Odessa: A Novel
Gabrielle Sher
Apr 2026 · Sold by Little, Brown
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In a powerfully imagined Russia at the height of the pogroms, a grief-stricken family turn to ancient magic to bring their daughter back from the grave.
“A triumph.”―Nat Cassidy, author of Mary and When the Wolf Comes Home
"Spellbinding. . . A tender and gutting showstopper."―Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
Yetta is a bright, quick teenage girl with a wild, searching spirit. Stifled by her mother's anxiety, her father’s rules, and the path that’s been laid out for her, she craves freedom, the edges of which she doesn't know. But her family has reason to be cautious and restrictive. Fear has wrapped itself around their shtetl. Jews are mysteriously disappearing, and there are whispers of an impending attack. When violence comes to their door, Yetta is killed.
Her father, in his grief, fumbles through his nascent knowledge of ancient texts and old magic to bring her back. By some miracle, Yetta is returned—but although she looks the same, she is not the girl she once was. Yetta senses there is a secret her family is keeping from her. The answer resides, in part, in the creature lurking in the woods beyond the shtetl―something that may be of her father’s making, and a being that has plans of its own.
"Breathtaking."― Monika Kim, author of The Eyes are the Best Part
"Wonderfully strange, marvelously frightening, and authentically moving."― Laird Hunt, author of Zorrie
“A triumph.”―Nat Cassidy, author of Mary and When the Wolf Comes Home
"Spellbinding. . . A tender and gutting showstopper."―Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
Yetta is a bright, quick teenage girl with a wild, searching spirit. Stifled by her mother's anxiety, her father’s rules, and the path that’s been laid out for her, she craves freedom, the edges of which she doesn't know. But her family has reason to be cautious and restrictive. Fear has wrapped itself around their shtetl. Jews are mysteriously disappearing, and there are whispers of an impending attack. When violence comes to their door, Yetta is killed.
Her father, in his grief, fumbles through his nascent knowledge of ancient texts and old magic to bring her back. By some miracle, Yetta is returned—but although she looks the same, she is not the girl she once was. Yetta senses there is a secret her family is keeping from her. The answer resides, in part, in the creature lurking in the woods beyond the shtetl―something that may be of her father’s making, and a being that has plans of its own.
"Breathtaking."― Monika Kim, author of The Eyes are the Best Part
"Wonderfully strange, marvelously frightening, and authentically moving."― Laird Hunt, author of Zorrie
In a powerfully imagined Russia at the height of the pogroms, a grief-stricken family turn to ancient magic to bring their daughter back from the grave.
“A triumph.”―Nat Cassidy, author of Mary and When the Wolf Comes Home
"Spellbinding. . . A tender and gutting showstopper."―Publishers Weekly...
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About the author
Gabrielle Sher attended Hamilton College, where she earned the Rosenfeld Chapbook Prize for her novella Bowerbird. She received her MFA and PhD in Creative Writing from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Her first novel, Odessa, originated as part of her doctoral dissertation titled “Who Made Us Monsters? Narrative Psychology and The Female Jewish Gothic.” She currently lives and writes in New Jersey with her husband Jamie and their dog Bo.
Gabrielle Sher attended Hamilton College, where she earned the Rosenfeld Chapbook Prize for her novella Bowerbird. She received her MFA and PhD in Creative Writing from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Her first novel, Odessa, originated as part of her doctoral dissertation titled “Wh...
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