November 13, 2023
German screenwriter Menger’s gripping debut ropes readers into the disquieting life of 15-year-old Juno, who’s lived on a small island in the middle of a lake in an unnamed country since she was a toddler. The island’s only other inhabitants are her parents and her 12-year-old brother, Boy. The children’s lives consist of a strict regimen of school lessons—mathematics, English, wound dressing, and domestic science—and regular drills in which they hide silently in the cellar of their cabin, should any strangers arrive on their shores. All strangers, per Juno and Boy’s parents, are dangerous. While Boy takes his parents’ words as gospel, Juno begins to question her family’s way of living as she enters adolescence, longing to find a way to the mainland. When a young man arrives on the beach outside Juno’s home in the middle of the night, it radically changes her life, calling her parents’ motives into question and potentially placing her in grave danger. Menger skillfully doles out disturbing reveals, maintaining expert tension without lingering in ambiguity for too long. This deliciously creepy puzzle box is bound to keep readers hooked. Agent: Isobel Dixon, Blake Friedmann Literary.