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Book Lovers Book Club

Mon, Dec 04

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Birch Tree Bookstore

Join us to discuss Shark Heart by Emily Habeck with your host Courtney.

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Book Lovers Book Club
Book Lovers Book Club

Time & Location

3 more dates

Dec 04, 2023, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM

Birch Tree Bookstore, 11 W Market St, Leesburg, VA 20176, USA

About the event

New York Times Editor's Choice

Newlyweds face the unimaginable in this epic tale about marriage, motherhood, and enduring love. "Surprising and pleasurably uncategorizable. Shark Heart is wild, in every sense of the word" (The New York Times Book Review).

For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He will retain most of his consciousness, memories, and intellect, but his physical body will gradually turn into a great white shark. As Lewis develops the features and impulses of one of the most predatory creatures in the ocean, his complicated artist's heart struggles to make peace with his unfulfilled dreams.

At first, Wren internally resists her husband's fate. Is there a way for them to be together after Lewis changes? Then, a glimpse of Lewis's developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with a college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds. Woven throughout this bold novel is the story of Wren's mother, Angela, who becomes pregnant with Wren at fifteen in an abusive relationship amidst her parents' crumbling marriage. In the present, all of Wren's grief eventually collides, and she is forced to make an impossible choice.

A sweeping love story that is at once lyrical and funny, airy and visceral, Shark Heart is an unforgettable, gorgeous novel about life's perennial questions, the fragility of memories, finding joy amidst grief, and creating a meaningful life. This daring debut marks the arrival of a wildly talented new writer abounding with originality, humor, and heart.

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