Hestia strikes a match

When the U.S. dissolves into a civil war in 2023, Hestia Harris focuses on what comes naturally to her 40-year-old self in times of turmoil: romance. As a liberal in Baltimore, she watches as her half of the nation battles the seceded states, the New Confederated States of America, in a near dystopia of curfews and safety apps. In between news alerts and frustrating conversations with her conservative parents, she attempts to move on from a rocky marriage with a slew of suitors. Meanwhile, her new job at a retirement village involves teaching "a writing class focusing on lived history," and she recounts the retirees' responses (and her own) in interludes between her dating escapades. The colorful cast includes Mildred, a delightful and larger-than-life 80-year-old, and Sarah, Hestia's younger, more mysterious colleague. Author Grillo cleverly constructs a reality not too far removed from our own, satirizing the divisions roiling the U.S. today. This sharp, sparkling debut is a timely reminder of what connects people even in a country tearing itself apart: the desire to love.

Grillo's cheerful and misanthropic debut follows the romantic and ideological feints of a 40-something woman during the second American Civil War. It's 2023 and a dozen states have seceded to form the New Confederated States of America, while what's left of the Union limps along under the command of its first Black Madame President. Hestia Harris, a writer, tries to avoid the hordes of flag-toting Confederates trolling the libs in her precarious border state. Having heard nothing from her estranged husband in the two years since he left to join a unionist paramilitary group, Hestia turns to dating apps, screening cringeworthy profiles for Confederate leanings. The civil war element doesn't yield much of a plot, though an act of Confederate terrorism proves consequential, and as Hestia adjusts to the new normal, she finds time for sex while the ruins of democracy smolder in the background. Occasionally, the setup feels half-baked, though for the most part Grillo pulls off a clever satire of life in a divided country. At its best, this is Bridget Jones's Diary for the post-MAGA era. Agent: Naomi Eisenbeiss, Inkwell Management. (Apr.)

Looking for love during America's Second Civil War can be tricky. The mutation of the nation's current political dysfunction into actual civil war is fast becoming a go-to setting for contemporary fiction, but debut novelist Grillo puts a new spin on it by focusing on the romantic misadventures of Hestia, whose husband recently left her to join a pro-Union paramilitary group. The marriage was already shaky, so she's checking out online dating sites but finds that it's hard to avoid flirting with guys on the other side. Hestia lives in Baltimore, and there are plenty of Confederate sympathizers in the border state of Maryland. Her own parents are just about to move to one of the 12 seceded states, and it becomes clear over the course of the novel that their dismissive comments about the United States Hestia supports are part of a lifelong pattern of undermining her that clearly contributes to her tendency to eventually find reasons to dump any man unwise enough to show that he likes her. Grillo deftly spins a busy plot that also include Hestia's friendship with Mildred, an elderly resident at the retirement village where she works, and her growing attachment to her brother-in-law, Jamie, who is raising three kids on his own after his wife was killed in a Confederate terrorist attack. The author's undeniable point is that daily life goes on even in extreme circumstances; people choose restaurants and places to walk based on the updates in their Safe Zones app, but they continue to eat out and spend time outdoors just the same. The salty comments of Mildred and the village residents participating in Hestia's oral history project provide welcome relief from Hestia's often mopey narration, and the characters and social backdrop are equally well drawn, but in the end it's hard to see why we should care. A sharply observed and written tale that never seems to add up to much. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.