Coyoteland

ONE OF LITHUB'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2026

From the bestselling author of A River of Stars comes a funny, heartfelt novel set in an affluent Bay Area suburb where a Chinese American family moves in and sets off a series of scandals, for fans of Celeste Ng and Emma Straub

“Vanessa Hua has crafted a riveting, multi-layered novel that brims with humor and insight. With remarkable specificity and striking timeliness, Coyoteland forces us to reckon with the most urgent questions of our moment while illuminating our shared longing for connection within families and communities.” —Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls

Living in El Nido, a privileged community in the hills east of Berkeley, is supposed to mean you’ve made it. So when Jin Chang moves there with his wife and daughters after years of scraping by, he hopes it will finally be the end of his bad luck. What his family doesn’t know is that he’s bending the rules for one final scheme: to make it big in real estate. Next door, Blair Belle prides herself on her progressive politics. After all, she treats their new nanny, Ana Rodriguez, and her daughter like family—even if she doesn’t know them all that well. But she can’t help but feel skeptical of the new neighbors, especially when she begins to suspect that Jin’s plans might interfere with the Belle’s own luxury development.

Jin’s teenage daughter Jane can tell her dad is keeping a secret, but she’s also struggling to navigate El Nido’s cliques. Tasha Washington has always felt isolated, too, as one of the only Black girls at the school. In the wake of a coyote attack, Jane and Tasha bond. Together, they hatch a plot to expose the town’s hypocrisies. The shockwaves will rock their own families. As fire season escalates, and the roaming coyote continues to unleash chaos, the characters become embroiled in a series of scandals that will change El Nido—and their own fates—forever.

Urgent, riveting, and deeply heartfelt, full of sharp wit and keen empathy, Coyoteland is at once a delicious suburban drama and an unflinching exploration of our current moment.