Sunrise

by Téa Obreht

Three lives, one hundred years, one ghost town: an explosive novel about a mysterious place called Sunrise, where the secrets of the past refuse to stay buried, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger’s Wife

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: Esquire, Literary Hub, Today

In 2024, Nina’s small-engine plane crashes into a lake in the Wyoming mountains. Her boyfriend Ben, who was flying it, is nowhere to be found. Lost and freezing on the shore, Nina is armed with only a few old protein bars, a phone with no service, and a vague hope of rescue. It is up to her to survive in the vast wilderness. But then she stumbles upon Sunrise—a town of the Old West that is strangely well maintained, but seemingly abandoned. A place that holds the missing link to a ghost story one hundred years in the making.

In 2003, Sand Daw’s golden boy Coll is putting the finishing touches on the town’s annual historical reenactment. But when an upstart would-be author comes to him with questions about one of Sunrise’s most beloved figures, it threatens to upend everything he thought he knew about the city—and himself.

In 1902, town founder, gunslinger, and legendary pulp hero Anton Vargas returns to Sunrise and quickly takes charge of a group searching for a missing boy. But who really is Vargas? What does he know about the boy’s disappearance? And why has he returned after such a long absence?

These three strangers are separated by time and circumstance. But Sunrise’s many secrets are like gunpowder: quiet, contained, until they encounter a spark. Magisterial and suspenseful, Téa Obreht's novel challenges the myths we think we of heroes and villains, of the people and places to which we lay claim, and, most of all, of our own lives.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Historical, Audiobook

336 pages, Hardcover

First published August 11, 2026

About the author

Téa Obreht was born in 1985 in the former Yugoslavia, and spent her childhood in Cyprus and Egypt before eventually immigrating to the United States in 1997. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Zoetrope: All-Story, The New York Times, and The Guardian, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Non-Required Reading. Her first novel, The Tiger’s Wife, was published by Random House in March 2011. She has been named by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best American fiction writers under forty and included in the National Book Foundation’s list of 5 Under 35. Téa Obreht lives in Ithaca, New York.

Reviews

[Olivia (Stories For Coffee) · Rating 2 out of 5]

👎 boo!! 👎 bring back properly editing novels! tell authors that introducing the only compelling perspective in the first chapter and not revisiting until 83% through the story is an awful decision!! booo!!! did all the editors in the world give up post-2020! answer, quickly!!!

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read Téa Obreht’s three previous novels and enjoyed them all, particularly The Tiger’s Wife and Inland, The Morningside a little less so. While this novel falls closer to the latter for me, there is still much to admire. Obreht is an extremely talented writer and she can certainly spin a tale filled with surprising twists and turns. She does that with her new novel Sunrise.

Obreht juggles three different stories from three different time periods - 2024, 2003 and 1902. The novel can be described as a mystery, an adventure tale, a survival story and a myth-busting revisionist western. That’s a lot of balls in the air, but there’s a great pleasure to be had in seeing how they all fall. I kept wondering exactly what Obreht was up to and where she was taking me. How will the stories eventually connect, as I knew of course they would? While this might confuse or try the patience of certain readers, I enjoy putting the pieces together in novels like these.

As she did in Inland, Obreht does an impressive job at rendering a sense of place. In fact I’ll steal from my own review of Inland: “Her imagery is nothing short of brilliant and so necessary in a novel that is as much about the land as it is the people.” She does the same here and it is one of the major strengths of her writing. She presents a clear vision of a ghost town and the surrounding landscape that is both eerie and beautiful.

I don’t think Sunrise is perfect or, in my opinion, as good as her first two novels. It’s a little uneven in places and there were a couple scenes that I didn’t think were necessary, particularly one towards the end of the novel. There are back stories that, while adding depth to the characters, don’t always feel needed. Still, overall, I enjoyed this and would recommend it. If you’re an Obreht fan, as I am, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. It’s a good read, it’s a good ride.

My thanks to Random House and NetGalley.

[Bam - Cooks the Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sunrise is an old miners' paradise in the mountains of Wyoming and this town is where the story told in three timelines converges.

First we meet Nina Terzić from Queens, NY, in late August of 2024. She and her boyfriend Ben were on their way to Moraine from Hollis in an old two-seater Cessna when a bird struck the engine and they crashed into Horsebone Lake. Assuming Ben died in the crash, Nina finds her way alone to what remains of the town of Sunrise and there stumbles upon a long-buried secret.

The second timeline is set in 1902 when Sunrise was a new and thriving mining town. The account of what happened then is written in an unfinished novel by a young woman named Louise Hawley. The hero of the story is a man named Anton Vargas, who was part of a group of four who famously stopped an attack on a telegraph station. He is dying from cancer and has returned to the town almost 20 years later to say goodbye to an old friend. There he meets his fate.

The third timeline is set in Sand Draw, WY, in the year 2003, where we meet Colin Yard, the grandson of the owner of the property where the ghost town of Sunrise is located. He's hoping to get a state-level historic landmark designation for the town and raise money to fix it up as a tourist destination. Louise Hawley comes to him for help with her book and he drives her out to see the old town. She has some shocking new information to share.

I thought this novel was well structured to support each of these timelines and it's very interesting how they converge. My favorite character is Nina who is certainly goofy and makes some poor decisions as she tries to find a way out of this ordeal. We learn her backstory through her thoughts. Anton Vargas is also an interesting character and rather a mystery, carrying guilt for something he did in the past. Colin Yard now--what a piece of work. I might have liked to learn more about him.

I'm not sure what I thought of the ending. I read it again after several hours and it still felt abrupt. Maybe I prefer a different kind of closure? Téa Obreht is such a fine descriptive writer; one is definitely drawn into the setting and circumstances. I've read and enjoyed all her inventive novels and can highly recommend them.

Many thanks to the author and publisher for providing me with an arc of this new novel via NetGalley.

[Angelie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sunrise starts off as an incredible story of a woman who survives a plane crash after landing in a lake near a remote and abandoned ghost town in Wyoming. The writing is exquisite. The setting and atmosphere are movie worthy. And I was so entrenched in the beginning of the story as it follows Nina’s experience of survival and how she ended up where she did.

Then we shift gears from the 2024 timeline and don’t return to that period until the end of the story. You are taken to 1902 where you learn about Anton Vargas, a famous gunslinger. We learn about who he was to the town of Sunrise. His storyline is super dull. And we also are taken to 2003 where the star of historical re-enactment, Coll, has a different spin on what takes place with Anton. Also majorly boring.

Unfortunately this story did not work for me much at all. I was so excited after the first segment, and because I grew up on westerns this book had the making of an all time favorite. But, wow in the woofist way ever. I couldn’t have been more bored and frustrated by how incredibly pointless and disjointed this turned out to be. It was just three stories that barely tied together and when they did it was in a way that was so incredibly unsatisfying. The writing was amazing, I will give it that, but this is one of the worst 3 person POV experiences I have ever had. It just made me angry. I won’t get those hours back. If you choose this one the narrators are great and they are the only reason this was not a DNF.


Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Audio | Random House Audio for the ALC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions and statements are my own.

[Ari Levine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obreht's fourth novel is great fun, a suspenseful and immersive reading experience. I think it's probably her best since her impressive prize-winning 2011 debut, The Tiger's Wife. As always, her narratives are grounded in a lived-in landscape, vividly depicting a Wyoming ghost town and the wilderness around it.

The novel follows three intersecting timelines that form nested Russian-doll narratives, layering a 2024 plane-crash survival story, a 2003 small-town true-crime tale, and a 1902 revisionist shoot-em-up Western. In the most recent timeline, New Yorker Nina takes shelter in the empty town of Sunrise, where she attempts to reach civilization with only a dying cellphone battery, a small stash of protein bars, and limited wilderness skills. In the second timeline, Coll Yard, the self-appointed head of the local historical society, is directing an immersive theater performance that glorifies the town's founding myths. Back in the 1880s, the Texas gunslinger Anton Vargas, rescued a female telegraph operator from a murderous gang, but we learn that the truth is far darker and more complex, as he returns to Sunrise to reckon with the past twenty years later.

As she bores deeper into history, Obreht peels away layers of dime-store novels and local legends to demonstrate the lawless brutality of the Old West, which has been distorted by an all-too-American willingness to create heroes out of deeply flawed and amoral men and women. The ghosts of a murderous past haunt the novel, but some of the crimes are of more recent origin. Obreht leaves abundant clues behind for readers to draw the deeper connections, as each narrative illuminates the other two, and we know more than the characters want to admit. Books within books, as a pack of wolves closes in for the kill.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this, in exchange for an unbiased review.

US publication date: August 11, 2026

[Michael Burke · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

The Ghost Town Dressing Down

In “Sunrise,” Téa Obreht constructs an ambitious, multi-layered exploration of how the American West conjures, inherits, and perpetuates its own mythologies. Set across more than a century in and around the remote ghost town of Sunrise, Wyoming, the novel integrates the delicate boundary between lived history, folklore, and self-serving legend. Obreht examines how stories are shaped and romanticized, asking who is entitled to history and what happens when the uncomfortable truth threatens a cherished cultural myth.

Obreht’s prose is impressive, as is her ability to craft distinct, memorable characters. Her lyrical style and sharp psychological depth give the narrative a haunting resonance. However, the novel's complex structure creates distinct reading experiences across its three timelines. While Nina’s initial situation in 2024—stranded in the Wyoming wilderness following a plane crash—was gripping, the abrupt transition to Anton Vargas and the 1902 Wild West setting felt jarring. Although I assumed these threads would probably connect, the stark contrast in tone made it feel like stumbling into a different novel

When Coll Yard—an amateur historian preparing for the town’s historical reenactment—is introduced in 2003, the memories surrounding Nina’s tenuous predicament continue to linger. Then as Nina's narrative develops in parallel with these historical events, her entire backstory gradually emerges, particularly the complex dynamics between her and her missing fiancé. This deeper perspective enriches her character, evolving her from a simple figure in a survival tale into a fully fleshed-out individual.

The greatest focus of "Sunrise" lies in its compelling assessment of heritage, collective memory, and mythmaking, showing how societies reshape history to preserve heroic legends while burying unsettling truths. While the conclusion calls for closer scrutiny—feeling somewhat artificial owing to convenient plot developments and mystical occurrences that leave it unclear what is truly resolved versus what is merely the foundation of a new myth—the novel remains an engaging, thought-provoking showcase of Obreht's remarkable storytelling.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #Sunrise #NetGalley

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sunrise is just the sort of bizarre yet brilliant novel I’ve come to expect from author Tea Obreht. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Our protagonist is Nina, a nanny on vacation with her boyfriend, Ben. Ben was the pilot of the plane flying over the Northern Rockies; Nina bailed, and Ben is nowhere in evidence. She’s landed in a river, and is remarkably free of major injuries, but she’s cold, scared, and alone. There’s no search and rescue within hearing or sight, so she knows it’s up to her to reach help.

Friends, it’s gonna take a long time.

The book is divided into 5 sections. The first is described above; the next three feature earlier residents of Sunrise, the ghost town Nina eventually reaches; and the last circles back to Nina. The sections are tied together at the end, but not in the way any other author would do it.

The first section feels tedious at times, limited as it is to Nina’s internal monologue. She walks, she rests, and she spends a good deal of time deciding whether she’s hungry enough to allow herself one of the handful of protein bars she possesses. How many days is this going to take? She has no idea. As Nina trudges, she ruminates, and in doing so, we gain more knowledge of her past and her relationship with Ben. Had this been any other author, I might have abandoned the whole thing; reader, I am very glad that I persevered, because the last ten percent of this book makes it completely worth it!

This is the third of this author’s books that I’ve read. The first was Inland, which remains one of my favorite galleys to date. The second, The Morningside, is not as powerful as the other two, including this one, but it’s still well worth reading. Sunrise, however, is the first one that’s made me stand up and cheer.

Those that have the patience for unconventional plots, and that appreciate a protagonist that’s full of surprises and badass feminist moxie, will have a hard time finding a more satisfying novel. Highly recommended!

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sunrise is my third novel written by Obreht. It takes place in three time periods over more than a century and is centered on a small old mining town, long abandoned, called Sunrise. In the first, in August of 2024, Nina and her boyfriend Ben are flying in his small plane to Montana. There is a bird strike, the plane goes down over a lake and the story becomes one of survival. Nina comes to in the water and narrates a story of exploration, confusion and discovery. The second, set in 2003, takes place in Kipling County Wyoming, the home of the abandoned mining town of Sunrise. We meet Colin “Coll” Yard, a young man whose life’s work has become establishing the historical record of the town of Sunrise, including the lives of the heroes who helped make it great, especially Anton Vargas. A writer from Denver, named Louise, has come to ask for a tour of the town to help with the book she’s finishing. Lastly, we are in 1902, meeting Anton Vargas in Sunrise, still a living town, after he had been away for around 20 years. He has some peace he wants to make.

The time cycles do not move strictly in order but weave in and out. They tell a great story. Obreht once again has created complex characters in multiple situations that only grow more interesting as they develop. And she manages to weave these multiple threads together in ways I appreciate. I believe Inland may still be my favorite of Obreht’s novels, but this is close. I have yet to read The Tiger’s Wife. Recommended.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC of this book.

[Emma De Vos Tidd · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was really disappointed by this book. The only redeeming quality for me was Anton Vargas’ story. He’s easily the best-written character in the novel, though even he felt fairly bland compared to what I was hoping for. His Western storyline was by far the most compelling part of the book, and I honestly wish the novel had committed to that instead of splitting its attention between a bizarre plane crash storyline and a community being mysteriously sickened by wolves, both of which felt strange and underdeveloped.

The book is presented as three separate stories that eventually come together, but for most of the novel they felt completely disconnected from both each other and the town of Sunrise. When the connections were finally revealed, it felt less like a satisfying payoff and more like the book simply telling the reader how everything fit together. None of those links felt natural or organically earned.

On top of that, I couldn’t stand Nina—I found her frustratingly dumb, and I couldn’t bring myself to care about anyone in the modern-day storyline or the reenactments of Anton’s life. Overall, this was a huge letdown. There were glimpses of a much more interesting novel buried inside it, but they were overshadowed by disconnected narratives and an ending that never justified the journey.

Thanks to Randomhouse and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of advance copy received from NetGalley.

Okay, okay, I know I keep saying this, but this was hands down one of the best books I’ve read all year.

Books like this are the reason I read. Most of the books I pick up are good. I enjoy them and rate them highly. But every once in a while I come across something that completely blows me away, and Sunrise was one of those books.

I flew through this in a single day. Téa Obreht brilliantly weaves together three timelines, 1903, 2003, and 2024, into a story that seems impossible to connect at first, until everything clicks into place in the most satisfying way.

In 2024, Nina is stranded near the abandoned ghost town of Sunrise after the small plane her boyfriend is flying crashes in the Wyoming wilderness. In 1903, Sunrise is a thriving frontier town, where local hero Anton Vargas returns in search of a man known as Preacher. And in 2003, local historian Colin hopes to revive interest in the long-forgotten town through an ambitious historical reenactment.

Part thriller, part Western, and part mystery, this novel is filled with intrigue. The ghost town itself feels like a living presence, hiding secrets that echo across generations. I was completely captivated from beginning to end, and watching the three storylines gradually converge was one of the most rewarding reading experiences I’ve had in a long time.

It was simply outstanding. If you’re looking for a novel that’s beautifully written, wholly original, and impossible to put down, I can’t recommend this one enough.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

The romance of the old west is skewered in this totally immersive novel. We learn the history of Sunrise, a mysterious ghost town high up in the wilds of Wyoming through three points of view from three characters of different eras. No, there are no ghosts or unworldly spirits, but there are these three entirely different people who have three different but connected ties to Sunrise. Téa Obreht is one of my favorite authors, and this is just the reason why.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somewhere between a 3 and a 4. Nested stories always get me, and I really enjoyed the bits of magical realism/wasting-sickness-as-warning-against-both-moral-and-environmental-collapse/loose ends throughout/the very loose ended ending. I thought Nina’s character was too obviously constructed. The little hints that Ben was abusive were about as subtle as a plane crash over Wyoming. Col’s big reveal wasn’t that shocking either—weak men gonna weak (Anton showed us this too, and Ben, and Bill, and then there were the women who kept killing their shitty husbands and all the other little comments on gender and strength throughout the novel). I kind of thought the central question of the book, “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” has kind of been done to death (sorry, Hamilton. I thought you were cheesy). Still, I have never been more tempted to immediately reread and I’m irritated there isn’t more spoilery discussion online yet. I’m not that beguiled by the questions of heroes and villains, but I am fascinated by the plot structure and the motifs. Three stars for certain predictable aspects? Five stars for structural brilliance, ambition, refusal to give clear answers, and just some really cool writing? Or was it on purpose???? Is Obreht an evil genius for purposefully inserting unsubtle threads into an otherwise unapologetically subtle book, so that hours later I’m still thinking about it and thinking about who gets to tell a story and how a story gets told even though five sentences ago I said it was an unoriginal question? Fuck. Fine. Five stars.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

Téa Obreht should write Westerns forever. I loved INLAND and I was delighted to love SUNRISE, too. This isn't a traditional Western and doesn't have a linear narrative. It's a little bit of a puzzle box of a book (always a plus for me) and it's a narrative about narratives (my absolute favorite).

All of the stories in this book center on the ghost town Sunrise in Wyoming, first stumbled across by Nina after a plane crash in the wilderness leaves her stranded and alone. Eventually we come to learn the history of the town from the "Wild West" days and how it's been passed down through time. This doesn't sound all that exciting, but it's mostly because I don't want to spoil for you this fantastic reading experience.

The last section of this book was so tense, my heart was actually pounding in my chest. Just when I thought things were going to play out in a not-that-exciting kind of way, that the journey we'd already taken had provided so much texture and pleasure, then Obreht goes out with this beautifully executed tightrope walk of tension.

I don't know that anyone would have predicted that Obreht would be one of our greatest Western writers, but she really is. Obreht Westerns forever.

[Fran Hawthorne · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

This is the kind of novel I love (but not every reader agrees), where the plots twist in and out of each other, every so often unfurling a reinterpretation from a new point of view that totally upends what I thought I knew. Author Tea Obreht is a master of this kind of work. (I also loved her debut, "The Tiger's Wife.")

In this case, there are three major narratives, plus long flashbacks, taking place from the 1880s to 2024, mostly in the space of a few miles of nearly empty rural Montana:
--2024, Nina Terzic, a NYC grad student and au pair, barely survives a plane crash near a ghost town, with no other person (or food) in sight
--2003, Colin Yard, a college dropout and historian, returns home to revive the history of that ghost town, but is sidetracked by a horrific, drunken incident at a bar
--1902, Anton Vargas, a legendary gunslinger now dying of cancer, returns to Sunrise--the site of his first fame--to seek out his longtime nemesis

The descriptions are so vivid and original that I shivered with Nina's pain and hunger. And for most of the book, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

Engrossing though the writing and narrative are, however, I think the reviews are overblown. This novel is not "remaking" the traditional Western; that was done long ago. (Gunslingers who are cowardly, racist, or gay; Native Americans and women who are ignored or demeaned.)
Also, the opening section about Nina's crash and first few days drags on too long.
Overall, the book isn't deep, rich, or wonderful enough to reach 4 stars.

[Jaydyn Haught · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Téa Ohbreht’s latest book Sunrise was compelling from the start. The three different points of view add depth to the story in a way that makes this such a page turner! Each chapter feels like a thread unraveling until Nina brings all of the strings together in the end. Very clever!

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

wtf was that ending? This whole book felt incomplete and unfinished.

[Shirleynature · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gratitude to Téa Obreht, Penguin Random House, and Netgalley!!!

Sunrise is a multifaceted triptych literary cinematic western set in Wyoming with a 3-tired time-frame in 2024, 2003, 1903.

Obreht's stories are vivid and heady with realistic insight into the precariousness of characters' lives. She’s a shrewd and wry storyteller. Her 4th novel is a suspenseful-haunting narrative of remote survival, a multifaceted triptych of three timelines and, a vividly cinematic literary western.

Sunrise has an interesting structure, a story within another story -- contemporary discovery of the past. The heroine discovers the artifacts and scene of a realistic old pulp western novel. Thus branching into dual timelines, the historic tale nested within the contemporary adventure. And then a third, intermediate frame opens in 2003 which centers on a reenactment of the early 1900s western.

Heroine Nina is describing reading what sounds like a paperback pulp western while also telling us about her job as a nanny and her boyfriend. She’s such a resilient character; I have chills!

https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781...

“Sunrise is thrilling and ingenious. In her new novel, Obreht explores this country’s troubled past, its gaps and silences, and the rich history that only new storytellers can excavate.”—Laila Lalami, bestselling author of The Dream Hotel

https://people.com/tea-obreht-sunrise...
“Sunrise was born many years ago from my obsession with a scenario that still keeps me up at night: what would happen to someone with almost no survival skills if they found themselves alone in the wilderness? How would they begin to make sense of their surroundings? What would they do wrong? What would they accidentally do right?”
"Sunrise is about survival of many different kinds: the survival of hope, of old love, of personal and community delusion, and, above all, of the myths that shaped the American West."
"Nina's predicament is just one small piece of a much bigger picture, one whose origins go back 120 years, and that her plane crash has put three lives on a collision course.”

[Natalie · Rating 1 out of 5]

best part was when it was over

[Cassie (eclectically.bookish.cassie) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.25 stars

2024 - Nina is in a plane crash in the mountains of Wyoming. She can't find her boyfriend, Ben, but what she does find is the abandoned town of Sunrise. In 1902, Anton Vargas returns to Sunrise to find his old friends before his life ends. In 2003, Coll is the head of the historical society, reenacting the legends of Anton and his friends. How are all these stories connected? (I couldn't tell you myself!)

I don't really know what I just read. I appreciated the author's other work, The Tiger's Wife and especially liked The Morningside, but this one didn't work for me much at all. There was a little mystery to the story and I thought the structure was interesting moving from 2024-1902-2003-1902-2024: a sort of chiasma. But I thought the book probably would have worked better as multiple short stories about the same town. The connections were not straightforward. The story wasn't cohesive. There are definitely connections, symbols, and trails between the characters, time periods, and town of Sunrise, but I felt like my brain had to work too hard to find them. Badgers, a sickness caused by wolves, strange dreams, abused women—this was all a bit chaotic for me. Quite possible I just didn't "get it" and that's okay. Was this about land, property, human relationships, and inheritance? Who can claim ownership over myths and landscapes? I don't have a clue, but that's my inkling.

Overall, this was propulsive enough to keep me reading, but didn't have the satisfying connective threads and ending I'd have wanted to give it a higher rating.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the digital review copy and the opportunity to read early.

[Jenn]

DNF. The first part with the stranded woman was mildly interesting, but the second part was boring me, so I'm out.

[Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate giving negative book reviews, but I really did not like Sunrise by Téa Obreht.

I was looking forward to this one because the story unfolds across three different timelines, and I usually love when an author weaves multiple timelines together in a way that eventually brings everything full circle. Unfortunately, that never happened for me with Sunrise.

While all three timelines take place in the town of Sunrise, I never felt like the stories truly connected. Instead, I found the book disjointed and, at times, going off on insignificant tangents that never get resolved. The writing was also much too wordy for my taste. There were so many descriptions and details that I often found myself drifting off rather than getting pulled into the story.

I read books for pleasure and entertainment, and one of the biggest indicators of whether I enjoy a book is how I feel while reading it. When I find myself forcing myself to keep going simply because I want to reach the end, I know the book isn't working for me. Unfortunately, that was exactly how I felt with Sunrise—I just wanted it to be over.

And then there was the scene involving the wolves near the end. It was disturbing and completely turned me off. I kept wondering, Why? What was the point of this? I’m sure there was symbolism behind it, but by that point I was so disconnected from the story that it didn't resonate with me at all.

The book begins in 2024 with Nina, who finds herself alone in the wilderness after she and her boyfriend, Ben, crash their single-engine airplane. Forced to survive on her own, she sets out to find help and eventually discovers an abandoned town called Sunrise.

In 2003, Coll is helping the local town put on a play reenacting the history and heroes of Sunrise.

Then, in 1902, the town's founder and local Wild West hero, Anton Vargas, organizes a group to search for a missing boy.

The premise had so much potential, and I really wanted to see how these three stories would come together. Unfortunately, the connections never felt meaningful enough for me, and I found myself not caring about the characters or where the story was going.

I know this book has received a lot of praise, so clearly it worked for many readers. It just wasn't the book for me. I really wanted to like Sunrise, but in the end, I simply didn't get it.

[Laura (thenerdygnomelife) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three different stories and timelines converge in "Sunrise," all circling a long-abandoned ghost town, The story begins in 2024, when Nina survives a plane crash in the Wyoming mountains and stumbles onto the ghost town. I was immediately sucked in. From there, we jump to 2003, focusing on a small-town reenactor named Coll, who starts to question the heroic legend he's spent his life performing. And in 1902, the gunslinger at the center of Coll's reenactment, Anton Vargas, returns to Sunrise under hazy circumstances.

This is a uniquely structured story, a mash-up of timelines, narrative styles, and even genres as it jumps from being a survival story, to a mystery, to a western. Each timeline has its own distinct voice and tension. Obreht's sense of place is a true standout, as she successfully paints the ghost town as strongly as any character.

The ending brings all three threads together, though not with any great sense of surprise — it's satisfying rather than shocking. This makes sense, as a character-driven novel, but those looking for the shock or awe of a thriller will be looking in the wrong place. Beautiful in its writing, this book does take some slow-burn patience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Audio for providing an advance copy for honest review.

[☮Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a creative storyline, one that goes from 2024 to 1902 to 2003 and back around again a couple of times until we're finally (whew, that took a long time) back in 2024. Along the way we experience Nina, lost in the Wyoming mountains following a plane crash, when she finds temporary shelter in an old stable. There she comes across a book draft about a local hero from 1902. All three time periods eventually come together in the last chapter, but even so I am left with many questions and confusion.

That final chapter relies on you being alert to key plot points along the way. There was a lot of inner dialogue by the characters which I wish I would have paid better attention to. I was listening to the audiobook but also turned to the NetGalley copy I had obtained from the publisher previously. The audiobook was greatly improved when Mark Deakins surprised me by appearing as one of the key characters. Still I could manage only 3 stars, which means I liked it, didn't love it.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful writing but not a fan of the abrupt ending. What happened to Anton? What happened to Nina? What happened to Louise and Coll?? Absolutely nothing was tied up.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sunrise by Téa Obreht was a thoroughly enjoyable novel and one that surprised me with the way its story was constructed. At its heart, it tells two separate stories set in different time periods, each compelling in its own right. As the novel unfolds, those narratives gradually move toward one another until they converge in a deeply satisfying climax. Woven between them is a third story, almost like a folktale or legend, that quietly threads its way through both timelines and ultimately proves to be just as important. It's an ambitious structure, but Obreht pulls it off beautifully.

What impressed me most was how naturally these different threads came together. Rather than feeling like disconnected stories, each narrative enriches the others, adding layers of meaning and perspective that aren't immediately obvious. I found myself eager to return to each storyline, wondering not only what would happen next but also how everything would eventually connect. By the time the pieces began to fall into place, it felt earned rather than forced.

Obreht's writing is another major strength. Her prose is rich and evocative without ever becoming overwhelming, and she has a wonderful ability to create a vivid sense of place. Whether she's describing landscapes, relationships, or quieter moments of reflection, her writing has an immersive quality that made it easy to lose myself in the novel.

The characters are equally memorable. Each feels fully realized, with their own motivations, flaws, and emotional journeys. Because the novel spends so much time developing them, I became genuinely invested in their lives and the choices they made. That emotional investment made the eventual convergence of the storylines all the more impactful.

I also appreciated that Sunrise never feels like it's showing off its unusual structure. It would have been easy for a novel built this way to become a puzzle that values cleverness over storytelling, but that's never the case here. The intricate narrative serves the characters and themes rather than overshadowing them, making the novel feel both intellectually engaging and emotionally satisfying.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House, and Tea Obreht for granting me access to a digital ARC of this title.

[Eric Lustbader · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a mystery to me how a novel filled with such majestic, almost poetic prose can be both boring and infuriating. Sunrise by Tea Obreht, an author I much admire, whose previous books I have enjoyed, has created a novel with three timelines, three protagonists, all of which tie together somewhat awkwardly at the end. A young woman is thrown out of a small plane after it hits a bird and starts to crash, lands in a remote lake in the middle of nowhere, on a trip she did not want to go on but her fiance did. Right away we know that's not the true story but we have to wade through hundreds of pages of a "novel" she finds in a ghost town about a famed gunslinger in the early 1900s who, it turns out, wasn't who or what his legend purported him to be. Add to that another story about Coll, a man from the selfsame town of Sunrise, who organizes a yearly celebration of the hometown gunslinger's life and also may be something other than what he pretends to be. Both tales are mind-numbingly boring. Obreht's decision to tell these two tales at a remove makes it impossible to care about anyone in the stories. If that weren't bad enough after the present-day woman's excruciatingly detailed struggle to stay alive, to subsist on a limited number of health bars, where she tantalizingly receives two calls on her cell but as in a dream the people on the other end can't hear her, after seeing rising smoke from what seems a campfire only to discover a tree hit by lightning, the infuriating denoument to the novel made me wonder what I just read and, more crucially, why.

[Kristina Nichole]

Just saw People's cover reveal and read the blurb...

Patiently waiting for this ARC to be available on NetGalley

[Kip Kyburz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The skull at the center of the sun should have tipped you off, that this triptych of a story following the history of a town through three eras has some real darkness at its center. Waving between 3 timelines, we see the fallibility of man again and again and again as our wild west town moves from the age of posses and bandits and six-shooters into a shell of itself, acting as a historical marker and stage set re-enacting it's "glorious past." With shocks and twists, Obreht creates a propulsive narrative as we move closer and closer to the dark heart of Sunrise.

[Jax · Rating 3.25 out of 5]

This novel is set in the mountains of Wyoming and is organized around three timelines. It begins in the present with Nina’s boyfriend Ben flying them to Moraine in his old Cessna. The opening pages show Ben pushing Nina out of the plane over Horsebone Lake. His plane is on descent, about to crash. She survives the fall and the freezing lake, then spends a period of time reconciling what happened and convincing herself that an unreliable friend who is supposed to meet them for dinner will report them missing. Or that Rangers will arrive. Or, maybe, her phone will find a signal.

Nina decides to investigate the area and discovers part of the plane. She knows she must accept that Ben might not have survived the crash. She also finds a ghost town, long abandoned, and wanders through the buildings. Nina discovers things that are unexplainable such as stuffed animal heads arranged in a circle on the bar’s dusty floor. Then, beside a building she sees a stack of wildflower bouquets, dried but not composted as would be expected. Maybe another town is nearby, she thinks, as someone must regularly replenish the bouquets. But for what reason?

As Nina continues to wander, she encounters a bear. Her phone dings, which scares it away, but the battery dies before she can call for help. The bear is a reminder that her meager food supply isn’t the only risk she faces in the mountains. She retreats to a barn and checks out a root cellar where she is hiding. She discovers a coat, satchel, and a woman’s corpse, long ago deceased. At first, she flees. Then she steels herself to retrieve the coat and satchel, in which she finds a manuscript. It is titled Sunrise and tells the story about one of the town’s early heros, Anton Vargas. There is also a map that shows another town is within a few day’s hike.

The novel shifts to the period in which Anton Vargas was alive. After having been gone twenty years, he visits Sunrise in 1902, searching for an old friend called Preacher. No one will tell him where Preacher is, and the deputy Marshall warns him that Preacher will shoot him on sight. We are left wondering what happened when the novel shifts again to 2001 and features Colin Yard, the grandson of the man who owns the land upon which Sunrise sits. Colin organizes an annual Greyrock reenactment, the shootout that brought Vargas fame.

This book is largely a good read, but it fails to support its strong opening. Nina is a young woman—a nanny and art major—lost in a mountain wilderness alone with no means to communicate, no skills or survival equipment, and a meager food supply. It is the cusp of autumn when bears are gorging before hibernation and weather becomes cold and unpredictable. This combination is gold for a nail-biting story, but the amount of time spent with her is minimal. The 2001 period is an important segment but otherwise a “meh,” and the reveal on the Vargas-Preacher issue is disappointing as it doesn’t seem to justify the buildup. This is my perspective only. Others will likely have varied responses to this book, which, again is a good story overall.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing the ARC.

[Jason Laipply · Rating 4 out of 5]

Téa Obreht’s ‘Sunrise’ is, for me, an enticing Russian nesting doll of a book…stories set within stories, themes set within themes, and genres hidden within genres.

Ostensibly a horror / ghost story set in a now abandoned ghost town in Wyoming, Sunrise unveils layers of interconnected details and themes that accumulate by the end to produce a satisfying puzzle of a novel across three distinct timelines.

While I found the Nina storyline difficult to connect with at the outset, by the end I found myself admirous of the author’s ability to tie Nina to the other storylines in unexpected ways that I found myself enjoying.

I also really enjoyed the author’s feathering in of several themes that felt prescient for the world we find ourselves in today…toxic male insecurity, the various fear of and weaponization of otherness, the elusive nature of truth, revisionism and myth building, the constant minimizing of women, and the erosive nature of violence in American history and culture.

Overall, I really enjoyed this ride, especially once I got past the initial Nina section, and I was appreciative not to have all of my questions answered directly in the text. Like any great ghost story, the author left a healthy space for the reader’s interpretation.