Elise Juska – författare

A New York Times Editors' Choice • A People Best Book“Masterful storytelling and memorable characters. . . . Elise Juska's best book yet.”—Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of Long Bright River and The God of the Woods“I loved this story about the importance of long friendships. . . . A perfectly crafted page-turner.”—Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes and The Half MoonFrom the beloved author of the “uniquely poignant” (Entertainment Weekly) novel The Blessings comes a gripping work of women's fiction about three friends in their forties forced to reckon with their lives during a college reunion in coastal Maine.It’s June 2021, and three old college friends are heading to New England and the twenty-fifth reunion that was delayed the year before. Hope, a stay-at-home mom, is desperate for a return to her beloved campus, a reprieve from her tense marriage, and the stresses of pandemic parenting. Adam is hesitant to leave his bucolic but secluded life with his wife and their young sons. Single mother Polly hasn’t been back to campus in more than twenty years and has no interest in returning—but changes her mind when her struggling teenage son suggests a road trip.But the reunion isn’t what any of them had envisioned. Hope, always upbeat, is no longer able to downplay the pressures of life at home or the cracks in her longstanding friendships. Adam finds himself energized by the memory of his carefree, reckless younger self—which only reminds him how much has changed since those halcyon days. Polly cannot ignore the ghosts of her college years, including a closely guarded secret. When the weekend takes a startling turn, this found family of friends finds themselves reckoning with the past—and how it will bear on the future.Beautifully observed and insightful, Reunion is a page-turning novel of literary fiction about the highs and lows of friendship from a writer at the height of her powers.

A New York Times Editors' Choice • A People Best Book“Masterful storytelling and memorable characters. . . . Elise Juska's best book yet.”—Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of Long Bright River and The God of the Woods“I loved this story about the importance of long friendships. . . . A perfectly crafted page-turner.”—Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes and The Half MoonFrom the beloved author of the “uniquely poignant” (Entertainment Weekly) novel The Blessings comes a gripping work of women's fiction about three friends in their forties forced to reckon with their lives during a college reunion in coastal Maine.It’s June 2021, and three old college friends are heading to New England and the twenty-fifth reunion that was delayed the year before. Hope, a stay-at-home mom, is desperate for a return to her beloved campus, a reprieve from her tense marriage, and the stresses of pandemic parenting. Adam is hesitant to leave his bucolic but secluded life with his wife and their young sons. Single mother Polly hasn’t been back to campus in more than twenty years and has no interest in returning—but changes her mind when her struggling teenage son suggests a road trip.But the reunion isn’t what any of them had envisioned. Hope, always upbeat, is no longer able to downplay the pressures of life at home or the cracks in her longstanding friendships. Adam finds himself energized by the memory of his carefree, reckless younger self—which only reminds him how much has changed since those halcyon days. Polly cannot ignore the ghosts of her college years, including a closely guarded secret. When the weekend takes a startling turn, this found family of friends finds themselves reckoning with the past—and how it will bear on the future.Beautifully observed and insightful, Reunion is a page-turning novel of literary fiction about the highs and lows of friendship from a writer at the height of her powers.

In this wonderful debut, Eliza, a woman in her late twenties has spent her life trying to find a deep, passionate relationship and has been consistently disappointed. A child of the 80's, she assumes early in life that rock stars are the answer to a deep boyfriend. (Of course, she uses the term 'rock stars' loosely since none of her boyfriends are actually stars nor have they all played rock.) The story begins with Eliza being disappointed again by her newest boyfriend (the bass guitarist) and frustrated by her day job writing copy for the too-cheery travel agency, Dreams Come True. After a disastrous blind date, the shocking news of her best friend's engagement, and her sister and brother-in-law's pregnancy announcement at the monthly family dinner, Eliza is emotionally overwhelmed. Retreating to her apartment, she goes into hibernation for two weeks and seeks comfort in John Cusack movies, forbidden food, and Leroy, her fair-weather cat. With the help of her mother and her friends, Eliza revaluates her aspirations for love in life.In the end, she realizes that in her search for a 'deep' relationship, she has lost sight of herself and that, once realized, is much easier to find.

Charlotte's long nights are anything but restful, spent worrying and tossing while her mind reels with invisible noises and imagined burglars. Divorced for fifteen years, Charlotte has come to enjoy her small, tightly scheduled life, much of which is focused on her 22-year-old daughter Emily. A headstrong Ivy League graduate with a pierced tongue and an arsenal of opinions, Emily lives life from one passion to the next - the latest of which, her boyfriend, has invited Emily to move in with him, giving Charlotte one more reason to lie awake at night. But when Emily and her new man arrive for a much-anticipated weekend visit, what is revealed rivals anything Charlotte could have dreamt up in the darkness. And in the chaos that ensues, secrets are divulged, old memories are brought back to the surface, and Charlotte's carefully constructed reality breaks wide open. Following on the heels of her popular debut, GETTING OVER JACK WAGNER, this entertaining story about getting close and letting go confirms Elise Juska's place in the ranks of rising young literary stars.

On their way to a wedding, Megan and Joel crash their car in Elise Juska's 'Perfect Weather for Driving'. It makes for a great drunken story at the rehearsal dinner, but they've found themselves stuck indefinitely at a hotel in Vermont. In 'The Happiest Day of Your Life' by Heather Swain, everyone tells Annie that her wedding day will be the best yet, but her invitations have the wrong name, and a tornado destroys the bar where the is supposed to take place. But when a bomb explodes on the subway line that her fiancé, Ben, takes every morning, everything changes. In 'Losing California' by Tara McCarthy, L.A. surfing teacher Allison Beyer cancels her wedding and flies to Nova Scotia to infiltrate the life of a singer in her favourite band. And in 'Jules & Emily' by Lisa Tucker, two lonely people meet on an online board for agoraphobics, but both will be forced to change when one is invited to her estranged brother's wedding all the way across the country.

When Claire glances at her hand resting against her kitchen counter and sees her skin is the exact shade as the Formica, she realizes that she has become indistinguishable from her kitchen. Moments later she announces to her husband, a harmless but hyper-literal entomologist that she is leaving. As a crossword puzzle writer, Claire has made a profession of finding definitions; now, she must face the fact that she has lost her own. By the end of the next day, she is heading to a small town on the coast of Ireland to visit her sister, Noelle, a college dropout she hasn't seen since their mother's death three years ago. What follows is the journey of a daughter facing the truth of her family, a wife admitting her marriage wasn't perfect, a linguist rediscovering the beauty and possibility of words.

A collection of essays from some of today's hottest writers reflecting on how Judy Blume's novels affected their childhoods. From puberty to first loves to divorce, Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume follows the journeys of twenty four women whose life experiences we can all relate to.

After a shooting in her local mall in rural New Hampshire, English professor Maggie Daley is surprised to learn the gunman was her former student, and chagrined when she finds an old essay offering clues to his violent nature she might have missed. Even as the tragedy begins to fade from the national consciousness, it takes up a larger and larger part of Maggie's attention and obsession--and it begins to disrupt her relationships with her anxiety-ridden daughter, her ex-husband, and her new lover. Meanwhile, both Maggie's employer and a determined blogger, separately, are digging into the shooter's troubled past. Feeling pressured from all sides, Maggie begins to fear that her culpability may extend past a simple sense of guilt and put the life she's built at risk. IF WE HAD KNOWN explores the private implications of public tragedies, how we navigate fear in today's world, and whether it's possible to see anyone--spouses, parents, students--as they truly are.