Krista Diamond on Close Relationships with Strangers, Parasocial Relationships, and Celebrity Obsession

Krista Diamond on Close Relationships with Strangers, Parasocial Relationships, and Celebrity Obsession

In her debut novel, Close Relationships with Strangers, Krista Diamond examines the strange intimacies we form with people we’ll never meet. Blending celebrity culture, wildlife photography, and questions of loneliness and commodification, her debut novel asks what it means to watch, to be watched, and to mistake proximity for connection.

I caught up with Diamond via email to discuss parasocial relationships, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, empathy, and writing a character whose greatest obstacle is his inability to truly connect with others.

Continue reading “Krista Diamond on Close Relationships with Strangers, Parasocial Relationships, and Celebrity Obsession”

Tomás Q. Morín on Dystopia, Grief, and the Feline Voice Behind Cat Love

Tomás Q. Morín on Dystopia, Grief, and the Feline Voice Behind Cat Love

Set in the near future, in an America that has resorted to flight travel assisted by the use of Emotional Support Humans, Tomás Q. Morín‘s Cat Love is a sometimes whimsical, sometimes tragic, always imaginatively conceived treatise on the nature of human relationships.  Narrated by an unnamed cat, we traverse her abrupt abduction from the cozy confines of feline comfort to the jarring realities of orchestrated car accidents, buck hunting in dry lake beds, and the multiple hazards of manufactured food.  Along the way, our cat heroine opines on art, music, and the afterlife in witty, often sardonic detail. With the artistry of a poet tripping the words fantastic in the realm of fiction, Morín navigates us through an emotionally hazardous tale juxtaposed with forgotten (forlorn?) tenderness to its ultimate, heartfelt conclusion.  I asked him about his motivation in constructing this world. 

The following is our exchange, conducted by email and edited and condensed for clarity.

Continue reading “Tomás Q. Morín on Dystopia, Grief, and the Feline Voice Behind Cat Love”

Valley of the Moms by Hannah Selinger is a thriller very much rooted in place

Valley of the Moms by Hannah Selinger is a thriller very much rooted in place

Hannah Selinger is the author of the memoir Cellar Rar: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly and a James Beard Award-nominated writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Eater, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, and elsewhere. Now, her debut novel has arrived on bookshelves, bringing her sharp eye for power, class, and human behavior into the world of fiction.

Valley of the Moms is a sharp, twisty thriller set in an affluent Massachusetts suburb where school politics can be as vicious as any crime. When Anna Plummer challenges an exclusionary PTO policy, she inadvertently sets off a chain of events that culminates a year later with her death and her husband’s determination to uncover what really happened. Told through alternating timelines and perspectives, the novel explores grief, privilege, social status, and the secrets that lurk beneath the polished surface of a seemingly idyllic community.

We asked Selinger to answer our recurring My Reading Life so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Valley of the Moms by Hannah Selinger is a thriller very much rooted in place”

Read an excerpt from Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin

Read an excerpt from Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin

The following is an excerpt from Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin. She is a novelist and dramaturg from Pakistan who currently lives in London. She received her masters in creative writing from the University of Oxford and has published three award-winning and bestselling novels. Her next novel, Strange Girls, is her US debut.

Strange Girls is about two estranged friends who are forced to reunite over one feverish weekend and reckon with the choices that tore them apart. It is now available from Dutton.

You can listen to an audiobook excerpt of the book at the bottom of this article. The audiobook is available for purchase here.

Continue reading “Read an excerpt from Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin”

See the cover for Voyagers by Meg Charlton

See the cover for Voyagers by Meg Charlton

In her debut novel, Voyagers, writer Meg Chalrton introduces readers to Alex and Ana, who vanished decades ago in what was seemingly an alien abduction. Now, grown and distant from one another, they watch as the Signal, a mysterious and extraterrestrial beacon from the far reaches of the universe, contacts the world. Throughout the novel, Charlton explores what friendship looks like at the end of the world and how we confront memory and truth.

Charlton’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Yale Review, Slate, Lux, Atlas Obscura, and Vice, and the anthology Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us. Her debut book is available for pre-order now and will be published by Harper on June 16, 2026.

Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of Voyagers, which was designed by Milan Bozic, along with a Q&A with Charlton about its creation.

Continue reading “See the cover for Voyagers by Meg Charlton”

6 debut books that Debutiful missed but wish we hadn’t

6 debut books that Debutiful missed but wish we hadn’t

Of the hundreds of debut books that come out every year, Debutiful founder Adam Vitcavage tries to read and cover as many as he can. However, he misses some knockout debut books. Here are the 2025 books that we missed, but wish we hadn’t.

Continue reading “6 debut books that Debutiful missed but wish we hadn’t”