Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

For fans of A Man Called Ove, a charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.

360 pages (May 2022)

 

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Title Read-alikes: The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons; The Dolphin House by Audrey Schulman; ; Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen; The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore; The Shell Collector by Nancy Naigle; The Friend by Sigrid Nunez; The Last Chance Library by Freya Sampson; The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop by Fannie Flagg; The Way We Weren't by Phoebe Fox; Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin; The History of Love by Nicole Krauss; The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams; and The Measure by Nikki Erlick.