If, Then

This week’s edition of “books that have sat on my shelf for years but I’m finally reading” features Kate Hope Day’s debut novel IF, THEN. The novel follows an ensemble cast of characters in a small Oregon town as they grapple with motherhood, grief, difficult marriages, and one professor’s research that indicates the long-dormant volcano their town is built upon may actually be active. Oh, and they’re also beginning to see flashes of their lives in alternate realities—the people they might have been if they had made different choices. In spite of this light sci-fi twist, the book reads like an intimate character drama. And Day’s writing is incredibly engrossing, so the pages fly by! 

—Julia Hammer, Creative Executive