Nymph

A STYLIST BEST QUEER FICTION BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2026 A VOGUE and ELLE SUMMER READ 2026 'Immersive, queer and atmospheric. The perfect summer read' EMILY AUSTIN 'Montrone perfectly captures the Homeric, mythic power of childhood's edge, the paradox of days that feel like they last forever, while somehow always being much too short. Every sentence is a heartbreak' HILARY LEICHTER 'A dazzling debut that captures the dizzying intensity of first love' ADAM WILSON 'Transcendent' HEIDI JULAVITS 'This shimmering gem of a novel invites you to re-experience that gut-punch feeling of youthful summer romance. Suffused with moody sunsets, lush summer heat and confused yearning' ANELISE CHEN 'Luscious and transporting' GRACE FLAHIVE Ten-year-old Leo spends her mornings tidying the rooms of her nonna's time-worn Italian hotel, quietly accumulating the junk and treasures left behind by guests - a pearl earring, a lock of hair. Her nights are suffused with her father's liquor-spun tales of his childhood, mingled with stories of Greek heroes of old. Years later, over another hot, endless Italian summer, the hotel is one of the only things in Leo's life that has remained constant. An accident has knocked her family sideways; her brother Max is distant and Nonna has grown frail. But then she meets Dolores, an American girl who sets something alight in Leo that she didn't know existed. Heat-soaked, sensual and steeped in an exquisite longing, Nymph traverses the extraordinary pains, soaring pleasures and many metamorphoses it takes to finally grow up.

Call Me By Your Name meets Elena Ferrante in this debut coming-of-age novel about a young girl who spends summers working at her family's timeworn Italian agriturismo, the tragedy that rends her life into "before" and "after," and her romance with an American girl, which has unexpected consequencesTo ten-year-old Leo, life is a collection. She spends her mornings tidying the rooms of her Nonna Tina's timeworn Italian agriturismo, carefully accumulating the curious bits of left-behind detritus from guests--a pearl earring, a lock of hair. Her nights are suffused with gathering the stories that flow from her father's lips--liquor-spun tales of Odysseus and the Trojans in secret battle. But when an accident rips the gentle membrane of Leo's childhood, she is left vulnerable to the pains and pleasures of growing up. Years later, in a sultry summer not unlike the many that came before, the agriturismo is the only thing that remains the same. Nonna Tina has grown older, Leo's brother Max is intractable and mercurial, and the curiosity Leo so loved to feed as a child has turned into something more confusing. When she meets Dolores, an American girl made brilliant by Leo's perception of her, she can't help but gather all the experiences first love promises, while shedding parts of the past she no longer fits into. Embroidering the atmospheric yearning of Call Me By Your Name with the precise, elevated prose of Elena Ferrante, Sofia Montrone's jaw-dropping debut revels in the exuberant highs and awkward lows of girlhood and captures the universal experiences of trying to hold on to what is elusive, to deny what cannot be faced, and to say what cannot be said.

Call Me By Your Name meets Elena Ferrante in this debut coming-of-age novel about a young girl who spends summers working at her family's timeworn Italian agriturismo, the tragedy that rends her life into "before" and "after," and her romance with an American girl, which has unexpected consequencesTo ten-year-old Leo, life is a collection. She spends her mornings tidying the rooms of her Nonna Tina's timeworn Italian agriturismo, carefully accumulating the curious bits of left-behind detritus from guests--a pearl earring, a lock of hair. Her nights are suffused with gathering the stories that flow from her father's lips--liquor-spun tales of Odysseus and the Trojans in secret battle. But when an accident rips the gentle membrane of Leo's childhood, she is left vulnerable to the pains and pleasures of growing up. Years later, in a sultry summer not unlike the many that came before, the agriturismo is the only thing that remains the same. Nonna Tina has grown older, Leo's brother Max is intractable and mercurial, and the curiosity Leo so loved to feed as a child has turned into something more confusing. When she meets Dolores, an American girl made brilliant by Leo's perception of her, she can't help but gather all the experiences first love promises, while shedding parts of the past she no longer fits into. Embroidering the atmospheric yearning of Call Me By Your Name with the precise, elevated prose of Elena Ferrante, Sofia Montrone's jaw-dropping debut revels in the exuberant highs and awkward lows of girlhood and captures the universal experiences of trying to hold on to what is elusive, to deny what cannot be faced, and to say what cannot be said.

A STYLIST BEST QUEER FICTION BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2026 A VOGUE and ELLE SUMMER READ 2026 'Immersive, queer and atmospheric. The perfect summer read' EMILY AUSTIN 'Montrone perfectly captures the Homeric, mythic power of childhood's edge, the paradox of days that feel like they last forever, while somehow always being much too short. Every sentence is a heartbreak' HILARY LEICHTER 'A dazzling debut that captures the dizzying intensity of first love' ADAM WILSON 'Transcendent' HEIDI JULAVITS 'This shimmering gem of a novel invites you to re-experience that gut-punch feeling of youthful summer romance. Suffused with moody sunsets, lush summer heat and confused yearning' ANELISE CHEN 'Luscious and transporting' GRACE FLAHIVE Ten-year-old Leo spends her mornings tidying the rooms of her nonna's time-worn Italian hotel, quietly accumulating the junk and treasures left behind by guests - a pearl earring, a lock of hair. Her nights are suffused with her father's liquor-spun tales of his childhood, mingled with stories of Greek heroes of old. Years later, over another hot, endless Italian summer, the hotel is one of the only things in Leo's life that has remained constant. An accident has knocked her family sideways; her brother Max is distant and Nonna has grown frail. But then she meets Dolores, an American girl who sets something alight in Leo that she didn't know existed. Heat-soaked, sensual and steeped in an exquisite longing, Nymph traverses the extraordinary pains, soaring pleasures and many metamorphoses it takes to finally grow up.