Bestselling young adult author Mary H.K. Choi debuts a brilliantly observed adult novel about mothers, daughters, and the complexity of family set against the backdrop of Hollywood.

Stevie Moon cannot escape her mother. Abandoning college plans to work a dead-end job, her days are a purgatorial bore. Many dream of moving to L.A. and into the spotlight, but Stevie can’t wait to move away from it, and her mother’s orbit, to start over.

Delilah (not her real name) or “Moon” (as everyone calls her) is many things: an out-of-work actress, a former alcoholic, whatever a mistress becomes when she’s widowed, and a mother. Reeling in the aftermath of her lover and TV husband’s death, Moon struggles to process her grief. And the last thing she expects is for Stevie to leave her too.

Unable to afford their home, Moon and Stevie rent it out and live in their glass pool house. But when Adam, Moon’s former TV son and Stevie’s forever crush, arrives for the funeral, the three are pulled into a messy orbit, moving back into the ‘Big House’ and playacting a picture-perfect family even as tensions rise and relationships unravel.

Pool House is a course charted through the wilderness of motherhood, a story about the challenges of navigating class, fame, burgeoning sexuality, and grief as two women grapple with what it means to grow up and grow older in Tinseltown.