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The Amateur: A Novel
Not yet published
Expected 4 Aug 26When a young woman, a golf prodigy, kills a caddy with a stray ball at the country club, the investigation of this freak accident reveals a dark and shocking tale of secret affairs and predatory men, and suddenly a teenager is on trial in this spellbinding novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Midwives and The Flight Attendant.
1978: It is the first Thursday in August and temperatures are flirting with ninety when Mira Winston, eighteen years old, drives a golf ball from her tee toward the practice net near the clubhouse and caddy shack. The golf ball, weighing 1.6 ounces, tears through the net, traveling 150 miles per hour, and slams, with sickening force, into the temple of a high school junior named Kenny Foster, rupturing an artery and unleashing a torrent of blood. Kenny brings his hand to the side of his head, then topples onto his side. He’s dead before the ambulance even arrives.
In the wake of this terrible accident—and everyone, at first, agrees it was an accident—Mira looks for comfort in all the wrong In her lover, Theo Catton, a married man three decades her senior. In her mother, a well-kept woman with secrets of her own. In the dead caddy’s little sisters, girls bewildered by grief. But when the investigators look more closely at the torn net, when a detective recalls Mira’s history of recklessness, and when Kenny’s father spies Mira with her married lover, the affluent and mannered community turns on this once-promising young woman. A gripping story that takes the reader from the sun-soaked greens of a tony Westchester country club to the fluorescent-lit stand of a county courtroom, The Amateur What happens when one small moment—a swing, a ball, a piece of string—changes the course of an entire life?
1978: It is the first Thursday in August and temperatures are flirting with ninety when Mira Winston, eighteen years old, drives a golf ball from her tee toward the practice net near the clubhouse and caddy shack. The golf ball, weighing 1.6 ounces, tears through the net, traveling 150 miles per hour, and slams, with sickening force, into the temple of a high school junior named Kenny Foster, rupturing an artery and unleashing a torrent of blood. Kenny brings his hand to the side of his head, then topples onto his side. He’s dead before the ambulance even arrives.
In the wake of this terrible accident—and everyone, at first, agrees it was an accident—Mira looks for comfort in all the wrong In her lover, Theo Catton, a married man three decades her senior. In her mother, a well-kept woman with secrets of her own. In the dead caddy’s little sisters, girls bewildered by grief. But when the investigators look more closely at the torn net, when a detective recalls Mira’s history of recklessness, and when Kenny’s father spies Mira with her married lover, the affluent and mannered community turns on this once-promising young woman. A gripping story that takes the reader from the sun-soaked greens of a tony Westchester country club to the fluorescent-lit stand of a county courtroom, The Amateur What happens when one small moment—a swing, a ball, a piece of string—changes the course of an entire life?
Kindle Edition
Expected publication August 4, 2026
525 people want to read
About the author
Chris Bohjalian
46 books13.1k followersChris Bohjalian is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 25 books. His 25th book, THE JACKAL’S MISTRESS, is now on sale. He writes literary fiction, historical fiction, thrillers, and (on occasion) ghost stories. His goal is never to write the same book twice. He has published somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 million words.
His work has been translated into 35 languages and become three movies (MIDWIVES, SECRETS OF EDEN, and PAST THE BLEACHERS) and an Emmy-winning TV series (THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT). He has two other novels in development for TV series as well.
He is also a playwright, including THE CLUB in 2024; MIDWIVES in 2020; and GROUNDED (now WINGSPAN) in 2018.
His books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Hartford Courant, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Bookpage, and Salon.
His awards include the Walter Cerf Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts; the Sarah Josefa Hale Award; the ANCA Freedom Award for his work educating Americans about the Armenian Genocide; the ANCA Arts and Letters Award for THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS, as well as the Saint Mesrob Mashdots Medal; the New England Society Book Award for THE NIGHT STRANGERS; the New England Book Award; Russia’s Soglasie (Concord) Award for THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS; a Boston Public Library Literary Light; a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for TRANS-SISTER RADIO; a Best Lifestyle Column for “Idyll Banter” from the Vermont Press Association; and the Anahid Literary Award. His short story, SLOT MACHINE FEVER DREAMS was a finalist for Best Short Story from the International Thriller Writers Association and the audio production was an Audie Finalist. His novel, MIDWVES was a selection of Oprah’s Book Club, and his novel, HOUR OF THE WITCH, was a Barnes & Noble Book Club pick. He is a Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He has written for a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Reader’s Digest, and The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. He was a weekly columnist in Vermont for The Burlington Free Press from 1992 through 2015.
Chris graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Amherst College. He has been awarded Honorary Degrees as well from Amherst, Champlain College, and Castleton University.
He lives in Vermont with his wife, the photographer Victoria Blewer.
His work has been translated into 35 languages and become three movies (MIDWIVES, SECRETS OF EDEN, and PAST THE BLEACHERS) and an Emmy-winning TV series (THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT). He has two other novels in development for TV series as well.
He is also a playwright, including THE CLUB in 2024; MIDWIVES in 2020; and GROUNDED (now WINGSPAN) in 2018.
His books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Hartford Courant, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Bookpage, and Salon.
His awards include the Walter Cerf Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts; the Sarah Josefa Hale Award; the ANCA Freedom Award for his work educating Americans about the Armenian Genocide; the ANCA Arts and Letters Award for THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS, as well as the Saint Mesrob Mashdots Medal; the New England Society Book Award for THE NIGHT STRANGERS; the New England Book Award; Russia’s Soglasie (Concord) Award for THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS; a Boston Public Library Literary Light; a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for TRANS-SISTER RADIO; a Best Lifestyle Column for “Idyll Banter” from the Vermont Press Association; and the Anahid Literary Award. His short story, SLOT MACHINE FEVER DREAMS was a finalist for Best Short Story from the International Thriller Writers Association and the audio production was an Audie Finalist. His novel, MIDWVES was a selection of Oprah’s Book Club, and his novel, HOUR OF THE WITCH, was a Barnes & Noble Book Club pick. He is a Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He has written for a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Reader’s Digest, and The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. He was a weekly columnist in Vermont for The Burlington Free Press from 1992 through 2015.
Chris graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Amherst College. He has been awarded Honorary Degrees as well from Amherst, Champlain College, and Castleton University.
He lives in Vermont with his wife, the photographer Victoria Blewer.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of THE AMATEUR by Chris Bohjalian in exchange for my honest review.***
4.5 STARS
I always feel like I’ve won an ARC lottery when I’m allowed early access to one of Chris Bohjalian’s novels. That THE AMATEUR turned out to be one of my favorites of his is an extra bonus. So why 4.5 stars instead of 5, I’ll address that later in the review.
Amateur tennis prodigy Mira can also be described as a professional train wreck. Both victim and victor, perpetrator and prey, Mira suffers consequences that most teenagers escape. In the late 1970s-early 1980s, I was a few years younger than Mira. I experienced the days when teenage girls were blamed for their married adult (what we’d now call) statutory rapists actions. Girls, even the prepubescent, were seen as temptresses to “helpless” men. They were (what now call) slut shamed.
When Mira takes a golf club to her attempted date rapist’s car, she never thinks to explain her motivations and even allows misinformation about her reasons to persist.
After accidentally killing a caddy with a well-hit golf ball, Mira spirals into a series of self-destructive relationships and behaviors.
I can’t stress how much I loved Mira’s story and hate that all my comments can’t reflect that. I became distracted when Bohjalian mixed present day knowledge with 1978 knowledge. The premise of THE AMATEUR is that it’s the memoir of a best seller writer’s experience in her young adulthood, which she’s writing in 2026, so some of the modern references like Wordle used in a metaphor are explained that way. My distraction came when facts unknown in 1978 were attributed to that time period. The most disruptive was that in 1978, recent a high school graduate would know that brain development continues into the 20s and the frontal lobe isn’t fully developed in teenage years. Scientists didn’t know this, until studies in the 1990s early 2000s. I’m probably being overly picky, but as a child psychologist and someone who’s studied child development, I was distracted. If Mira as a mature adult in 2026 was opining, I wouldn’t have been. The confusion between Mira’s feelings in 1978 and 2026 appeared other times and distracted me enough to not say 5 full stars.
Again, I loved THE AMATEUR.
4.5 STARS
I always feel like I’ve won an ARC lottery when I’m allowed early access to one of Chris Bohjalian’s novels. That THE AMATEUR turned out to be one of my favorites of his is an extra bonus. So why 4.5 stars instead of 5, I’ll address that later in the review.
Amateur tennis prodigy Mira can also be described as a professional train wreck. Both victim and victor, perpetrator and prey, Mira suffers consequences that most teenagers escape. In the late 1970s-early 1980s, I was a few years younger than Mira. I experienced the days when teenage girls were blamed for their married adult (what we’d now call) statutory rapists actions. Girls, even the prepubescent, were seen as temptresses to “helpless” men. They were (what now call) slut shamed.
When Mira takes a golf club to her attempted date rapist’s car, she never thinks to explain her motivations and even allows misinformation about her reasons to persist.
After accidentally killing a caddy with a well-hit golf ball, Mira spirals into a series of self-destructive relationships and behaviors.
I can’t stress how much I loved Mira’s story and hate that all my comments can’t reflect that. I became distracted when Bohjalian mixed present day knowledge with 1978 knowledge. The premise of THE AMATEUR is that it’s the memoir of a best seller writer’s experience in her young adulthood, which she’s writing in 2026, so some of the modern references like Wordle used in a metaphor are explained that way. My distraction came when facts unknown in 1978 were attributed to that time period. The most disruptive was that in 1978, recent a high school graduate would know that brain development continues into the 20s and the frontal lobe isn’t fully developed in teenage years. Scientists didn’t know this, until studies in the 1990s early 2000s. I’m probably being overly picky, but as a child psychologist and someone who’s studied child development, I was distracted. If Mira as a mature adult in 2026 was opining, I wouldn’t have been. The confusion between Mira’s feelings in 1978 and 2026 appeared other times and distracted me enough to not say 5 full stars.
Again, I loved THE AMATEUR.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
In August 1978, 18 year old Mira accidentally kills another teenager when her golf ball tears through a practice net and strikes him in the head. Though initially deemed a tragic accident, suspicion grows as investigators uncover flaws in the net, recall Mira’s reckless past, and notice her affair with a much older married man. As the wealthy country club community turns against her, Mira seeks solace in her own relationships and the family of the teenager she killed. The story follows the unraveling of Mira's life, exploring how a single moment can reshape an entire future.
This was a great exploration of the dynamics of a young, impressionable girl and the influences older and persuasive adults can have; since this book functions as a memoir of Mira's experiences, there is conversation of real issues at hand regarding brain development - highly relatable. An intriguing story, which I am sure many will relate to not because of the specific facts, but how the author presents the story as if it could be any one of us.
Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was a great exploration of the dynamics of a young, impressionable girl and the influences older and persuasive adults can have; since this book functions as a memoir of Mira's experiences, there is conversation of real issues at hand regarding brain development - highly relatable. An intriguing story, which I am sure many will relate to not because of the specific facts, but how the author presents the story as if it could be any one of us.
Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The Amateur and its plot felt like a 3-star, but Chris Bohjalian's writing brings it up to a 3.5! I am very impressed with how enjoyable this author's writing was. It was very engaging in a way that brings you in right away. This is difficult to find sometimes with thrillers.
The reason I didn't love the plot was the focus. The golf aspects lost me quite frequently. I did not enjoy those at all. If the story had a different background, I think it would have been better for me.
Mira was such an interesting character to follow. I loved seeing how her life, actions, and experiences ended up. The effects it had on her life made for an intriguing book.
Thank you NetGalley, Doubleday, & Chris Bohjalian for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Amateur is released on August 4, 2026!
The reason I didn't love the plot was the focus. The golf aspects lost me quite frequently. I did not enjoy those at all. If the story had a different background, I think it would have been better for me.
Mira was such an interesting character to follow. I loved seeing how her life, actions, and experiences ended up. The effects it had on her life made for an intriguing book.
Thank you NetGalley, Doubleday, & Chris Bohjalian for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Amateur is released on August 4, 2026!
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
This book pulled me in right away. What begins as a shocking accident slowly becomes a story about guilt, power, and how easily a young woman can be judged and reshaped by the people around her. Mira is flawed and vulnerable, and her involvement with multiple older men adds an unsettling layer that underscores her isolation and the clear imbalance of power at play. The community’s reaction to a young girl’s uncovered secrets feels harsh but believable, especially as her private choices are dragged into public view. The novel does a great job showing how one moment can permanently alter a life.
Many thanks to Edelweiss+ and Doubleday for providing an ARC prior to publication in exchange for an honest review.
Many thanks to Edelweiss+ and Doubleday for providing an ARC prior to publication in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Set in 1978, teenage golf prodigy Mira accidentally kills her fellow classmate Kenny who is working at the golf club when her golf ball flies through a hole in a net and hits him in the head. I wish I had read this book for a book club because there are lots of details I wish I could discuss and try and wrap my mind around how I feel, especially regarding Mira's relationships with older men. It was an engaging read.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Brilliant. This may be Bohjalian's best so far. His ability to channel his female narrator's voice is incredible. She is an authentic product of her time and place. I was.completely drawn in. Pacing is brisk and keeps you turning the pages. Bravo. This will be a real best seller. Don't miss it.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
As a golfer this book had a natural appeal for me. Mira Winston, a teen golf prodigy, has her life upended when a practice shot accidently kills a caddy. How her life is impacted makes for a great read!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews