Julia Fine

A massively entertaining and slyly enlightening story nestled inside another story like a ghost within its host. --Kathleen Rooney, author of Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey and Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk A provocative meditation on new motherhood--Shirley Jackson meets The Awakening--in which a postpartum woman's psychological unraveling becomes intertwined with the ghostly appearance of children's book writer Margaret Wise Brown. There's a madwoman upstairs, and only Megan Weiler can see her. Ravaged and sore from giving birth to her first child, Megan is mostly raising her newborn alone while her husband travels for work. Physically exhausted and mentally drained, she's also wracked with guilt over her unfinished dissertation--a thesis on mid-century children's literature. Enter a new upstairs neighbor: the ghost of quixotic children's book writer Margaret Wise Brown--author of the beloved classic Goodnight Moon--whose existence no one else will acknowledge. It seems Margaret has unfinished business with her former lover, the once-famous socialite and actress Michael Strange, and is determined to draw Megan into the fray. As Michael joins the haunting, Megan finds herself caught in the wake of a supernatural power struggle--and until she can find a way to quiet these spirits, she and her newborn daughter are in terrible danger. Using Megan's postpartum haunting as a powerful metaphor for a woman's fraught relationship with her body and mind, Julia Fine once again delivers an imaginative and "barely restrained, careful musing on female desire, loneliness, and hereditary inheritances" (Washington Post). --Everdeen Mason, Washington Post on What Should Be Wild

A Novel

The Upstairs House

“Delightful and darkly magical. Julia Fine has written a beautiful modern myth, a coming-of-age story for a girl with a worrisome power over life and death. I loved it.” —Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry Finalist for the Bram Stoker Superior Achievement in a First Novel Award • Shortlisted for the Chicago Review of Books Best Novel Prize • A Bustle Unmissable Debut of the Year • A Popsugar Best Book of the Year • A Washington Post Best Fantasy Book of May • A Refinery 29 Best May Book • A Chicago Review of Books Best May Book • A Verge Gripping Fantasy Novel of May In this darkly funny, striking debut, a highly unusual young woman must venture into the woods at the edge of her home to remove a curse that has plagued the women in her family for millennia—an utterly original novel with all the mesmerizing power of The Tiger’s Wife, The Snow Child, and Swamplandia! Cursed. Maisie Cothay has never known the feel of human flesh: born with the power to kill or resurrect at her slightest touch, she has spent her childhood sequestered in her family’s manor at the edge of a mysterious forest. Maisie’s father, an anthropologist who sees her as more experiment than daughter, has warned Maisie not to venture into the wood. Locals talk of men disappearing within, emerging with addled minds and strange stories. What he does not tell Maisie is that for over a millennium her female ancestors have also vanished into the wood, never to emerge—for she is descended from a long line of cursed women. But one day Maisie’s father disappears, and Maisie must venture beyond the walls of her carefully constructed life to find him. Away from her home and the wood for the very first time, she encounters a strange world filled with wonder and deception. Yet the farther she strays, the more the wood calls her home. For only there can Maisie finally reckon with her power and come to understand the wildest parts of herself.

What Should Be Wild

Maddalena and the Dark

A darkness takes shape beneath the waters of Venice . . . and somewhere in the Ospedale della Pietà, there are two girls breathing beside each other, legs entwined. 'Enchanting and suspenseful' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Rich and heartbreaking' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'A lush, decadent fairytale' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Maddalena and the Dark is an opulent and sensuous Venetian fairytale, full of music, magic, passion, and betrayal, perfect for fans of The Last Tale of the Flower Bride and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. '[A] beguiling fairy tale' VANITY FAIR (A Best Book of Summer) 'Enchanted...A slow-burn gothic novel that will make you lose track of your surroundings . . . An atmospheric banger' LITHUB 'Fine beguiles with this decadent tale of desire . . . With the alluring Venice backdrop, this will frighten and captivate in equal measure' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review ************************ Venice, 1717. Before Maddalena arrived at the Ospedale della Pietà, Venice's most illustrious music school, fifteen-year-old orphan Luisa has only wanted one thing: to be the best at violin. Luisa is good at violin, but she is not the best. She has peers, but she does not have friends. Until Maddalena. Sent to the Pietà until her noble family can find her a husband, Maddalena is cunning, passionate, and unlike anyone Luisa has ever met. Maddalena can promise the world to Luisa, and when she does, their fates intertwine. But Maddalena has made a dangerous wager and, for both girls, there will be an unimaginable price to pay. 'Maddalena and the Dark is chocolate laced with poison. To read it is to fall under an enchantment . . . A sweeping, dark fairy tale about the violent hearts of teenage girls' KATIE GUTIERREZ 'A sumptuous feast of a novel, rich and strange and heady. Julia Fine is an extraordinary writer' KELLY LINK 'From its first sentence, this novel curled its crooked little witch's finger around my heart and still hasn't let go' AMY JO BURNS 'A tense, slow-burning portrait of how desire too easily tangles with envy and the price we pay when we get what we want' ISLE McELROY 'An ecstatic, immersive, layered and astonishingly rendered depiction of girlhood, ambition, violence, art, and desire' LYNN STEGER STRONG 'Beautiful, suspenseful, sensuous, real. If you love music or Venice, or if you've ever simply been a young girl aching for womanhood, this is the book for you. Reading this felt like indulging in a secret, in the best way' AJA GABEL 'Maddalena and the Dark is the book of my dreams - a feverish, intimate story of obsession and ambition, set in Venice's shadowy canals and glittering palazzos' SARA SLIGAR

Julia Fine

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