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Upstate: A Novel
Not yet published
Expected 27 Oct 26Multicast Narration Audiobook
A grieving writer. An abandoned bookshop. A secret love story hidden in letters.
From New York Times bestselling author Kim van Alkemade comes an unforgettable novel about found family, healing, and the power of the past to reshape the present.
Thirty-four-year-old writer Audrey Beacon is grieving alone during lockdown when a post about a bookshop for sale in upstate New York pops into her social media feed like a lifeline. Enthralled by the historic house and the massive barn bursting with books, Audrey impulsively makes an offer. Soon, she’s cashing out her savings, loading her possessions into her dead husband’s van, and fleeing Manhattan for the village of Schuywich, determined to outrun the ghosts of her past.
In 1956, it’s love at first sight when Schuywich librarian Hazel McIntyre meets dashing magazine writer Evelyn Cabot at a summer camp in Maine that discreetly promises a “different vacation for professional women.” By summer’s end, Evelyn has left Greenwich Village to move into an old farmhouse she’s bought in Hazel’s hometown. In her new column, “A Woman’s Place,” Evelyn writes about her adventures renovating a house, tending to sheep, and opening a bookshop in her barn with help from the woman readers know only as her “roommate.” Privately, Hazel chronicles their six-decade love story in a series of letters that abruptly end when they’re forced to abandon the bookshop in 2015.
Reopening the bookshop in the summer of 2020 attracts a quirky community of villagers who continuously interrupt Audrey’s An unemployed Broadway set designer. An ambitious teenage entrepreneur. A story-telling Adirondack grandmother. Then there’s Sam Rensselaer, the distractingly handsome representative of the agriculture extension. Past and present begin to converge when Audrey finds “A Woman’s Place,” in a stack of old magazines, but it’s the discovery of Hazel’s letters that brings hidden love and long-buried family secrets to light. Will Audrey find the courage to heal the wounds of the past—including her own?
A grieving writer. An abandoned bookshop. A secret love story hidden in letters.
From New York Times bestselling author Kim van Alkemade comes an unforgettable novel about found family, healing, and the power of the past to reshape the present.
Thirty-four-year-old writer Audrey Beacon is grieving alone during lockdown when a post about a bookshop for sale in upstate New York pops into her social media feed like a lifeline. Enthralled by the historic house and the massive barn bursting with books, Audrey impulsively makes an offer. Soon, she’s cashing out her savings, loading her possessions into her dead husband’s van, and fleeing Manhattan for the village of Schuywich, determined to outrun the ghosts of her past.
In 1956, it’s love at first sight when Schuywich librarian Hazel McIntyre meets dashing magazine writer Evelyn Cabot at a summer camp in Maine that discreetly promises a “different vacation for professional women.” By summer’s end, Evelyn has left Greenwich Village to move into an old farmhouse she’s bought in Hazel’s hometown. In her new column, “A Woman’s Place,” Evelyn writes about her adventures renovating a house, tending to sheep, and opening a bookshop in her barn with help from the woman readers know only as her “roommate.” Privately, Hazel chronicles their six-decade love story in a series of letters that abruptly end when they’re forced to abandon the bookshop in 2015.
Reopening the bookshop in the summer of 2020 attracts a quirky community of villagers who continuously interrupt Audrey’s An unemployed Broadway set designer. An ambitious teenage entrepreneur. A story-telling Adirondack grandmother. Then there’s Sam Rensselaer, the distractingly handsome representative of the agriculture extension. Past and present begin to converge when Audrey finds “A Woman’s Place,” in a stack of old magazines, but it’s the discovery of Hazel’s letters that brings hidden love and long-buried family secrets to light. Will Audrey find the courage to heal the wounds of the past—including her own?
Audible Audio
Expected publication October 27, 2026
About the author
Kim van Alkemade
4 books468 followersKim van Alkemade is a New York Times bestselling author whose work has been translated into eleven languages. After a career teaching writing at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, she now works at an independent bookstore in upstate New York where she lives with her partner, their rescue dog, and two feisty backyard chickens.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Author
The Upstate Dispatch quietly broke me open in the best way. It's a beautiful and tender reminder that grief doesn’t have to be endured alone - that connection, even when it arrives unexpectedly and when we resist it, can be the very thing that heals and saves us. Through Evelyn, Hazel, and Audrey we see that living a full life means taking risks and listening to what calls your heart. The Upstate Dispatch speaks directly to the kind of connection and community we need more of right now.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
4.25⭐
Upstate is a dual-timeline historical fiction with sweet sapphic longing (lesbian FMC!) and the aching message that it's never too late to begin again.
I really loved how the past was intertwined with the present through the letters and we kind had the characters having much of the same feelings at the same time, it made for such a rich experience.
I found the first 20% a bit slow but I absolutely loved how Alkemade described the world around Hazel and Audrey, the setting was alive under her hands just as much as the characters were and I wish I could visit the barn bookstore for myself, that's how good it made me feel.
Ultimately, it was a story about grief, forgiving yourself and the other, finding peace and solace in community and knowing you can begin again, as long as you're breathing there will be a second chance to right a wrong. The tale of these women and their struggles was told beautifully and deserves the time you're willing to give it.
And last but definitely not least, please, read the Acknowledgments, the story will become that more special if you do.
Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Upstate is a dual-timeline historical fiction with sweet sapphic longing (lesbian FMC!) and the aching message that it's never too late to begin again.
I really loved how the past was intertwined with the present through the letters and we kind had the characters having much of the same feelings at the same time, it made for such a rich experience.
I found the first 20% a bit slow but I absolutely loved how Alkemade described the world around Hazel and Audrey, the setting was alive under her hands just as much as the characters were and I wish I could visit the barn bookstore for myself, that's how good it made me feel.
Ultimately, it was a story about grief, forgiving yourself and the other, finding peace and solace in community and knowing you can begin again, as long as you're breathing there will be a second chance to right a wrong. The tale of these women and their struggles was told beautifully and deserves the time you're willing to give it.
And last but definitely not least, please, read the Acknowledgments, the story will become that more special if you do.
Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
THE UPSTATE DISPATCH is a heartfelt and heartening tale of community set in a bucolic barn and bookstore in upstate New York during a harrowing time in recent history. Audrey Beacon, a grief-stricken writer and teacher, leaves Manhattan for the quaint village of Schuywich and decides on a whim to purchase and revive Red Barn Books. Her adventures as a brand-new homesteader and bookshop owner are complemented throughout the novel by a series of wonderfully charming Mademoiselle magazine articles written by previous owner Evelyn Cabot, who decades ago took on huge risks of her own. Author Kim van Alkemade surrounds these enterprising heroines with an array of caring and down-to-earth characters, and one of the many great joys of the novel is unearthing their decades of shared secrets and unexpected bonds. Brimming with richly detailed emotion and prose, THE UPSTATE DISPATCH offers a poignant, inspiring and triumphant example for everyone who has dreamed of an escape to the country and the chance to restore connection, both to the past and to each other.
Review of advance copy received from Author
In The Upstate Dispatch, Kim van Alkemade tells a layered, deeply human story about the ties that bind us—between partners, across generations, and within the communities that carry us when life breaks open. It’s a novel that stays with you, a reminder that even in our hardest moments, we are not alone.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I was lucky enough to receive a galley edition of this soon to be released novel. From the early pages I was drawn into this story that weaves modern history of characters in the pandemic with women of a past generation tied to a house in Upstate New York. Kim van Alkemade does a masterful job of intertwining the first person narratives of three women through letters, magazine articles and the story of Audrey Beacon, our present day heroine who has endured loss after loss. Through the book we see Audrey find her way forward through her grief to a life she builds with community and the history of the women she finds herself connected to in all sort of ways. Little easter eggs of clues and hints pull you to the next discovery and thread this enchanting tale of love, loss and finding your own way in a world that throws all sorts of boulders and detours in your path. If you love books and stories of redemption, do no miss this heart-warming novel.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews