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Every Little Thing in the World
Now in Stores!
Sixteen-year-old Sydney Biggs is a “good kid”—smart, pretty, self-aware. No one doubts that she’ll go far in life. But lately her mother worries that Sydney is wandering down the wrong path and getting all caught up in petty teenage rebellion and shenanigans. When Sydney and her best friend, Natalia, “borrow” a car to go to a party and then get escorted home by the police, their parents pack them up and ship them off to a hard-love wilderness camp to stop this behavior before it gets out of hand, before things go too far. The problem is, they already have.
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Gossip of the Starlings
Available in stores
From Publishers Weekly
In this poignant novel, de Gramont explores a loyal and destructive friendship between two girls at a New England prep school. Catherine Morrow, the book’s relatable protagonist, can’t believe her luck when Skye, the popular daughter of acclaimed senator Douglas Butterfield, befriends her. A symbol of idealistic American wholesomeness, Skye is quick to push the boundaries at the Esther Percy School, and soon she joins Catherine in a blur of drunken nights and cocaine binges. But as Catherine cleans up and focuses on school work and extracurricular activities, Skye spirals deeper into her addiction and has an affair with a teacher.
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Of Cats and Men: Stories
Now available!
From Publishers Weekly
While cats make an appearance in each of the 10 stories in this accomplished debut collection, there’s nothing kitschy or cute about de Gramont’s feline tales. In each case, a cat subtly teaches the protagonist something essential about human relationships. The cats, which all manifest distinctive personalities, act according to their natures (ailurophiles will be delighted with acutely observed details), and their natural, instinctive behavior contrasts with that of the conflicted, variable human characters.
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Choice
Now available on Kindle!
From Publishers Weekly
This collection, compiled by two savvy fiction writers fed up with the bumper-sticker mentality of most pro-life and pro-choice arguments, illuminates the volume of options, obstacles and ambivalence that reproduction brings through personal, often painful stories of real women. Examining almost every angle of the pregnancy experience are two dozen writers, editors and educators, including novelist Jacquelyn Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean), writer’s writer Francine Prose (Reading like a Writer) and editor Elizabeth Larsen (one of the creators of Sassy magazine).
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The Bulletin Review
The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
A positive pregnancy test marks a crossroads in the life of sixteen-year-old Sydney, but before she even gets a chance to confess to her mother, her other offenses cause her to be shipped off for a month-long canoe trip in the Canadian wilderness in hopes that the experience will straighten her out. Sydney figures that’s just a small blip in her plans that still gives her time for a first-trimester abortion upon her return, if she can amass the money, but the journey becomes much more than a simple diversion. Accompanied by her best friend, Natalia, who’s discovered her own recent family secret (Natalia herself was the child of a teen pregnancy, born to the woman she’d been raised to consider her sister, Sydney begins to shed her old self and find a new Sydney – who still faces the same dilemma as the old. De Gramont’s prose glides along with superb fluidity, while Sydney’s narration offers both sharp perception and authentic limitation. The characters are believably restricted by Sydney’s view (a fact she herself realizes when considering the boy who got her pregnant), but they have depth and originality, and the growing formation of the motley crew of canoeists into a kind of tribe is subtle but believable. Particularly interesting is Sydney’s changing relationship with Mick, the youthful offender who’s taking the trip as a form of rehab: Mick is frightening and obnoxious, yet capable of genuine support for Sydney, and, whether she likes it or not, he matters to her. The situation also provides a believable opportunity for exploration of the various futures that lie before Sydney depending on the choice she makes, and her path is genuinely uncertain for much of the book. Sydney’s situation is one that looms over many readers, and they’ll be moved by her experience and enlightened by her reflections as she struggles to make a decision.
Kirkus Review: Every Little Thing in the World
A deft and poignant exploration of reproductive choices. In spite of informative sex-education classes at her private school in New Jersey, 16-year-old Sydney Biggs gets pregnant with a boy she barely knows from a nearby, less-affluent town. Her best friend, the “lean, sleek, and raven-haired” Natalia Miksa, is the only one she tells. Read more »
Booklist Review: Every Little Thing in the World
Critically acclaimed adult author de Gramont makes her YA debut in this novel of summer transformation. After 16-year-old Sydney learns that she is pregnant, she and her glamorous best friend, Natalia, try to track down the boy Sydney had sex with and end up in trouble with the police. Sydney keeps her secret from both her frustrated, divorced mother and her father, who ships her off to a Canadian summer camp. Natalia joins her, and as the girls paddle through the wilderness, they wrestle with Sydney’s options. Read more »