Description: For fans of What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell and The Futures by Anna Pitoniak, a soul-piercing debut that explores the intertwining of past and present, queerness, and coming of age in uncertain times. Willa's darkness enters Hesper's light late one night in Brooklyn. Theirs is a whirlwind romance until Willa starts to know Hesper too well, to crawl into her hidden spaces, and Hesper shuts her out. She runs, following her fractured family back to her grandfather's hometown of Tbilisi, Georgia, looking for the origin story that he is no longer able to tell. But once in Tbilisi, cracks appear in her grandfather's history-and a massive flood is heading toward Georgia, threatening any hope for repair. Meanwhile, heartbroken Willa is so desperate to leave New York that she joins a group trip for Jewish twentysomethings to visit Holocaust sites in Germany and Poland, hoping to override her emotional state. When it proves to be more fraught than home, she must come to terms with her past-the ancestral past, her romantic past, and the past that can lead her forward. Told from alternating perspectives, and ending in the shadow of Trump's presidency, WILLA & HESPER is a deeply moving, cerebral, and timely debut
Brief description:
Dara Rosenberg is an accomplished voice-over artist who has been recognized nationally for her extensive work in audiobooks and commercials. She has a BFA in drama from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and studied at Interlochen Arts Academy, where she majored in drama and musical theater.
Review Quotes: A lyrical, timely story about love, heartbreak, and healing. Willa & Hesper explores religion, queerness, what it means to live in today's world in a female body, and the meaning of family in tight, absorbing prose. A beautiful debut by a striking new voice.-- "Crystal Hana Kim, author of If You Leave Me"