What Wild Women Do
A Novel
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- USD 11.99
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- USD 11.99
Descripción editorial
"Karma Brown keeps delivering knockout after knockout. She is an auto-buy author for me!" —Taylor Jenkins Reid
If you want to transform, you can’t be tentative. —Eddie Callaway, Wild Women Handbook (1975)
An aspiring contemporary screenwriter, a 1970s socialite-turned-feminist, and the camp in the woods that ties their stories together forever, in #1 internationally bestselling author Karma Brown’s new novel about ambition, betrayal, and the wildness that exists in all of us.
Rowan is stuck. Her dream of becoming a Hollywood screenwriter is stalled, and so she and her novelist fiancé, Seth, retreat to an isolated cabin in the Adirondacks to hopefully get out of their creative ruts. There, Rowan finds herself drawn into a mysterious and unsettling story—that of socialite-turned-feminist-crusader Eddie Callaway, who vanished in these same woods the summer of 1975 and was never heard from again. A handbook found in the abandoned ruins of the Callaway camp gives Rowan glimpses into who Eddie was, and then a fateful discovery offers clues about what might have happened to her. Soon, Rowan finds herself with a story potentially more shocking than Eddie’s notes about sun salutations and pineapple upside-down cake would indicate.
As Rowan learns more about the enigmatic Eddie, who got a second chance at life after a profound loss, she discovers the camp leader’s greatest wish: to help other women unlock their true, though long-repressed, “wildness.” However, Eddie’s methods and wild ways weren’t welcomed by all, and rifts between the camp owners threatened her mission, perhaps perilously. As Rowan draws closer to the truth of Eddie’s unsolved disappearance, she realizes that the past may hold two keys: one that reveals what really happened to Eddie Callaway, and another that unlocks a future beyond her wildest imagination.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Brown's solid latest (following Recipe for a Perfect Wife), a budding screenwriter leaves Los Angeles with her boyfriend for the Adirondack Mountains, where she encounters the ruins of a 1970s feminist camp. Thirty-year-old Rowan is trying to jump-start her career alongside Seth, who is trying to write the Great American Novel. After their service jobs dry up in L.A. during the pandemic, the couple decides to rent a cabin in the Adirondacks to work on their writing. But Seth is more interested in building their YouTube channel than writing his novel, and after Rowan accidentally posts a tell-all video after a night of drinking that says the channel portrays a glossied version of their lives, the relationship deteriorates. They meet a pair of ornithologists who tell them about Camp Callaway, a cabin retreat established by a wealthy family at the turn of the 20th century, which later became a feminist women's camp headed by Edith "Eddie" Callaway, who disappeared in 1975. While Seth is preoccupied with social media, Rowan vows to find out the truth behind Eddie's disappearance, which will change the course of her life. The story is told in dual timelines, and while Brown convincingly depicts Rowan's arc, the '70s sections following Eddie take a few chapters to get going and find a rhythm. Though familiar, this will satisfy readers looking for an entertaining mystery.
