Zinna's intimate debut dazzles with original language, emotional sentience, and Swedish folklore as it plumbs the depths of grief, loss, and friendship. Lauren Cress, a 28-year-old woman teaching English comp at a small college outside of Washington, D.C., takes a leap out of her lonely, sedentary routine by agreeing to travel with Siri, an 18-year-old art student, to her home in Sweden. Until now, her life has been comprised of walking her dog, Annie; studying Latin to pass her insomniac nights; occasional one-night stands; and devoting much of her time to obsessively commenting on her students' essays. These habits were formed as coping mechanisms after her parents died in a car crash 10 years earlier. Siri also lost her parents, and the women are intensely bonded by grief. Tension ensues after Lauren meets Siri's older artist brother, Magnus, whom she was primed to dislike before the trip but can't stop thinking about. This leads to a rift in Lauren and Siri's friendship and a heartbreaking climax during the Midsommar celebration. The descriptions of the never-ending sunlight are inventive and luminous ("when I think of our talks there, they can sometimes feel like sun in my eyes"). Zinna reaches an inspired emotional depth that, as the title signifies, never stops blazing. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown, Ltd. (Aug.)

Adjunct professor Lauren Cress is alone in life, her parents dead and the rest of her family nonexistent, when she develops a bond with Siri, a Swedish student in her school's international program. Against good judgment, Lauren travels to Sweden with Siri to celebrate Midsommar, a holiday of "undying light." At its core, this debut novel is about well-lighted grief, inescapable grief, swimmable grief. Also without parents, Siri lives with a caretaking sister and a complicated, artistic brother whom she wants Lauren to avoid. Observed from Lauren's first-time eyes, Sweden essentially becomes a character in the book, offering new language and new experiences. Can Siri and Sweden renew Lauren? Much of Lauren's struggle is with gaining clarity in her perceptions, and when she returns home from Sweden, there is more loss and grief to face. Zinna's skilled writing and the world she has conjured are rich, textured, and vulnerable, exactly like the art that gains importance in the novel. To live is art, with darkness and light enfolded together.