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A 2020 Audie winner - best female narratorA Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!Audiobook performed by Marin Ireland."I cant believe how good this book is.... Its wholly original. Its also perfect.... Wilson writes with such a light touch.... The brilliance of the novel [is] that it distracts you with these weirdo characters and mesmerizing and funny sentences and then hits you in a way you didnt see coming. Youre laughing so hard you dont even realize that youve suddenly caught fire." (Taffy Brodesser-Akner, New York Times Book Review) Kevin Wilsons best book yet - a moving and uproarious novel about a woman who finds meaning in her life when she begins caring for two children with remarkable and disturbing abilities.Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then, Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal, and theyve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help.Madisons twin stepkids are moving in with her family, and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, theres a catch: The twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but its the truth.Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other - and stay cool - while also staying out of the way of Madisons buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her - urgently and fiercely. Couldnt this be the start of the amazing life shed always hoped for?With white-hot wit and a big, tender heart, Kevin Wilson has written his best book yet - a most unusual story of parental love.



About the Author

Kevin Wilson

Kevin Wilson is the author of two collections, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2009) , which received an Alex Award from the American Library Association and the Shirley Jackson Award, and Baby You're Gonna Be Mine (Ecco, 2018) , and three novels, The Family Fang (Ecco, 2011) , Perfect Little World (Ecco, 2017) and Nothing to See Here (Ecco, 2019) , a New York Times bestseller and a Read with Jenna book club selection. His new novel, Now is Not the Time to Panic, will be published by Ecco in November of 2022. His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Southern Review, One Story, A Public Space, and elsewhere, and has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2020 and 2021, as well as The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012. He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the KHN Center for the Arts. He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, with his wife, the poet Leigh Anne Couch, and his sons, Griff and Patch, where he is an Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of the South.



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