by Téa Obreht
First published 2026
Nina's small plane plunges into a Wyoming lake in 2024. Her boyfriend Ben, the pilot, has vanished. Armed with protein bars and a dead phone, she faces the wilderness alone. Then she discovers Sunrise, an Old West town that looks maintained but empty. The town connects three time periods. In 2003, Coll prepares the annual historical reenactment when a writer arrives asking dangerous questions about a local legend. In 1902, gunslinger Anton Vargas returns to lead the search for a missing boy, but his motives remain unclear. Each era holds pieces of the same puzzle. The town's buried secrets link Nina's survival story to events spanning a century. Obreht weaves together survival, mystery, and the weight of hidden history in a place where the past refuses to stay dead.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, adventure, mystery, contemporary, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, haunting, lyrical, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: multiple-timelines, mystery-box, survival-against-odds, unreliable-reality
Setting: Wyoming, Sunrise, Old West
Period: 1902, 2003, 2024
336 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: death, violence