A bold, inventive, and fiercely original debut novel that begins with an uncle dead and his tween nieces private confession to the readershe and her sister killed him, and they blame the British.

Spirited and witty, stylish and audacious…Its avid curiosity about the world, its alertness to history, and its enormously fun storytellingwith a twist at the endheld me in their spell. Megha Majumdar,New York Timesbestselling author ofA Burning

Summer, 1986. The Creel sisters, Georgie Ayyar and Agatha Krishna, welcome their aunt, uncle and young cousinnewly arrived from Indiainto their house in rural Wyoming where theyll all live together. Because this is what families do. That is, until the sisters decide that its time for their uncle to die.

According to Georgie, the British are to blame. And to understand why, you need to hear her story. She details the violence hiding in their house and history, her once-unshakeable bond with Agatha Krishna, and her understanding of herself as an Indian-American in the heart of the West. Her account is, at every turn, cheeky, unflinching, and infectiously inflected with the trappings of teendom, including the magazine quizzes that help her make sense of her life. At its heart, the tale she weaves is:
a) a vivid portrait of an extended family
b) a moving story of sisterhood
c)a playful ode to the 80s
d)a murdermystery (of sorts)
e)an unexpected and unwaveringly powerful meditation on history and language, trauma and healing, and the meaning of independence

Or maybe its really:

f) all of the above.

NINA McCONIGLEYis the author of the story collectionCowboys and East Indians,which was the winner of thePEN Open Book Awardand theHigh Plains Book Award. She has received grants and fellowships from the NEA, the Radcliffe Institute, Bread Loaf, Vermont Studio Center, and the Sewanee Writers Conference. She was a recipient of the Wyoming Arts CouncilsFrank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Awardand a finalist for aNational Magazine Awardfor her columns inHigh Country News. Her work has also appeared inThe New York Times,Orion, O: The Oprah Magazine, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Salon,among other outlets. Born in Singapore and raised in Wyoming, she now lives in Colorado.

• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publish Date: January 20, 2026
• Pages: 224
• Language: English
• Type: Hardback
• EAN/UPC: 9780593702246
• Dimensions: 7.3 X 5.3 X 0.9 inches | 0.5 pounds
• BISAC Categories: Literary Fiction, Popular Fiction