson JULY 23 • Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman JULY 30 • Someone WeW Know by Shari Lapena AUG. 6 • The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware AUG. 20 • The Whisper Man by Alex North

SUMMER TVMONTH PREVIEW XX, 20192019 EW.COM 83