Things Don't Break on Their Own

February 1, 2024

Easter Collins's debut unfolds at a dinner party. Four couples, and heavy secrets, gather to dine. The guests include ex-lovers, strangers, and old friends. Told through alternating perspectives, there is a backstory on the menu, about a girl who disappeared decades ago, the sister who was left broken-hearted, and the truth that could now break them all. Prepub Alert.

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April 29, 2024
A stray comment at a dinner party proves seismic in Easter Collins’s devastating debut. After Willa Martenwood’s younger sister, Laika, goes missing near their wealthy family’s London home, a teenage Willa escapes the ensuing media circus by transferring to a boarding school. There, she becomes friends and secret lovers with her roommate, Robyn Bee. Twenty-two years later, Robyn is a happily married mother of three, while Willa is engaged to boorish cad Jamie and remains obsessed with finding Laika, whom she believes is still alive. When Robyn invites Willa to a dinner party she and her wife, Cat, are hosting, Cat bristles; she’s jealous of Willa and fears Jamie will ruin the night. Still, the evening goes smoothly enough­—until one guest makes an offhand remark regarding the thesis they’re working on about the corruptibility of memory, which sends Willa down a rabbit hole and eventually convinces her that Laika might be closer than she thought. In kaleidoscopic first-person narration that alternates between Robyn and Willa’s perspectives, Easter Collins skips back and forth in time, imparting details about each woman’s past and fleshing out their characters at a steady clip. Though the plot goes to some far-fetched places, evocative prose holds the whole thing together, and Easter Collins enriches the mystery with some thoughtful reflections on the rippling effects of domestic violence. It’s an auspicious start. Agent: Felicity Blunt, Curtis Brown U.K.

Starred review from June 1, 2024
When Willa was a teenager, her sister Laika disappeared walking to school. No trace of her was ever found, and every suspect had a firm alibi. Willa was haunted by the loss of her sister and felt alone, lonely, and desperate. Then her family moved to avoid the tenacious British media, and Willa transferred to a new school. There, she met Robyn and spent the best summer of her life with Robyn's family, after which the girls became staunch friends. As she grew up, Willa never gave up hope of finding Laika--constantly thinking she'd spotted her in the street or on a bus or across a park--but that led to her never really focusing on an education or a career or finding a boyfriend. Now grown and struggling with her life, she's invited to a dinner party at Robyn's, where she meets Claudette, who's French and reminds Willa very much of Laika. But after two decades, Willa's no longer sure of who her sister really was or what she'd look like now. Still, meeting Claudette sets off a cataclysmic cycle of events with a stunning resolution that changes Willa's life forever. A gripping book about families, loyalty, lies, and love that is at once heartwarming and horrifying.

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