This Reading Is For You

What if the universe wasn't sending you signs? What if someone was?

For eleven years, Daniel Reed kept the parks of Frisco, Texas running. He knows every valve, every gate, and exactly why the ducks are a bigger problem than they look. Then the city lets him go, and his phone starts talking to him.

Tarot readers he has never heard of keep describing his life. "You weren't let go. You were set free so you could be found." A man in a neon-orange bucket hat lingers near him at the Kroger. Three cars follow him through Frisco at three in the morning, and the radio is playing "Somebody's Watching Me."

Daniel is a skeptic. He builds a binder. He runs a control group. He establishes a baseline for the color orange. And the more carefully he tests the Universe, the more the Universe seems to be paying attention.

The Universe has help. Her name is Tricia.

She is a flight attendant with a degree in child psychology, a color-coded spreadsheet, and one grievance: after they broke up, Daniel was fine. So she has hired an industry's worth of help: tarot creators who run on shared scripts, a gig app, and a crew of strangers in matching hats who have no idea why they are there.

Daniel thinks he is living a destiny thriller. Everyone else is watching a comedy.

This Reading Is For You is a dark comedy about the algorithm, the people who sell certainty by the minute, and a man who notices everything except the person right in front of him. For readers who loved A Man Called Ove and Where'd You Go, Bernadette.