Amy Shearn – författare

An NPR Books We Love 2025 One of Brooklyn Public Library’s Books We Love 2025 The world has stopped. But Rachel is just getting started…It’s spring of 2020 and Rachel Bloomstein—mother of three, recent divorcée, and Brooklynite—is stuck inside. But her newly awakened sexual desire and lust for a new life refuse to be contained. Leaning on her best friend Lulu to show her the ropes, Rachel dips a toe in the online dating world, leading to park dates with younger men, flirtations with beautiful women, and actual, in-person sex. None of them, individually, are perfect . . . hence her rotation.But what if one person could perfectly cater to all her emotional needs? Driven by this possibility, Rachel creates Frankie, the AI chatbot she programs with all the good parts of dating in middle age . . . and some of the bad. But as Rachel plays with her fantasy to her heart’s content, she begins to realize she can’t reprogram her ex-husband, her children, her friends, or the roster of paramours that’s grown unwieldy. Perhaps real life has more in store for Rachel than she could ever program for herself.

Amy Shearn has written a fierce and vivacious book about motherhood, astounding in its honesty, fearless in its humor and exploding with love. THE MERMAID OF BROOKLYN is a joyful and exhilarating read' Maria Semple, author of the New York Times bestselling WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE?Jenny Lipkin, former up-and-coming magazine editor and current stressed-out mother of two, is struggling. With two demanding children, she is adjusting to life as an average mother, drinking coffee in the playground and complaining about breastfeeding, sleepless nights and how to get the buggy on the subway.And then, one summer evening, her husband Harry goes out to buy cigarettes and doesn’t return.Jenny reaches breaking point. She is contemplating ending it all, but when she falls off the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River, she finds a surprising ally – and a magical way to rethink her ideas about success, motherhood and relationships. But confronting her inner demons is no easy task . . .

Hailed by The Washington Post as “tantalizing” and “mesmerizing,” The Mermaid of Brooklyn is a whip-smart, heartfelt exploration of what happens when modern day motherhood meets with a little touch of magic.Sometimes all you need in life is a fabulous pair of shoes—and a little help from a mermaidFormerly an up-and-coming magazine editor, Jenny Lipkin is now your average, stretched-too-thin Brooklyn mom, tackling the challenges of raising two children in a cramped Park Slope walk-up. All she really wants is to survive the sweltering New York summer with a shred of sanity intact. But when her husband, Harry, vanishes one evening, Jenny reaches her breaking point. And in a moment of despair, a split-second decision changes her life forever. Pulled from the brink by an unexpected ally, Jenny is forced to rethink her ideas about success, motherhood, romance, and relationships. But confronting her inner demons is no easy task…

Dear Edna Sloane is a funny, fast-paced epistolary novel about fame, writers, ambition, and the ups and downs of a creative life.Edna Sloane was a promising author at the top of her game. Her debut novel was an instant classic and commercial success, vaulting her into the heady echelons of the 1980s New York City lit scene. Then she disappeared and was largely forgotten. Decades later, Seth Edwards is an aspiring writer and editor who feels he’s done all the right things to achieve literary success, but despairs that his dream will be forever out of reach. He becomes obsessed with the idea that if he can rediscover Sloane, it will make his career. His search for her leads to unexpected places and connections, and the epistolary correspondence that ensues makes up this book, a novel infused with insights and meditations about what our cultural obsession with the "next big thing" does to literature, and what it means to be a creative person in the world.

Dear Edna Sloane is a funny, fast-paced epistolary novel about fame, writers, ambition, and the ups and downs of a creative life.Edna Sloane was a promising author at the top of her game. Her debut novel was an instant classic and commercial success, vaulting her into the heady echelons of the 1980s New York City lit scene. Then she disappeared and was largely forgotten. Decades later, Seth Edwards is an aspiring writer and editor who feels he’s done all the right things to achieve literary success, but despairs that his dream will be forever out of reach. He becomes obsessed with the idea that if he can rediscover Sloane, it will make his career. His search for her leads to unexpected places and connections, and the epistolary correspondence that ensues makes up this book, a novel infused with insights and meditations about what our cultural obsession with the "next big thing" does to literature, and what it means to be a creative person in the world.