Sugar Run

One of Real Simple's Best Books of 2019
One of Southern Living's Best New Books of Winter 2019

“The literary lineages here are hard-boiled fiction and film noir, but on every page of her debut novel, Mesha Maren creates bold new takes on those venerable genres, a much needed refresh of worn tropes and clichés. Maren is masterly at describing America’s modern wastelands, the blasted towns not yet and maybe never-to-be the beneficiaries of rehabilitation and reoccupation. You can almost see Maren—like Raymond Chandler—cutting each typed page into three strips and requiring each strip to contain something delightful (startling simile, clever dialogue, brilliant description) offered to the reader as a recompense for a world that presses up against you all raw and aggressive and dangerous. A language that fully owns its power to capture just that 'heart-wild magic.' ”
—Charles Frazier, The New York Times Book Review

“A darkly steamy first novel . . . ravishingly rugged . . . a literary page-turner, hair-raising in both plot and prose. Maren writes with windswept grace and stark sensuality."
—O, The Oprah Magazine
 
“Sugar Run is a shining debut, with a heady admixture of explosive plot and taut, burnished prose. This is a book that loves its wounded characters and troubled places, and in so deeply loving, it finds a terrible truth and beauty where other writers wouldn't have found the courage to look. I'm glad to be among the first to sing the praise of this young writer when I say that Mesha Maren writes like a force of nature.”
—Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies

“Crisp as mountain air and full of grit and heart, Maren’s writing announces a new voice in the Appalachian noir genre.”
 —Garden Gun

“We love Mesha Maren’s Sugar Run, a gritty noir novel like you’ve never read before.”
—Entertainment Weekly
 
“A tense, atmospheric Southern noir spiked with queer themes, Sugar Run weaves between two timelines in its depiction of Jodi, a woman just finishing an 18-year prison sentence.”
—Entertainment Weekly (The 50 Most Anticipated Books of 2019)
 
“Sugar Run throttles . . . The clip is fast and exciting.”
—Wall Street Journal

“Through exquisite prose and beautifully nuanced storytelling, Maren offers a complicated examination of love, identity, the passage of time, and the way small decisions can propel a life forward.  . . . undeniably tender.”
—Bustle
 
“In her darkly crackling debut novel, Mesha Maren takes readers for a wild ride, the kind that feels like you’re hurtling down a backwoods road at night, not quite sure if you’re ever going to be able to stop, wondering if you might even suddenly take flight. Maren’s story jumps back-and-forth in time, following the lives of two women, both aching with their need for love and freedom. Maren details the struggles and triumphs of these women with unflinching precision and language as beautiful and ferocious as a summer storm.”
—Nylon.com (50 Books You’ll Want to Read in 2019)
 
“In Masha Maren's impressive debut, Jodi McCarty is released from prison after an 18-year sentence and is determined not to repeat past mistakes. While wandering around the South, she meets a young woman named Miranda, who has just left an abusive relationship. Together, they go looking for someone from Jodi's past and head to West Virginia—followe

“…gripping, heartwrenching … It's a propulsive story, told in gorgeous writing.”
- People