Mae Smith starts her life as a stolen good: her biological mother, Ida, kidnaps her from her adoptive parents, and Mae grows up on the run, constantly changing towns and names, never able to find a home. After her mother’s death, Mae is determined to live a different kind of life. But over the next half century, as she reinvents herself against the backdrop of the Depression and Second World War and pursues stability amid the personal upheavals of marriage and motherhood, she must reckon with the choices she’s made and life’s inexorable turns.

For readers of Zorrie by Laird Hunt, The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott, and The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant, Wild Aster explores the price of security, the drive to be a different mother than your own, and the daily gains and losses that define who we become. Ultimately, Mae’s story challenges us to confront the choices we make for personal fulfillment and family obligation and the perseverance that even a seemingly ordinary life demands.

Wild Aster will be out with Bloomsbury December 1, 2026

“these lived narratives overheard, whispered, written into novels—continue to show we have lives worth living, that women are viable human beings…these stories are crucial.” —New York Times

The Long Answer is now out in paperback!

“The Long Answer is a triumph of human portraiture, as subtle as it is seething…it is fascinating both on its surface and in its depths” — The Sunday Times

“An introspective, psychologically astute, and engaging debut, this novel delves into territory that is rarely explored in fiction. […] A startling meditation on grief and family and betrayal and the stories we tell about ourselves.”— starred Kirkus Review