As the secrets multiply and the intensity of the romance threatens to overwhelm her, Natalie realizes that the new, adult identity she had imagined for herself is far from the one she’s actually coming to know. This only deepens her obsession, even as she comes to suspect Nora is hiding something.

Natalie lies to her floormates about her absence, inventing a fake off-campus boyfriend, and carefully protects this sacred, adult relationship. She begins spending more and more of her time at Nora’s perfect, tidy home in her beautiful, quiet world. She reads advice listicles and watches videos online and thinks about how to fit in, how to really become someone, whoever that might be.Īnd then she meets Nora, an older woman who takes an unexpected interest in her, and is drawn unstoppably into Nora’s orbit. Everyone she encounters seems to know exactly who they are. Please know that I had to narrow the field or the list would be too unwieldy, and I still haven’t managed to capture anywhere close to everything.An addictively gripping coming-of-age story about an all-consuming, insidious love affair between a college freshman and a mysterious older woman, from an unforgettable new voice in fictionĮighteen-year-old Natalie has just arrived at her first year of university in Toronto, leaving her remote, forested hometown for the big, impersonal city. As she notes in the article, I sent her two frantic emails with more books than she could include! So I’m dedicating this week’s issue of First Draft to sharing some of my favorite books, specifically novels and story collections for adults - mostly from those I’ve read in the last few years, but also of all time.

This year we had a quiet, snowed-in Chanukah celebration and a lovely two-part Christmas dinner with my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, and our two nieces.Īlso, this year for a piece in Literary Hub on Iceland’s traditional Christmas “book flood,' Jess deCourcy Hinds asked me and a few other authors which books we would like to give as holiday gifts.

My family is interfaith and we celebrate Chanukah and Christmas, so we do it however we can with the energy and time we have.

I hope everyone is cozy and warm and enjoying the holidays in your own way.

The adult bronwyn fischer