A Midwestern atmospheric literary fiction collection rooted in place, season, and complicated lives
Some towns don’t change. They just learn how to hide it better.
In the northern Midwest, ordinary lives bend quietly, until they don’t.
In the quiet towns and backroads of the northern Midwest, nothing stays buried forever.
Set against apple orchards, corn mazes, gravel roads, and wind-cut fields, North of Ordinary is a literary short story collection that traces the
Blending contemporary literary fiction with the textures of rural America, this collection captures the quiet drama of people caught between obligation and desire, memory and reinvention. Each story is grounded in Midwestern landscapes—where the air carries cider, dust, and something unsaid—and where even the smallest decision can echo.
Perfect for readers who love:
character-driven fiction and emotionally resonant storytelling
small town drama and layered relationships
atmospheric literary fiction with a strong sense of place
coming-of-age themes, family tension, and quiet unravelings
the work of Elizabeth Strout, Annie Proulx, and Raymond Carver
North of Ordinary is a collection about what lingers— in towns that remember, in families that fracture and hold, and in the long, quiet moment before a life changes course.
Shady Oak Press (2025) ISBN: 978-1961841468 Reviewed by Stephanie Elizabeth Long for Reader Views (09/2025)
Abigail Whimsy and Lainey Bliss have been best friends since the second grade. Like yin and yang, their opposites somehow fit together like errant puzzle pieces. Whimsy exists in a world of vibrant dreams and imagination, while Lainey is pragmatic and even-keeled, which anchors Abigail. Because nothing good can last forever, the girls have one final summer together before Lainey goes off to a fancy college, leaving Abigail behind.
Before Lainey leaves, Abigail has devised a plan. They will create a map (complete with a detailed legend) and explore all the mysteries of their town—dismantle the “thin” places, using her late grandmother’s journal (chaotic musings) as a guide.
As they delve deeper into the journey, Abigail’s reality becomes skewed, and Lainey’s attempts to keep her friend’s sanity in check become more difficult. The places they visit awaken a humming within Abigail, and the more they add to the map, the louder the hum becomes.
Whimsy and Bliss is a coming-of-age literary masterpiece. Angela Gray’s writing is known for its vivid imagery and deep metaphors, and this novel is no exception. Readers will quickly be immersed in Abigail’s world of wanderlust, where magic and realism become blurred. Beyond that, the character-driven story explores themes of friendship, self-discovery, and bridging the transition from childhood to young adulthood.
Sometimes it can be hard to decipher the difference between imagination and illness. The author has done an excellent job of illustrating Abigail’s unraveling—the whispering of nature, the ebb and flow of the hum, and the excitement turned obsession. With every place Abigail and Lainey traversed, I fell more in tune with Abigail’s frequency, at times questioning what was real and what was fictitious—this is the type of story that makes you see the world differently.
Whimsy and Bliss certainly highlights the plight of mental illness, particularly hypomania. Still, at its core, the novel’s overarching message is one of connection and trust—it’s the impenetrable sisterhood between two young women on the cusp of adulthood. In a world that is often stuck in the me-versus-you mentality, the solidarity between friends is refreshing, teaching us that we don’t have to suffer alone; we can lean on others for support.
For readers who love young adult books about friendship and adventure with a focus on mental health, this literary gem will appeal to you. Angela Gray’s exquisite prose is unmatched, and the multilayered characters are memorable. Abigail and Lainey’s map of thin places will forever hold a special place in my heart.
This is the summer of locked doors, fragile rituals, and the ghosts that keep count.
I’m Stevie Matthews—almost sixteen, the kind of girl people whisper about. “Bat-shit crazy,” they say. Maybe they’re right. This summer, the order cracks. Obsessive thoughts tighten like barbed wire, rituals multiply, and the only way forward is a hospital stay I never asked for.
Behind those doors, I meet strangers who feel both broken and familiar, each carrying their own secret galaxies of fear and hope. Together, we make a kind of map—messy, jagged, stitched with laughter, unraveling with heartbreak.
This is the story of how I learn that friendship can be born from accident, that healing isn’t neat or pretty, and that sometimes the bravest thing is to stay.
This book is a tender, unflinching portrait of adolescence, OCD, and the fragile alchemy of survival—equal parts bruised and luminous, like a diary written in ink and ghost light.
Some stories begin with a single spark. For me, it was a scene in a psych ward where Nico and Zibby from The Cartography of First Love found themselves alongside Abigail Whimsy from Whimsy and Bliss and Aspen James from Shadows We Carry. At first, they shared the same space—four voices pressed together by circumstance, four fragile hearts mapping escape routes in whispers. But as I wrote, each one began to grow beyond the walls I had built, demanding not just a role in a shared narrative but the full breath of their own.
What began as one writing endeavor quickly branched into three novels. I realized I loved each of them too much to let them be shadows in someone else’s story. Nico and Zibby’s romance needed its own compass. Whimsy’s dreamlike adventures deserved to unfurl before her diagnosis became part of her arc. And Aspen’s haunted sketches needed the weight of silence and discovery only their own narrative could hold. By giving them individual pages, I gave them the freedom to tell me who they really were.
The backstories I first drafted in that shared ward became scaffolding—notes, fragments, hints of a life I would later let bloom fully. For Whimsy and Aspen, I wrote them at a point before hospitalization, while their lives were still luminous with magic and not yet marked by diagnosis, though Whimsy’s epilogue eventually folds that thread in. It was the only way to honor their wonder as much as their struggle. For Nico and Zibby, I leaned into the familiar rhythms of the ward itself—the routines, the hush, and the clamor—because their love story was inseparable from that claustrophobic yet strangely tender landscape.
Each character is close to my heart because their beginnings trace back to my own. I was hospitalized repeatedly between the ages of 13 and 15 for an eating disorder. I remember the unlikely friendships, the long hours, and the way we mapped impossible escape plans—California always our imagined salvation. Those memories, both heartrending and inspiring, found new breath through Zibby, Nico, Whimsy, and Aspen. What started as one shared room became three worlds, each carrying a piece of that past and reshaping it into a story.
Living beside the water should be peaceful until the bodies of mystery infants wash ashore. A nightmare scenario unfolds: the third in a string of dead bodies turns up in the suburban lake, rekindling the mysterious occurrence. Each is a premature baby, and they were delivered a year apart. DNA tests show they’re all related half-siblings with no mother in sight. No one around the vicinity can venture a guess as to whose offspring they are. Disturbed by the gruesome discoveries, the residents challenge the police to find the mythical woman responsible for the serial deaths.
Moving ahead ten years and new to this department, Detective Chayse Adler is at a loss with the cold case file. Tasked with tackling the enigmatic case may unearth a deadly secret and endanger the lives of those involved. But as she wades into the investigation, the alleged accessory list grows.
Everyone is guessing who it is that holds the deadly secrets in this gripping page-turner of emotional rawness that will have you racing for the anxiety-inducing finale. This book’s compelling plot will get under your skin and hook you with this fast-paced, fully-engrossing read.
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