The Little Bride

Anna Solomon's new novel Leaving Lucy Pear is available now from Viking Books A Boston Globe bestseller When 16-year-old Minna Losk journeys from Odessa to America as a mail-order bride, she dreams of a young, wealthy husband, a handsome townhouse, and freedom from physical labor and pogroms. But her husband Max turns out to be twice her age, rigidly Orthodox, and living in a one-room sod hut in South Dakota with his two teenage sons. The country is desolate, the work treacherous. Most troubling, Minna finds herself increasingly attracted to her older stepson. As a brutal winter closes in, the family's limits are tested, and Minna, drawing on strengths she barely knows she has, is forced to confront her despair, as well as her desire. “Evocative of Alice Munro, Amy Bloom, and Willa Cather, but fueled by Anna Solomon’s singular imagination, The Little Bride is a masterful debut. This tale of a Jewish mail-order bride’s homestead experience on the Great Plains is embroidered with sage, beautiful writing on every page and marks the start of a long, fine, and important career.” —Jenna Blum, author of Those Who Save Us From the Trade Paperback edition.