Evanthia Bromiley

"Lyrical, unflinching, and emotionally compelling...Evanthia Bromiley has created beauty in otherwise bleak circumstances.”
—Dominic Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

 

Poetic and distinct, the voices of the three Woods open to a chorus of waitresses and oil men, veterans and graffiti artists as Crown trawls the laundromats, social service offices, and waiting rooms of a forgotten blue-collar city. In this mesmerizing, singular debut, the tenacious spirit of a young family and their community comes to profound and moving life.

“Here is a writer who clearly has studied many great novels and then emerged with a voice wholly her own; a voice that shimmers with the kind of verve and light that arrives when a writer finds her true subject, then fearlessly accepts the challenge of writing about it.”
—Dean Bakopoulos, author of Summerlong

“Beautifully written and quietly forceful, Evanthia Bromiley’s debut novel, Crown, shines with compassion for all of its characters in their perilous conditions. They fashion from the landscape what is missing. They dream homes and wear small crowns ‘woven of juniper and wild oak and the spare things of the desert.’ Bromiley's book is concise and musical, and she has heart.”
—Christine Schutt, author of Pure Hollywood

“This is a book of poetry, every sentence offering up gifts. It is also a book built of deep suspense, a survival story of the first order. An evicted mother must leave her two children alone in the world while she goes to the hospital to give birth, and through the crucible of this crisis, each voice in this novel comes alive with ferocious originality and tenderness. Evanthia Bromiley writes at the intersection of poverty and motherhood better than almost anyone I know. Crown is an astonishing, revelatory first novel.”

--Emily Fridlund, author of Booker shortlisted HISTORY OF WOLVES

“A propulsive, deeply humane debut. Crown immerses us in a world both vivid and dreamlike, alongside characters whose darkest days – carefully rendered – become luminous.’

--Anna Noyes, author of GOODNIGHT BEAUTIFUL WOMEN and THE BLUE MAIDEN 

 

Jude Woods is on the brink of eviction. Pregnant, jobless, and mother to Evan and Virginia, she has three days to box up her family’s life and find a safe place to live. In the Woods’ quiet trailer park, neighbors keep to themselves, but it’s no secret Jude and her twins are in jeopardy—the eviction notice slapped on their front door like a white shout.

 

When Jude’s contractions flare just as their power is shut off, she rushes to the hospital instructing Evan and Virginia to hide in their car in the surrounding fields. If the children are discovered out there alone, they will be taken from her. Jude labors through the night in a crowded emergency room while the twins, desperate in the heat of the cramped car and spurred by their wild imaginations, strike out along the dangerous riverbank in search of a new home for their growing family. As night hurtles toward morning lockout, both mother and children reckon with what it means to live and dream in a modern America insistent on slamming doors.

 

 

Coming June 2025

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