Mercury: A Novel

The Joseph brothers—Baylor, Waylon, and Shay—have never thought too much about the future. Their father, Mick, is a roofer, and the brothers have always been slated to join the family business; whether the work suits them isn’t really something anyone cares to consider too deeply. The small town of Mercury doesn’t provide too many opportunities for self-reflection or transformation.

When teenage Marley arrives in Mercury, she finds herself enmeshed in the Joseph family—first befriending the mother, Elise, and then romantically entangling herself with first Baylor, and then Waylon. No one can ever forget she’s an outsider, but she wrestles a place for herself in the Joseph family and the town. If any of the Josephs wish to follow a nontraditional path—and, secretly, some of them do—their fates nonetheless seem preordained.

But fate has a funny way of working in a town like Mercury, and family loyalties don’t always bow to laws or expectations. Elise has been keeping secrets, which eventually become Marley’s secrets, too—splintering the Josephs in ways they never could have predicted. Turns out even the Joseph brothers yearn for a love worth dying for. This is a mesmerizing novel, electric with life. The Josephs will stay with readers long past the final page.