No Such Thing as Monday
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Nov 10, 2026
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
From a Booker Prize-longlisted author, a novel in which a woman tries to overcome her abusive past and find her estranged sister in a deeply moving and darkly humorous quest for redemption
Foul-mouthed, scrappy, and self-destructive, Steffie is her own worst enemy. Sustained by her sardonic sense of humor, she spends her days working at a dry cleaner and tending to her ailing, impoverished, abusive father. She was always his favorite, a fact that leaves her racked with guilt; her sister, Caroline, who bore the brunt of his rage, fled when they were both teenagers.
When her father dies, Steffie sets out to find Caroline, seeking love and forgiveness in a world that has too often denied her both. Along the way, she must confront her own memories, and the choices that have brought her to this point.
Written in the working-class British realist tradition of Douglas Stuart and Andrea Arnold, No Such Thing as Monday cements Siân Hughes’s reputation as an exceptional and compassionate chronicler of precarious and chaotic lives.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Co.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This gut punch of a novel tells the story of a woman whose determination to survive is matched by her talent for making her own life worse. Growing up with an abusive father, Steffie was the golden child, while her older sister, Caroline, was the bad daughter. Steffie barely understood what was happening, even when Caroline disappeared at 16. When their father dies, Steffie begins questioning her childhood and wondering whether she can reconnect with her sister. Siân Hughes moves between Steffie’s chaotic adult life and memories of Caroline being beaten, berated, and starved. (In one episode, their father collects eggs from the chicken coop, then throws some away rather than let Caroline eat them.) Steffie has a strange charisma with a caustic wit and stubborn resilience that make her compelling even when her decisions are infuriating. Hughes, whose debut novel, Pearl, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, brings a poet’s eye for beauty to this harrowing, often darkly funny story.
