Westward Women

By: Alice Martin

Published by St. Martin's Press, 2026-03-10

For fans of Emma Cline and Emily St. John Mandel, Westward Women is a hypnotic and hopeful debut—part fever dream, part dystopian road trip that claws its way towards a jaw-dropping finale. "An audacious first novel to set beside Margaret Atwood." - Joyce Carol Oates It starts with an itch. In homes across the country, women ages eighteen to thirty-five begin to slow down. Tired. Blank. Restless. Drawn to the Pacific Ocean like it’s calling them home. They abandon their lives—jobs, families, their very selves. And once they reach the West, they vanish forever. At the center of the story are three young women caught in the pull of something unstoppable. Aimee follows the trail of her missing best friend to a man called the Piper—known for leading infected women West. Teenie, afflicted and unraveling, clings to a single memory as she looks out the window of the Piper’s van. And Eve, a former journalist, is chasing the story that might just consume her. Each on the edge of transformation. Drawn toward the unknown. In search of a way forward.