Hero — Katie Buckley

A captivating literary debut, this modern love story and myth-inspired novel is a “fearless interrogation of female desire, anger, and loneliness” (The Guardian) that takes place over seven days as a woman wrestles with a marriage proposal and what it means for her personal and creative freedom.

She's a waitress. He's a chef. They used to be best friends, but now…they're in love. She's also a selkie, a siren, Odysseus, Persephone, Helen of Troy, a Tudor queen, and a cowgirl called Quick Fingers. He's a really good man.

When he asks her to marry him, Hero panics. She may be a lot of things, but the one thing she doesn't want to be is anybody's wife. He gives her one week to decide, so to gather her thoughts, she begins to write him a letter. It is both the story of how they fell in love, and of who she is, and why marriage fills her with equal parts delight and terror.

Drawing on a rich history of myth and legend, and yet unmistakably one of the moment, Hero is a love story about what it means for women to be supporting characters in a world written by men. How can you be yourself when you are a product of other people's imaginations? How can you love another person and be free?