In LAURA VAN DEN BERG’s State of Paradise: A Novel, a ghostwriter for a famous thriller author is living in her mother’s small-town Florida home, tracking ominous and eerie changes. Contending with family secrets, spotty memories of her troubled youth, a burgeoning cult in the living room, and her suddenly missing sister, she begins to investigate the emerging connections between a shadowy corporation, her boss, and reality itself. In KENT WASCOM’s The Great State of West Florida, it’s 2026 and 13-year-old Rally often wonders about his dead father’s people, the Woolsacks of West Florida, who once led a failed rebellion to carve a new state. This is a neon-pink Western of family, violence, and first love in a world of megachurch magnates, suburban guerillas, and robotic warriors. Moderated by GIO GUTIERREZ, curator of The Booze & Books Club.
Buy State of Paradise: A Novel – Van den Berg
Buy The Great State of West Florida – Wascom
