Cover of The New Moon's Arms

The New Moon's Arms

THE NEW MOON'S ARMS is a mainstream magical realism novel set in the Caribbean on the fictional island of Dolorosse. Calamity, born Chastity, has renamed herself in a way she feels is most fitting. She's a 50-something grandmother whose mother disappeared when she was a teenager and whose father has just passed away as she begins menopause. With this physical change of life comes a return of a special power for finding lost things, something she hasn't been able to do since childhood. A little tingling in the hands then a massive hotflash, and suddenly objects, even whole buildings, lost to her since childhood begin showing up around Calamity. One of the lost things Calamity recovers is a small boy who washes up on the shore outside her house after a rainstorm. She takes this bruised but cheerful 3-year-old under her wing and grows attached to him, a process that awakens all the old memories, frustrations and mysteries around her own mother and father. She'll learn that this young boy's family is the most unusual group she's ever encountered—and they want their son back.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 336 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked The New Moon's Arms? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The New Moon's Arms. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Marriage of Sticks Shares fantasy, magical realism, fiction
  2. When Fox is a Thousand Shares fantasy, magical realism, fiction
  3. The Kappa Child Shares fantasy, fiction, magical realism
  4. Little, Big Shares fantasy, magical realism, fiction

“People who read The New Moon's Arms tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The Shadow Speaker
  2. Ragamuffin
  3. To Crush the Moon
  4. Mars Crossing

“If you want more of the same (fantasy about lgbt), start with these.”

  1. Who Slashed Celanire's Throat?
  2. Pirate Freedom
  3. Mermaids in Paradise
  4. The Bridge of Beyond

“If it was the magical realism that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Bones of the Moon
  2. The House of Discarded Dreams
  3. Bathing the Lion
  4. Summerlong

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The Storm Whale
  2. Blur
  3. The Ocean at the End of the Lane
  4. The Little Flower Shop by the Sea