Her Kind

by Sophie Lefens

An exquisite, mist-laced debut novel about friendship and motherhood, fear and love, in which a woman plagued by visions of being pulled away from Earth invites her three closest friends for a weekend, to see who might care for her son if she dies.

When Ada is left to raise her young son alone, she retreats to her otherworldly aunt Leigh’s crumbling lakeside home, seeking solace for herself and stability for Lenny. Yet, among the wildflowers and the hum of the water, Ada can’t escape the nagging feeling she might not have much time left. Sensing death grow nearer, she invites her three closest friends—a brash, unemployed seamstress; a gentle, disillusioned violinist; and a serious painter—to the house over a long weekend to determine which of them might take on the raising Lenny if she no longer can.

Amidst strange animal activity and Aunt Leigh’s mysterious late-night visits to her dead husband’s grave, the women find comfort and purpose in one another’s company as their stay extends into winter. Meanwhile, Leigh’s memory is fading fast, and Ada must confront past and present truths she’s spent a lifetime avoiding.

When death does finally come to the group, it sets off a chain of events that exposes long-hidden secrets and the true mystical nature of Leigh and her ancestral home. Written in attentive, insightful prose, Her Kind is an ode to the power of love to return us to ourselves.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

272 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication October 13, 2026

Reviews

[Juliana Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you, NetGalley, Mariners books, the author for this advanced reader copy.

I went into this book with no expectations, and I was absolute blown away at the vividness of the writing of the author. I really felt like I was transported to an Eden that I think all women dream of. Where you get to live with your best friends, in a beautiful place, while everyone helps raise your child in a loved and supportive environment. It really did feel like quite the dream realized. I felt like I could lose myself in this novel and really enjoyed the time spent with the characters. I felt like I got to know the characters very well and it had a Dawsons Creek like feel to it where I could just enjoy the setting, in the small day to day of what happens.

The foreshadowing throughout the novel is utilized pretty heavy handedly, and I was not surprised by the ending, and did finish the novel feeling like it was wrapped up really abruptly. It does feel like the book could've been another 50 pages longer and would have been perfect.

Overall, this is a very solid debut novel, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I will definitely recommend this novel to women and mothers who are looking for a little bit of escape, a little bit of a dream realized, and a lot of bit about friendship. I look forward to the next novel by this author.

[Cierra]

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and I'm grateful for it. It was a book I could really relate to and well written.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finishing Her Kind got me thinking about that one Roz Chast cartoon, “Manspreading in Art” which comes with three examples:
- a 1,200-page novel titled “My Amazing Genius” with a tortured man’s portrait on the cover
- huge sculptures (tiny people beneath spout speech bubbles “It’s so wonderfully disruptive!” “And it blocks out so much light!”)
- movies that cost over a billion dollars to make and the movie theater screen reads “ROBOT WARS — IN 5-D”

I think this book is the exact opposite of all that. And somehow it’s anything but condemnatory. This is a book full of small graces. See for example the narrator’s thoughts on a corny-looking man who comes into her shop and strikes up a conversation:

“About halfway in, I realize that this person actually seems quite lonely and that probably, in an earlier age of his life, he would never have talked to a shopgirl or maybe anyone as freely as this.”

I think this illustrates a strand of the feminine logic that runs throughout HK. In my experience it’s sort of a masculine humanities guy thing to be like “it’s not about the right answers, it’s about the right questions.” But you know what, women be finding out. Question or not. As Joanna Newsom puts it, “what a woman does is open doors and it is not a question of locking or unlocking”.

This is not to say that everything works out and everyone’s happy at the end of the book. The narrator is afraid of death and change. Part of her journey is coming to terms with the ironic fact that only death can really cure these anxieties.

I say “strand” above bc there’s more. A million delightful metaphors like trinkets and tchotchkes which I collected with a yellow highlighter. The chthonic shines through even in the cover which I feel like could be mistaken for horror. And the seasons obsession. There’s more than a few ways this book evokes Louise Gluck for me and no it’s not just the blue cover!!

For a busy girl HK was about a week-long read. It’s short, it looks beautiful on my shelf, and what excites me most about it is that it’s not a one-and-done read. Because even though I finished it a few weeks ago I can already see myself returning and intend to, maybe next summer. 5 stars

[Laura Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am convinced that women need close female friends to be whole. Both through family and community. We can exist alone, but there are always pieces of our world missing until we find special karmic souls to connect with through our life's journey. If I had to choose mine, I would say mine are Denise, Lisa, Beth, MaryLou and Amber. Perfection would be to have them all together with me in my home, coexisting together.

I am certain I connected so strongly with Sophia Lefens's debut novel, Her KInd, simply because I have been blessed with strong relationships with dear women who make my life more abundant through their presence.

The main character, Ada, has lived a troubled life. Abandoned by her mother throughout her childhood, Ada sees her Aunt Leigh as the one stable adult she can rely on. When her husband also walks away from their marriage and infant son, she turns to the only refuge she has, her aunt Leigh. Ada, and her now three year old son Lenny build a life at her aged aunt's lake home, where time together in nature and the lure of the water become balm to their souls. In such a calm serene setting, Ada is jolted by fear when she begins to have reoccurring premonitions or dreams that she will soon die, leaving her son Lenny alone in the world as she has often been left. Her only balm for her troubled mind is to gather her friends to her there, and decide whom she would leave Lenny with if she dies. Sage, Agnes, and Joanna are each going going through their own life's difficulties, and each also find a home with Leigh at the lake house. Death does indeed come to Ada and her friends, but they learn and grow from their time together.

Lefens 's novel is well written, with strong, real characters. She imparts a soul into each of her characters which makes them relatable. I think anyone who has experienced the gift of true and honest friendship can identify with Lefens's book.

I feel that I connected strongly with Lefens's book for several reasons. I have shared special relationships with friends and family so dear that they are the ones I run to when I am frightened or in grief. I also have lost loved ones that left gaping voids in my life. Finally, the poignant serendipity of her aunt Leigh's memory fading touched my heart. My husband and I are experiencing that now with a shared family member and seeing her decline slowly is a sad but real event.

Her Kind is set to publish on October 13, 2026 and would be a fine read for a book club. It would be interesting to see which character(s) each person relates with most strongly and who each one would choose in their own lives to be with if faced with challenges like Lefens's character Ada is.

Thank you NetGalley for the Advance Reader's Proof in exchange for an honest review.

#HerKind #NetGalley

[Alexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm trying to compose my thoughts cohesively, so I hope this makes sense:
I found this an incredibly interesting take on life, love, friendship, and I appreciate the little nods to what I would deem to fall under 'supernatural'.

I say that because, for me as I understood the book, heavy 'premonitions' plaguing Ada were the cornerstone for why the book took the turns that it did. Now, call them premonitions or paranoia, that's left up to the reader, I was...surprised by how much Ada let hurt and fear run her life. I was also surprised that her visions were indicative of 'something' (not spoiling it), so..maybe in a way, it's actually intuition.

Ada was so engulfed in her visions that...she just stopped living, when she already lived through incredibly tough events. Her mother leaving, her husband being a downright loser...I think really what she was feeling was just...sadness. But when we're letting our pain consume us, it does have the ability to take hold of us deeply before we realize what's happened.

And it's amazing that through that sadness, she could still at least see who was there for her, would be there for her (and Lenny) when it was needed. Friends like Jo, Sage, and Agnes are the kind of friends I think we all hope to make in our lifetimes, and I'm glad I have one friend I feel that deeply about in which I would trust her with my everything if it ever came to that. The tv show 'Friends' is centered around a premise that there's a period of your life where your friends are your family, and I think that if you give your time and energy into the right people that give it back to you, there is no 'period' where your friends are your family and it disappears - it just stays that way. Ada is lucky to have that in her friends.

So, I think this is a good take on...maybe not so much the story in of itself with preparation of a bad and/or scary thing, but instead, nurturing the relationships we have along the way to said sad and scary things. The one scary thing everyone on this earth faces is death, so if we meet and hold on to a few important and good people along the way...live 'life' until then...well, that is what makes getting up every day worth it, isn't it?

[Kate Connell · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5

I thought I would be drawn in by this found family story, but the main character holds those around her at such an emotional remove that I feel an emotional distance to the story itself. I felt like I had to pull myself through to the end of the story, and I felt as though none of the characters, including the main character, Ada, felt like real, fully developed, people.

Ada has to raise her young son alone after his father decides he no longer wants to be a father, and she brings her son, Lenny, to her aunt Leigh's lakeside home, where her aunt and uncle raised her. Ada feels her mortality and becomes convinced that she will die soon. With Leigh getting older, Ada decides to invite her three closest friends to the house to decide who would raise Lenny if something happened to her (but of course, she doesn't let them know this). Her friends are all varying stages of unemployed or semi-employed artists who can drop their lives at the drop of a hat and come. (They are described in the blurb as a brash, unemployed seamstress; a gentle, disillusioned violinist; and a serious painter).

The women find a sense of comfort and purpose in each other and their existence in the small nearby town, supplemented by the constant presence of Ada's childhood sweetheart Peter, whom she has never stopped loving. The women extend their stay, but as Leigh's mind deteriorates and the women consider their futures, Ada and all the women must make decisions for their future.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this novel.

[Kayleigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley, Mariner Books and the Author for this incredible ARC!!!

This novel is so beautiful. I loved reading about Ada's "village", her experience with grief, loss, and forgiveness. I found myself pausing and rereading many lines throughout the story just because they made my heart beat in a new way.

As a nearly 22 year old woman without kids (and who often feels like a child herself), I did not expect to resonate with so many of Ada's feelings and experiences. This novel truly has something for everyone.

[Carly J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book of my dreams. Lefens writes about motherhood and enduring female relationships with total presence and zero artifice. It’s the kind of book you take direction from, that you know you’ll revisit when you’re shattered and trembling in your own life. It is sincere, but not in a cheap or cloying way. It is an antidote to the pervasiveness of detached irony and self-loathing found in so much media today: treating loneliness and terror with warranted gravity, and appropriately agonizing over what it means to love and commit to life and other people. I didn’t want it to end.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her Kind captures something I didn’t fully understand until becoming a mom—the sudden, gripping awareness of mortality and how deeply love and fear intertwine. Sophie’s gift for finding and creating beauty shines through in her writing, reminding me of how full and meaningful life is—in friendship, in small moments, in nature, and in our shared humanity. I loved every second of reading this book.

[Betsy Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I got to the last page I just sat there quietly, marveling at this book. Sophie Lefens has a voice that is entirely new and unique, yet Her Kind feels like a classic. It’s a story about longing for the things that matter - friendship, love that keeps faith, home. If you are hungry for something beautiful, this book will be your banquet.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book at my table splattered with washable paint, my kids running around me while I flipped its pages, and felt a deep connectiveness to its words, to its ode to motherhood. To friendship and love and loss. To fear and bravery. In all aspects this novel is rich. Rich in character, concept and prose. A truly breathtaking debut.

[Franny M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful prose and interesting premise come together to create a compelling novel exploring grief and motherhood. Lyrical and with a setting that enriched the story. I really enjoyed reading this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner for the ARC.

[Sarah Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really a 4.5! won in a giveaway and really enjoyed it! not a genre I'd typically go for but it was an easy and captivating read. would recommend.

[Irene Mladjan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read the ARC and found it to be an enjoyable read. Interesting characters and an involving story line.