The Emilys

The residents of a New England town become obsessed with finding the cure for a mysterious ailment spreading through their community in this “kaleidoscopic and gorgeous” (People, Book of the Week) novel about love’s capacities in a changing world.

“The Emilys is a smart, soulful novel brimming with wonder, grace, and mystery.”—Claire Vaye Watkins, author of I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness

Eve is at a breaking point. Alone with her two children in Massachusetts while her husband pursues his music career in New York City, she’s frustrated, bored, and, above all, lonely when she runs into Demeter, a childhood friend with whom she shared one transformative summer. Demeter is as beautiful and charismatic as Eve remembers, but she’s also distraught. Demeter’s daughter, like a growing number of others, cannot go outside during the day. No one knows why, and doctors are skeptical that these people—soon dubbed Emilys, after the famously reclusive local poet—are telling the truth. But Eve believes her friend. She will help Demeter—if she can just figure out how.

Eve’s perspective is joined by those of her fellow community members searching for answers: the local librarian and the town’s most prolific writer of letters to the editor, who both loved the same woman and now hate each other; an actor hoping to make amends for past misdeeds; Demeter’s teenage daughter, furious about the isolation she’s forced to endure. When Eve unites with this unlikely band of fellow detectives, she feels a clear sense of purpose for the first time in years. But this quest comes with a price: She is keeping secrets from her husband, fighting with Demeter, distracted from her children. What is she willing to risk to find a cure?

Heather Abel is the author of the novel The Optimistic Decade. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with her husband and teenagers and teaches creative writing at Smith College.