Shark Heart

Compelling, moving, lyrical - Claire North, author of Ithaca

Shark Heart is a fantastical, original, and beautifully-written novel of abandonment, love, and Ovidian transformation. It explores illness, caretaking, devotion, magical thinking, and loss-and of course great white sharks-in ways that are funny, sad, and surprising. Every page bursts with heart. - Anthony Doerr, author of All The Light We Cannot See

Beautifully written, full of gorgeous observation and invention, extremely readable. Wonderful sentences. I loved the notion of Angela, feeling desire stirring again, remembering what it was like being a little girl waiting for Christmas, "each hour of December passing through a tunnel of strained, anticipatory patience". The descriptions of Lewis's experiences when he goes full shark, swimming, feeding, are brilliantly vivid, with a balance of the specificities of the transformation (the adaptations to the necessities of the new body, taking the metaphor seriously) and the emotional eloquence - Adam Roberts, author of Stone

Shark Heart is one of those rare books that reaches right into you and reflects lived experience so exactly, and so poetically, that it feels like you're being seen. It wears its heart openly and unapologetically on its sleeve. Equal parts tenderly comedic and tragic, the book was a difficult one to read, but I'm so glad I did - Marianne Gordon, author of The Gilded Crown

Shark Heart doesn't shy from life's most agonizing truths-death and release, the torture that comes with sudden and unexpected freedom. But, with great tenderness, Emily Habeck reminds us how life demands that we give into momentum: we adapt and we accept. I suspect that I will read this book over and over and receive a profound lesson each time. Even as it is rich with fantasy, it felt more real than anything I've read in years. - Mary Louise Parker, author of Dear Mr You