• Impressive sales and publicity record: Cooney’s past books, both with CHP and elsewhere, have sold very well. One Night Two Souls was widely reviewed in national media, including being named a book of the year by NPR, Kirkus, Bustle, and others. Cooney has cultivated strong bookstore relationships and will be an active partner in marketing & publicity outreach.
• Women at work:this is the second novel Cooney has written as part of a project to intentionally highlight the working lives of women. There is an understated but profound feminism in the way that Cooney chooses to focus on moments of transformation that happen to women without them encountering danger or physical harm. A third book, forthcoming from CHP in 2025, will tell the story of a woman building a house from a Sears kit house in the 1930s.
• Classism and sexism:Cooney captures the everyday indignities and significant discrimination that women frequently experience in the workplace. Class differences are another key theme, with the protagonist often / contrast between blue-collar upbringing and current suburban home and corporate workplace.
• Unusual use of place:A rural inn & restaurant called the Rose & Emerald is central to the story, the kind of place that will be familiar to most readers and carries a lovely sense of nostalgia. Yet Cooney reveals secrets and details that develop it into basically another protagonist.
• For readers of Kent Haruf, Elizabeth Strout, Laird Hunt, and Marilynne Robinson.