All the Mothers

Bestseller Ruta (Last Day) serves up a deceptively breezy tale of a 30-something Manhattan food writer’s found family. When Sandy unexpectedly gets pregnant during a date with Justin, an aspiring rock musician, she decides she likes him enough to try to “make it work.” Tara, Justin’s mom in Brooklyn, hosts an embarrassingly retro baby shower and lets slip that Justin previously fathered a child with a woman named Steph, whom she describes as a “witch.” Things fizzle with Justin and Sandy arranges to meet with Steph, immediately connecting with her and her eight-year-old daughter, Ash. Steph is pursuing a doctorate in psychology at Columbia and deeply in debt, and the women support each other by sharing an apartment and managing their kids’ school, day care, and playdates. Then they meet another woman, a hairdresser named Kaya, who has had a child and is pregnant again, by none other than Justin, though he denies being the father, and the three mothers move in together. The plot thickens amid a custody battle with Justin, but what stands out the most are the women and children’s efforts to define themselves, as Ash comes out as nonbinary and Sandy resolves to go to law school. Readers will fall in love with this winning novel. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. (May)