Whiskey & Ribbons

Set in contemporary Louisville, Leesa Cross-Smith's mesmerising first novel surrounding the death of a police officer is a requiem for marriage, friendship and family.

Evi — a classically-trained ballerina — was nine months pregnant when her husband Eamon was killed in the line of duty on a steamy morning in July. Now, it is winter, and Eamon's adopted brother Dalton has moved in to help her raise six-month-old Noah.

Whiskey & Ribbons is told in three intertwining, melodic voices: Evi in present day, as she's snowed in with Dalton during a freak blizzard; Eamon before his murder, as he prepares for impending fatherhood and grapples with the danger of his profession; and Dalton, as he struggles to make sense of his life next to Eamon's, and as he decides to track down the biological father he's never known.

Whiskey & Ribbons explores the life that continues beyond loss, with a complicated brotherly dynamic reminiscent of Elizabeth Strout's The Burgess Boys. It's a meditation on grief, hope, motherhood, brotherhood and surrogate fatherhood. Above all, it's a novel about what it means—and whether it's possible — to heal.

'Leesa Cross-Smith is a consummate storyteller who uses her formidable talents to tell the oft-overlooked stories of people living in that great swath of place between the left and right coasts.' — Roxane Gay, author of Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body and Bad Feminist

'Cross-Smith's thrilling debut novel, Whiskey and Ribbons, is as immediate and compelling as music. Her three lovers tell their stories, each turning over what we think we know, creating a moving triptych on love, desire, and grief, and the unexpected families life makes for us.'  — Alexander Chee, author of The Queen of the Night