LIKE A HOUSE ON FIRE

When stay-at-home mother Merit returns to work at a San Francisco architecture firm, she knows her life is about to change—she just doesn't know how completely.

Upon meeting her new boss, Jane, a Danish architect two decades her senior with an almost magnetic candidness and wit, Merit is smitten. After years of staying home with a toddler and young baby, painting in her free time (or lack thereof), and maintaining a steady but predictable relationship with her college boyfriend–turned-husband, Cory, she's ready for more—but she immediately feels the challenges of balancing career and family. Luckily, she has a supporter and confidante in Jane, whose chicness and impeccable taste inspire Merit to look beyond what she's always known and push for more. Weekly lunches and heart-to-heart coffees expand their friendship, which eventually transcends the professional and becomes one of the most important connections in both their lives. Of course, jobs and marriages don't always last forever. When Jane splits from her husband and starts her own firm, Merit realizes how essential this woman is in her life. Through small gestures and delicate language, the novel leads up to the revelation that Merit can no longer imagine anything less than a passionate, romantic connection with Jane. Told in the third person from Merit's perspective, with a zippy pace, punchy dialogue, and beautifully crafted sentences that manage to capture the tenderness of longing and self-discovery, Merit and Jane's love story feels both realistic and escapist, a queer romance done right.

Two women reexamine their lives in middle age, finding strength in desire and the unknown.