Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls

After Andy Gage is murdered as a child his soul fractures and more than a hundred distinct selves settle into an imaginary house inside his mind. Each inhabitant speaks with a different voice from Aaron the steady protector to Jake the frightened little boy and Aunt Sam the artist, and together they hold memory mischief and the ache of survival. When Penny Driver a new coworker who also houses multiple selves asks for help Andy must navigate the fragile rules of the house the tug of competing memories and the work required to keep themselves whole. At once eerie funny and deeply humane the novel explores trauma identity and the tender sometimes messy labor of building family within and beyond the self.

~ Included for its vivid compassionate exploration of fractured selfhood and found family and for offering queer readers a nuanced metaphor for identity as layered and relational ~