The Emilys

by Heather Abel

A mother becomes obsessed with finding the cure to a mysterious ailment that is spreading throughout her New England town in this kaleidoscopic novel about love's capacities in a changing world.

“And if we weren’t afraid of the darkness? What world would we make then?”

Eve is at a breaking point. Alone with her two children in Massachusetts while her husband pursues his music career in New York City, she’s frustrated, bored, and above all, lonely when she runs into Demeter, a childhood friend with whom she shared one transformative summer. Demeter is as beautiful and charismatic as Eve remembers, but she’s also distraught. Demeter’s daughter, like a growing number of others, young and old, cannot go outside during the day. No one knows why, and doctors are skeptical that these people—soon dubbed Emilys, after a famously reclusive local poet—are telling the truth. But Eve believes her friend, whose company revives her and gives her purpose. She will help Demeter—if she can just figure out how.

Eve’s search for answers brings her into the fold of an unlikely band of detectives—the local librarian and the town’s most prolific writer of letters to the editor, who both loved the same woman and now hate each other; an actor hoping to make amends for past mistakes; a hermit botanist whose seed collection might hold a clue if she’d only open her door. They meet in playdates and potlucks, the Elks Lodge and the food co-op, the botanical garden and the riverbank, venturing deep into the town’s past and finding their way towards a future wilder and more wondrous than they had ever expected. But for Eve, this future will require a She is keeping secrets from her husband, fighting with Demeter, distracted from her children. What is she willing to risk to find a cure? 

The Emilys is a capacious, profound book about how love of all kinds—love between friends, between mothers and kids, between strangers and neighbors, love for the earth—opens up new possibilities. It How will we learn to live in an altered world? How will we keep each other safe? And when the darkness comes, how will we find joy?

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literature, Friendship, Literary Fiction, Adult, Drama

416 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication June 16, 2026

Reviews

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book follows a group of friends in Northampton Massachusetts during and after the pandemic, during which a group of people develop sensitivity to sunlight. I found most of the characters interesting. Eve is the main character who is forced to leave her life in NYC and move back to Mass to take care of her children. She has a best friend, Demeter, a free spirit whose daughter develops the sensitivity to sunlight. But interesting characters are the whole show here. There is no real plot other than finding some seeds, and there is no narrative tension because the one twist is given away at the beginning. The book is marketed as a story of a community coming together, but it does not really read that way. Eve's relationships with other adults lack boundaries and are kind of unhealthy, due to trauma in her childhood. She is trying but is hamstrung with anxiety. All the men in the book are pointless at best and harmful at worst. The stories of the other female characters fade off the page towards the end. So community does not appear to be the point of the story. I think about 100 pages could have been edited out.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mysterious illness that makes it impossible for the sufferers, called Emilys after the reclusive poet, to go outside in the daytime is at the center of this novel set in Western Massachusetts. Eve lives in Northampton in her childhood home with her two children while her husband pursues a career in music in New York. She is exhausted and at a breaking point when she meets an old friend from her childhood, Demeter, who has come back to town to seek a cure for her daughter who is suffering from the sun sickness. The search for a cure leads them to form unlikely alliances with other affected people and their families. The novel explores the nature of friendship, motherhood, and what one will risk to find a cure for their loved ones. Although this sounds grim, the characters and the community they form, the relationships, and the location, keep it from heaviness. Eve is a woman I will remember for a long time.

[John Caleb Grenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

THE EMILYS
Heather Abel
Thank you @randomhousebooks for the advance copy of this novel—out in June!

How do you be a friend to someone, at all? What’s the point? Or, is that the whole point of it all?

The Emilys: An exploration of the state of faith and belief, what it means to suspend it, what it means to choose belief in spite of evidence, how people make decisions against their better judgment, how people reject what they don’t want to hear when it leaves no hope.

It both subtly and loudly explores a topic I think of often, being the difference between illness, sickness, and disease. That is: disease being the pathophysiological process ongoing in a body that can or cannot be treated successfully; sickness being the personal state of having a disease—whether it has a fitting and encompassing working diagnosis or not; and illness being the way in which a society perceives a disease and a sickness, how it’s either romanticized, shunned, supported or scoffed on. The Emilys is a wonderful working literary example of how these three processes intertwine. For that, I loved this book.

There were passages here about friendship and motherhood, nature and longing that I found especially impactful. It’s got a terrifically complex spark of life. A rich book to chew and savor and appreciate for the parts that resonate.

In the end, the last quarter of the book suffered from just a bit of plotty denouement doom that did not work for me, but nonetheless did not affect much how I felt about the rest of the novel.

If you’re into the conflicts between modern medicine and pseudoscience, or have a friend you love no matter your differences, you should check this book out.

[Dede · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for an early copy of this book in exchange for a honest review. I throughly enjoyed this book and read it in one day. I loved the storyline and the characters. I thought it was well written.. I would definitely recommend this book.

[rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps the only thing I dislike about reading ARCs is that I can not quote in my GR reviews—particularly a shame in this case, because there were just so many moments in this book I loved dearly. I will try to capture the essence of this marvelous work without giving away any of the intrigue. The writing was stellar, the Will's identity and Jalen's illness plot twists were not the ones I foresaw, and just, overall, I felt a pull to return to this book continuously through the ten days of reading. Abel's writing reminded me of Patchett's Tom Lake and something else I can not quite place, a warm blanket of familiarity, while being, in its content, entirely novel. I enjoyed the way the narrative was structured, with the principal line around Eve and the satellite narratives from other characters.

I would not call myself an environmentalist, although I obviously care about climate change and how it affects species of both plants and insects. The perspective of the ticks was quite unexpected, but I honestly thought it was one of the highlights of the novel. I have been, however, facing a growing urge to abandon all screens, forever, and move to a small village on the coast of the Mediterranean, and do I am not exactly sure what. Just... not this. Perhaps we do drive and type on our screens and keep our lights on a little too much. Would it be so bad to enjoy the nights and the white linens? The simplicity we have lost?

In my life, all roads seem to lead to Emily Dickinson. The timing of this read is kind of odd for me. I have been consumed by an odd sense of nostalgia for this past summer, which I spent in New England, feeling like a bug under a hazy blue glass dome. The title of the work is quite brilliant, I have to say, as I am a lay scholar of all things Emily Dickinson. The insect motifs, the Thoreau connections, the light sensitivity, the love for nature, the mortality, it’s all so closely tied to Dickinson.

I appreciate motherhood as one of the central themes of this novel. An emerging trend, it seems, one I welcome even though I do not plan on having children myself. I see a lot of myself in Eve and her relationship with her mother, more rarely in Persephone and her undying hope, and most often in Kiran and older Sophia in their pursuit to step back into the night. Fatherhood, too, I suppose. Oh, Stephen, the collectivist, but more importantly, the father. What parts of ourselves wouldn't we give for the ones we love?

Also, I fear I am a Demeter hater. Eve can be annoying at times due to her dishonesty, privilege, and jealousy, but Demeter... her character irritated me beyond measure, and yet still propelled my desire to keep reading. I suppose I wanted to see what kind of stupid choices this brilliant woman would make. Actually, now that I think about it, like every character in this book is annoying. Not a bad thing at all. Very human of them. (I am looking at you, Mr. Southwest).

But yeah, basically, highly recommend. I don't even know how to conclude here—go into this with an open mind? Enjoy the Greentime?

Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin Random House, for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️

Just not for me… the cover is absolutely stunning though!

[Neko~chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Received as an ARC from NetGalley. Heather Abel goes for verisimilitude and gets there. The prose is lush and beautiful, full of neat turns of phrase. However, I found the vision of this book confusing, and the plot clumsy. It suffers from literary fiction plot, where author moseys around with language and character and towards the end remembers that there needs to be some dramatic stakes. For the first two thirds the story felt like a lot of language, and then toward the end one chapter of a reveal-all—after which the story picked up and I could read straight through, but I had to wander about to get there a bit. References and themes (Eve, Demeter/Persephone, sunlight, ecology) felt hackneyed.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eve is reunited with her childhood friend Demeter, a beautiful magnetic woman of whom she was deeply jealous but also adored. It seems too good to be true: her old friend back and their children can play together. When she learns Demeter's daughter is suffering from a strange illness called Emily that no doctors can figure out, Eve becomes her main support system. As more people become afflicted but they're no closer to a cure, Eve struggles with feelings of failure and what place she holds in the lives of her loved ones.

I'll be honest: I really struggled with this one but for the most part I think it was a me thing. I thought the concept was so interesting. I was expecting it to have a more mystical take but I enjoyed the way the altered world affected our characters and the way each one chose to deal with it. The pacing was a little disjointed to me in the way the chapters were sectioned and the POV switched. I really only felt invested in Eve's POV (although about 2/3rds through I started to like Ruth too) so once I got momentum going and was more interested the POV switched and I wasn't as engaged. I thought the prose itself was well written and I enjoyed the amount of introspection from our characters. I was let down by the ending. I felt there wasn't a lot of resolution for the information and questions provided and I wanted a little more direct confrontation.

I think this would work for readers who enjoy exploring the characters internal motivations and their place (and humanity's as a whole) in the wide world while also leaving some space in the world building for contemplation after the last page.

Thank you to Net Galley, Random House Publishing, and the author for the opportunity to read and review the book. All opinions are my own.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I hadn’t been reading Heather Abel’s The Emilys for review, I probably would have DNF’d this book after about twenty pages. After having finished the book, I still wish I had DNF’d it after about twenty pages and gotten those hours of my life back.

I think the main point of the book is that we’re destroying our planet and then destroying ourselves and the generations that follow with the inevitability of it, and our very limited ability at an individual level to do anything about it. I say ‘I think’ because this book goes off on so many tangents and is told by multiple narrators that it is incredibly difficult to follow the train of thought of Abel.

The primary narrator is Eve, who has relocated to the country with her children from New York City while her husband commutes. She reconnects with an old friend who lives an alternative lifestyle and has a daughter who gets sick when exposed to light. The light illness they think is the result of a tick bite, but no one will take them seriously.

All the narrators are eventually connected because of this illness, whether they have a family member suffering from it or are trying to find a cure for it. Which also turns them all into crazy, paranoid, and obsessive people. It does however, take some time into the book for Eve, Jeremiah, Ruth, Stephen, and Persephone to be connected, which left me confused for a good deal of the book about what the actual story was.

I don’t know if there’s a moral to this story, but since Joan, Eve’s mother, is a fatalist who begins suffering from Emily herself, spreads doom and gloom while expecting accommodation, perhaps the moral is to leave as small a footprint as you can while not forgoing life and relationships.

Even if ticks could cause a sun sickness in a diagnosable way like they do Lyme disease, the characters in this book who have it all drove me crazy. I can’t imagine how bad it would be cooped up inside in the dark, but they’re all depressing and demanding, and characters like Eve enable them but coddling them too much. They live in the country where it’s pretty dark at night, and yet they mope inside and don’t see an alternative time of day as a way to start living in some capacity again, they just want to hang out together in a dark room with ‘their people’.

The book tends to stray off this topic a lot, ruminating on past relationships the narrators have had, and wringing their hands over the current ones. There’s a point where on a visit by Eve to a former acquaintance of Ruth’s that there’s a random Target run and a performance by children with a stage and props. At one point, after being warned off sharing a potential cure for Emily in case pharma bros co-opt it first, that Eve becomes convinced one of her new acquaintances is a spy. It hurt my head.

This probably qualifies as literary fiction, which is often driven by character development. In this case most of the characters seem to devolve rather than evolve. Literary fiction tends to not be my vibe unless it’s a really well written book that helps me understand why I went on the journey with the characters to begin with. This was not that book for me.

A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Nilufer Ozmekik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some novels tell a story.
The Emilys quietly builds a world around your heart and then asks you what you’re willing to protect when that world begins to change.

From its first pages, this book feels like standing on the edge of something fragile and luminous. Eve is a woman stretched thin by ordinary life—children, distance, exhaustion, loneliness—until the reappearance of Demeter cracks something open inside her. Their reunion doesn’t just bring back memory; it brings urgency, devotion, and a question that won’t let go: What happens when the people we love no longer fit inside the world as it is?

The mysterious illness at the center of this novel is haunting not because it’s spectacular, but because it’s intimate. It isolates. It confines. It reshapes families and friendships from the inside out. Watching Eve step deeper into Demeter’s orbit—believing her when others won’t, standing beside her when systems fail—becomes both beautiful and heartbreaking. You can feel the pull of loyalty growing stronger even as it begins to strain everything else in Eve’s life.

What makes this story so powerful is how it understands love as something both tender and dangerous. Eve loves fiercely, and that love pushes her toward connection, toward discovery, toward community—but also toward secrecy, guilt, and impossible choices. Every step forward costs her something. Every hope carries risk.

The town itself becomes a living presence, filled with unlikely alliances and quiet acts of bravery. Strangers share meals, trade theories, argue, reconcile, and keep showing up for one another. There’s a sense that even in fear, people are reaching outward—toward nature, toward memory, toward one another—in order to survive.

This is a novel about mothers, yes—but also about friendship, grief, devotion, and the radical act of believing someone when the world refuses to. It is tender without being sentimental, hopeful without denying pain. By the final pages, I felt both broken open and gently held, like the book had been whispering something true about how we live now, and how we might learn to live better.

The Emilys is strange, soulful, and quietly unforgettable—a story that lingers like a half-remembered dream and refuses to let go.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House for sharing this profound and moving women’s fiction digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

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[Pamela Shrewsbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

📚 BOOK REVIEW
THE EMILYS
Heather Abel • Publishes 6/16/26
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to @netgalley, @randomhouse & @heatherkabel for the ARC in exchange for a review.

Eve is barely holding it together raising two kids alone while her husband chases his music career in New York. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Demeter, she learns Demeter’s daughter, like a growing number of others, can no longer go outside during the day without getting sick. These people are called the Emilys.

No one can explain it. Most don’t even believe it. But Eve does, and her search for answers pulls her into a strange, quietly radical community chasing a truth that feels just out of reach and maybe a future none of them are ready for.

⸻
The  Emilys is an ambitious novel that sits at the intersection of climate fiction and cozy small‑town mystery. Abel builds a world uncomfortably close to ours, where a growing number of people, the “Emilys,” named after Emily Dickinson become physically unable to endure daylight.

It’s quirky, yes, but also deeply moving — part speculative fiction, part human drama — exploring how we adapt when the world fundamentally changes. The atmosphere shines: moody, lush, and tenderly focused on how we care for one another when everything shifts beneath our feet. The premise is brilliant, though at times the story tries to do too much, slowing the pace and scattering focus.

The characters are weird in the best way, but there are a lot of them from feuding librarians to a hermit botanist. These people add so much local flavor. However, all those subplots made me lose track of Eve and her own emotional journey.

It’s a beautiful, thought‑provoking read that just needed a bit more focus to hit that five‑star mark. Abel makes you think about community, climate anxiety, and how we connect when everything goes sideways.

✅ WHAT WORKED
• Atmospheric tone — dreamlike and immersive
• Complex female friendships — messy, real, layered
• Strong sense of place and community
• Thoughtful motherhood themes — isolation and identity
• Slow‑build mystery grounded in emotion
• Beautiful writing — reflective and lyrical


⚠️ WHAT DIDN’T WORK
• Pacing drags — not ideal for plot‑driven readers
• Some threads feel more thematic than resolved
• Ambiguity may frustrate readers craving clear answers
• Large cast occasionally scatters focus

[Igor DelRey · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know, I do think The Emilys has a quite original and very interesting premise. The title alone - what 'Emilys' means in this story - is interesting and creative enough.
I personally enjoyed a lot the main setting and the conversations and the whole mystery around the disease. The characters Ruth and Persephone were, easily, my favourites. I am the (maybe minority?) kind of reader who does not mind at all novels that bring the covid pandemic to the plotline. Even though the covid pandemic is not AT ALL a big part of this story, I enjoyed how the author mentions it throughtout the book. Also, there is a very short chapter that is told by the point of view of the parasite that causes the disease, the "Tick". I loved that. It was short, fast, and it happened only once, but it is now one of the things that I'll most remember about this book.

Unfortunately, I do think the author is trying to do a lot in this book. The discussions and topics she brings are a lot. Most of them have no real, in my opinion, connection to the "Emilys''. Personally, I was only interested in following the "tick" storyline. Plain and simple. But the book drags on and on about multiple subjects and topics that, to me, none of them were interesting enough. It only made me feel pulled out of the story and have that feeling that I usually have when I read a Stephen King novel: unnecessarily long. It needs editing. It needs to be at least 100 pages shorter.

All in all, I don't regret reading this book at all. I'm always up for reading novels with different premises, originals sometimes. And The Emilys did that for me. Somehow. Even though I didn't love this book, for being what it is, it's a book I won't easily forget about in the near future.

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House, for providing me with a free eARC of this novel in exchange for my honest opinion.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (3.5 stars) | The Emilys by Heather Abel is a curious, contemplative, and quietly compelling novel about motherhood, mystery, and the maddening persistence of disbelief. While it took me a while to settle into the story and sort out the sprawling set of players, once the pieces began to fall into place, the emotional core became much clearer.

At the center is Eve, whose fierce, frantic, and sometimes frazzled fixation on uncovering the cause of the strange illness affecting children in her town feels both believable and deeply human. Abel captures the simmering skepticism and stubborn dismissal from doctors, professionals, neighbors, and random bystanders with painful precision. That sense of frustrating, familiar disbelief—especially toward mothers and women describing their own or their children’s suffering—felt painfully recognizable. In contrast, the few characters who do believe them emerge as unexpected, almost heroic helpers.

The novel’s shifting perspectives can be jarring and jumpy, and at times the plot feels a bit loose and labyrinthine, though the multiple viewpoints ultimately deepen the sense of community and context. By the end, the threads mostly tie together, even if the storytelling could have been tighter and tidier.

What lingered most was the book’s gentle gathering of a found family—a circle of curious caretakers and compassionate conspirators trying to protect those society too quickly dismisses. Abel offers a thoughtful, tender, and sometimes troubling meditation on belief, belonging, and how communities can come together when the world begins to feel uncertain.

Thank you to the publishers at Random House for the advanced reader copy via NetGalley.

[Haille Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Emilys by Heather Abel is one of those slow-burn, slightly strange (in a good way) books about motherhood, mystery, and what it feels like when no one is listening to you. It took me a bit to get into—there are a lot of characters and shifting perspectives—but once I found my footing, I was hooked on the emotional side of the story.

At the center is Eve, who’s trying to get to the bottom of a weird illness affecting kids in her town. She’s intense, a little frantic, and totally determined, and honestly, she felt very real to me. The most frustrating (and well-done) part of the book is how no one believes her—not doctors, not experts, not random people. That whole dynamic felt way too familiar, especially when it comes to women and mothers being dismissed. The few people who do take her seriously ended up feeling like absolute MVPs.

The structure is a little chaotic at times—the POV switches can be kind of jumpy, and the plot wanders a bit—but it also adds to this feeling of a bigger, interconnected community. By the end, things mostly come together, even if it’s not super neat and tidy.

One of my favorite parts was the found family vibe that slowly builds—a group of people who start showing up for each other in really quiet but meaningful ways. It gave the story a lot of heart.

Overall, this is a thoughtful, slightly eerie, and very human read. A little messy, but in a way that mostly worked for me!

Thank you to the publishers at Random House for the advanced reader copy via NetGalley. Publish date June 16th!

[Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. The prose is captivating and evocative, and the story is genuinely intriguing. I was drawn into it almost immediately and found it impossible to put down.

But it eventually got to a point where it felt like the author was trying to incorporate too many themes at once. This isn’t just a story about friendship, marriage, and motherhood, but also the climate crisis, post-viral syndromes, pseudoscience, generational trauma, mental illness, mass hysteria, agoraphobia, environmentalism, and the pharmaceutical industry.

While Eve has a compelling voice, I didn’t feel as connected to some of the other narrative characters, especially Stephen. Demeter’s daughter Persephone is the first “Emily," and I still felt that she was criminally underutilized. I wanted to know more about her mindset as her mother tried to find a cure for her condition. The twist regarding Will’s identity was well done but a little unnecessary, like he belonged in a different story.

There’s an interesting parallel between the mysterious condition affecting the Emilys and the afflicted girls of Salem Village, whose accusations kicked off the infamous witch trials. I would have liked the fear and paranoia of the townspeople to be explored more.

Overall, I think The Emilys would have worked better as a short story collection than a full-length novel. This will sit with me for a while, but I didn't end up enjoying it as much as I thought I would.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I desperately wanted to like The Emilys. With a stunning premise and strong start I really thought I would, however as the novel progressed my hopes petered out. Its clear that author Heather Abel can tell a great story, but I wish it would have stuck more to the cover blurb and done away with many of the 'extras'. 416 pages would have been perfect for key themes of motherhood, friendship, and psychosomatic(?) mystery illnesses in a post-lockdown world, but it got crowded with additional explorations of environmentalism, income inequality, the pharmaceutical industry, antinatalism, language around disability, gender identity, unconventional relationships, mental illness, and others. Several of the characters, while interesting and complex on their own, could have been struck from the story with little impact. There were times when a character would resurface and it would make me think of the Progressive Turning Into Your Parents "no one knows who those people are" commercial spot.

There were many positives however! I liked the descriptions of the relationship between the main character and her kids, and her emotional affair with another character was intriguing, as were many of the other relationship build-ups and breakdowns. The author's style and writing quality were enthralling and kept me reading through some of the struggles I outlined above. This book could have benefitted from some editing, but I definitely would not rule out this author in the future.

[Shasta Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC to read this novel. All opinions are my own.

The novel follows mothers and semi-friends, Eve and Demeter, as they navigate a sensitivity to sunlight that is plaguing their community in Massachusetts. Would you do whatever it takes to protect yourself and your family from an isolating and mysterious illness? I think most of us who have lived through the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 know that answer, and you'll find a lot of similarities with how Demeter and Eve (especially) form alliances, make tradeoffs, and make impossible choices that ultimately drive them apart.

I enjoyed the writing of the book - the prose has a sweeping quality to it not unlike a Greek tragedy. However, the pace is very slow and it took me a solid 40% of the book to finally get into the swing of things. I also thought that the blatant comparisons of Eve/Demeter and their namesakes' respective legends was a little on the nose and unnecessary.

Overall, if you enjoyed slow, haunting books like The Virgin Suicides (by Jeffrey Eugenides) and You're Safe Here (by Leslie Stephens), then you might like The Emilys too. I wanted to love it, but it was not for me.

[Christa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books where you can tell the author is very smart. The writing is lush. The descriptions are layered. The themes are big: motherhood, climate anxiety, belief, community, longing. But whew!

There are a lot of characters. And not just a lot...they’re introduced with heavy backstories, philosophical reflections, side histories, and tangents. At times it felt like every person who walked into a room came with three paragraphs of biography and emotional symbolism. I found myself flipping back trying to remember, Wait… who is this again?

The descriptions are dense. Sometimes beautifully so. Other times? Overkill. Scenes that could have moved quickly lingered in long, winding imagery. If you love immersive, literary prose, you’ll probably appreciate it. If you prefer tighter pacing, you might feel bogged down.

The central concept is fascinating and original. The emotional undercurrent about mothers carrying the weight of everything is strong. But the execution can feel cluttered, and the lack of clarity around the illness adds to the confusion.

It’s thoughtful. It’s ambitious. It’s symbolic.
It’s also occasionally exhausting!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC!

[Amanda B]

DNF at 38%. I’m giving up. Too many perspectives that are hard to follow. Too much jumping around in time, even within the modern storyline. I’m 38% in and now we are a few centuries back with zero context, talking about witches and leeches. I just need something to be clear for maybe 1 second. I don’t mind not knowing what’s happening until later on, but I do need - at the very least - for each perspective to make sense.

The language is pompous and hard to take in. I’m relatively intelligent, yet I have to re-read entire pages and for what? To be just as confused as before, that’s what.

The characters’ relationships are so far-fetched. The dad who’s obsessed (seriously, it’s cringey) with his adult son while his wife doesnt care at all? Two adult women who were besties for one summer reunite and suddenly one of them is giving up her life to help her friend’s daughter?

Let’s talk for a second about why in the world everyone is doubting that sun sickness (in the context of this book) is so far fetched? And why they have to keep it hush hush? It’s giving Voldemort-isn’t-back tbh.

Tl;dr: I love myself so I’m calling it quits.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

[nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this ARC!

The Emilys is a novel that centers on a mysterious illness tied to photosensitivity and the communities that form in response to it. As the condition spreads, questions (as well as conspiracies and outright opposition) arise about its origins. Some suspect it may be a post-pandemic psychological response to isolation, while others believe it could be connected to tick-borne illness. Could it be environmental, infectious, or psychosomatic? Readers who enjoy mysteries and solving puzzles may see themselves reflected in some of the characters.

One of the most compelling aspects of the book is how it explores motherhood and the instinct to protect the people closest to us. In some ways, the story reflects the strong individualism embedded in American culture. Mothers focus on protecting their own children; sometimes because that is all the system seems to allow them to do.

At the same time, the novel pushes beyond that isolation. We see communities of loved ones coming together to search for answers, and communities of the sick creating alternative ways of living and finding happiness despite their circumstances.

It also pushes back against the current state of healthcare. With references to Big Pharma and the opioid epidemic, it touches on a frustratingly familiar experience: seeing doctor after doctor- ESPECIALLY as a young woman- and not being taken seriously. Too often patients and their loved ones are labeled “hysterical” by a medical professional after only a few minutes, simply for trying to find answers.

I appreciated the references to Emily Dickinson and western Massachusetts, which add an intriguing literary and regional layer to the story. The prose itself is beautiful, often lingering on natural imagery and plant names in a way that feels somewhat meditative.

At times, specifically earlier on in the novel, the shifting perspectives made the narrative feel slightly confusing and muddled. However, as the story unfolds, the pieces come together into something deeply hopeful.

Ultimately, this is a book about motherhood, grief, loneliness, friendship, marriage, and the fragile bonds that hold people together. In a world where danger can be found lurking behind any corner, this novel feels strikingly apropos and leaves the reader with some much-needed hope.

3.5 stars :)

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Emilys
By Heather Abel

The Emilys of the title are a group of people in a Massachusetts town who have been struck by a mysterious illness that causes them to become seriously ill if exposed to daylight. In this case, a young girl referred to as Persephone, has this disease. Her mother, Demeter, has little money, but has tried to find a doctor who will acknowledge that her daughter's illness is real.

While in the process of her search for answers, Demeter reconnects with Eve, a childhood friend with two children of her own. Eve agrees to help her friend in her search. From here, we find that there are in fact others suffering from this unexplained disease – and others willing to help the sufferers get answers!

This is a story about love of all kinds: between parent and child; between friends and neighbors; and between people who just want to help.

While I enjoyed the book, I did find that I had to get well into the book before it started to come together.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up
This was a story of love, motherhood, and community above all else. The mystery of the illness and its potential cure was the setting to tell this tale of what it is to love in a climate threatened world, esther than the main driving plot. The pacing wasn’t fully consistent, but the characters were fleshed out and human, their lack of perfection (and frustrating decisions) kept me reading even when I wasn’t always sold on the course of the narrative. The side characters really sold this story, with everyone’s desperation to do the right thing and connect with one another creating an honest source of emotion. This wasn’t perfect, I was frustrated by the reliance on real life locations to create the setting, but it had a lot of heart and the prose was slow and intentional. If you want a unique premise that brings together people searching for a path forward in the wake of the climate crisis, this is worth a try!

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

[carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 / 5 stars

We follow the story of Eve and Demeter, two friends that find their way back together due to a case of the "Emily's" (or Sun Madness - whichever is your cup of tea). Demeter's daughter, Persephone, cannot go outside during the day due to the mysterious effect of the sun on her body.

The first third of the book was a bit difficult to get through, due to the introduction of so many new characters and perspective switching between chapters. I had to use my Notes app to keep track of everyone, because once I felt comfortable with one character, I suddenly got introduced to someone new.

I enjoyed Eve's perspective the best - her reconciliation of memories between Demeter and herself was something I felt akin to and was the strongest driver of the novel. We get to explore the history of their friendship, how their lives are forever transformed by Emily's, and the effects of jealousy and passion in their love lives.

Okay, random note but I really loved this line: "There's no Will, there's no way." Might've had a little chuckle to myself.

[Stephanie Peterman · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Emilys had an intriguing premise – an eerie, post-pandemic illness tied to a physical intolerance to sunlight – but it quickly became frustrating to read.

this book suffers from too many characters, shifting timelines, and constant perspective changes, leaving the story feeling scattered and difficult to follow. instead of building tension or clarity, the narrative jumps (sometimes centuries back with little context) making it difficult for me to stay grounded in what’s actually happening.

while there were moments that hinted at something compelling, they were unfortunately buried under dense, overly complicated prose and tangents that didn’t seem to connect. the characters felt exaggerated/unrealistic and their relationships didn’t fully land, which made it even harder to stay invested.

ultimately, this felt like a book that needed much tighter editing – there’s an interesting idea at its core, but the execution left me feeling more confused and disengaged.

thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

[Anjali · Rating 2 out of 5]

It felt like I was stuck reading this book for far too long. Typically I would have just DNF'd and moved on, but I try hard to get through the ARCs I've committed to. Ultimately, this book just wasn't for me, but I do think it will find its audience. The heart of the story is the character of Eve and her relationships - with her children, with an enigmatic best friend, with a physically distant husband. Maybe I would have understood her better or liked her more if I were a mother myself, but I just found her incredibly irritating and I didn't want to spend time with her throughout the novel. I felt a huge sense of relief every time we got brief perspectives from several side characters. What I thought I was getting in this novel was a mysterious illness that kept people in the dark, unable to physically bear any light whether natural or artificial. That is indeed part of this book, but it really just serves to further Eve's upheavals and personal journey. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for a digital review copy.

[Sharen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked the writing style but felt that there were too many different characters, their backstories, their current situations creating a long list of people who were major and minor parts of the story with what felt like little distinction between the importance of their roles. I also felt that there were too many issues : friendship, motherhood, marriage, post- COVID, big pharma, the light illness, climate change, pseudo-science, mental illness to name some. This bogged down the reading for me and I had to keep doubling back to see if I missed something connecting to new people/events.

Overall this is also a scary book, thinking about future illnesses that will not be able to be dealt with because the required ingredients have gone extinct due to our effects on the planet.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Danna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked The Emilys at the outset, but I lost interest as it dragged on. There are a lot of characters and perspectives and while I see that some readers called this 'world building', I found it confusing.

Emily disease is popping up post-pandemic. People seem to be getting sick from sunshine/light, similar to Emily Dickinson. When Emily disease hits a small, sub-rural town, this story unfolds. I enjoyed some of the characters, but still had trouble looking at the threads that connected them. The story never grabbed me; I didn't find the premise particularly interesting.

Favorite quote:
'Hammer—who existed at the point on the continuum of anti-government sentiment where hippie nudges against paranoid Christian fundamentalism.'

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written, but overly angsty and a little overwrought, especially the main character, Eve, who is unlikeable in her complaints about the drudgery of motherhood (which is a privilege, come on) and her jealousy. However, the other characters---Will, Ruth, Joan, even Demeter---were appealing and complex. I liked the twist at the end and the way the stories all came together.

Reading this, I felt like I was getting a front row seat into a nature-based, eco-activist world that was instructive and interesting but also a little myopic (is it really possible to change the world but removing ourselves from it? I think even the author struggled with that question.)

I might recommend this to someone who leans liberal already if only to discuss the characters and plot. But many might feel that the Brooklyn-to-Vermont eco-self-righteousness is a turnoff.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books that you get excited over and really want to like. It goes extra for me because I live in Western Massachusetts where this takes place and the author mentions places that I know quite well. So I immediately get the sense of familiarity. The story is also intriguing and intricate. But this is where it goes overboard. The author almost has too much to say and create. We feel overly immersed and it goes on and on. Truthfully, I haven't gotten to the end of it yet, but it is tiring me out. That feeling of being tired out is not discordant with the book at all, but as a reader I am too weary. I think I will come back to it when we are not in the dead of winter.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I think readers will either hate it or love it....

[Mary Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Emilys is about a mysterious ailment suddenly causing people to be unable to abide sunlight or even bright indoor light. Eve is first made aware of this condition when she runs into her best friend from one summer in her childhood, Demeter, whose daughter is afflicted with it. Doctors are baffled and feel it's purely psychological. Eve becomes desperate to find a cure to help the daughter, but also because she's afraid of losing Demeter again. There are many characters who have their own chapters from their points of view, and I felt like not all of them were necessary. Demeter's point of view is sadly missing, and I think that was a missed opportunity.

But overall, I very much enjoyed The Emilys and would definitely recommend. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC.