Description
One of Lit Hub‘s Most Anticipated Books of 2026
A fable about love and innocence and beauty, and finding a light through the darkness.
There’s a city on an island in the Pacific that can only be reached by ferry, a city where a mechanic named Frank opens a garage with his old friend Charlie. Both men marry the women they love but are unable to have children. There are drugs on the streets of this city that take away pain for strings of minutes and bring synthetic rapture; and by these streets the couples are given two babies, abandoned under strange circumstances. The boy they name Daphnis, and the girl Chloe.
And so begins a book unlike anything else, a modern retelling of an ancient story. Part Ovid and part True Romance, and narrated by Eros himself, Daphnis and Chloe offers a pulpy meditation on love and beauty, on people triumphing over darkness by wrestling deep within it, on the solace of art, and on the simple but profound pleasure provided to a blind old man as he holds his wife’s hand and listens to an increasingly familiar story.
Praise for Daphnis and Chloe
“A classic tale rung through the contemporary ringer, narrated by the one and only LOVE, that universal townie that’s always hovering in the corner when the party turns sour. Is LOVE at fault, at play, the saver of the everloving day, or, as per usual, the party ouroboros? Do they ‘conquer all’ or just snag a case of beer and que sera out the back door? Step inside, grab a Solo cup and see.”
—Ian McCord, Rec Room Books (Athens, GA)
“This dark modern reimagining of the ancient story of two foundlings whose love—at first innocent, then lost, ultimately to be found again—is told by Eros himself. Despite the horrific circumstances that separate them, and the violence that ensues, they learn with love, there is hope. A small volume that packs a powerful punch. A propulsive, mesmerizing read.”
—Alana Haley, Schuler Books (Grand Rapids, MI)
“A dark fable underlined by a glowing current, this slim novel is an incantation, a reminder of the human story we all already know in our bones. Sketched anew in stark contrast against the ocean, the land, and the car mechanic shop, this is a story of parentage, destined lovers, brutal bikers, and the underbelly of a city. Doesn’t daylight show us the contours of darkness itself, asks McAdam? In the words of the author: ‘It might not look like love, but it was.’ Anyone with a romantic bone in their body will be enchanted by McAdam’s prose and the way this dark story will slide into your heart: sturdy, reliable, true in the old way.”
—Julia Paganelli Marin, Pearl’s Books (Fayetteville, AR)
“This short, but powerful novel draws you in with the sense of a modern myth. In a fresh way, it tells of the ache of love and heartbreak; desire and longing, innocence and darkness; and predators and prey. I was completely drawn into this story.”
—Katrina Bright-Yerges, Books & Company (Oconomowoc, WI)
“A gorgeously written, unsettling retelling of an old story. It packs a lot in so few pages but it stays with you long after you’re done.”
—Matt Burris, Magic City Books (Tulsa, OK)
“One of the most human books I’ve read of late, and reads more like a Greek tragedy than novel (it is, of course, narrated by Eros). The grittiness of day to day life lends a modern feel to the story, yet the characters live on a remote island, accessible only by ferry, which adds a morality-tale ‘land far, far away’ magic. Read it for the love story, but enjoy it for its simple and intelligent examination of family and humanity.”
—Erin Chervenock, Village Books (Bellingham, WA)
“Colin McAdam has written a wee gem of a book, a deceptively tender layering of what feel like aphorisms but are more than that. ‘When you feel pure love . . . you attain the highest wisdom,’ says the narrator of Daphnis and Chloe, the narrator being Eros himself. ‘Life becomes very simple. Each day’s purpose is clear: love.’ That isn’t always clear to some of the tortured souls that inhabit this tale, pain and beauty walking hand in hand. But there are small triumphs nonetheless, this book being one of them.”
—Ian Gill, Upstart & Crow (Vancouver, BC)
Praise for Colin McAdam
“His voice is original and fiercely intelligent. It somehow possesses this combination of hard-won world weariness and exuberant, unshakeable faith in a better world. The essence of his prose, for me, is contradiction . . . my favourite thing . . . contradictions and layers and layers of meaning. He exposes all of our treacherous and base instincts but with the unspoken caveat that, in spite of our horrible human ways, we must always, relentlessly, struggle to love each other.”
—Miriam Toews, author of A Complicated Kindness
“I have long been convinced that Colin McAdam is a literary genius. What’s extraordinary is that each of the books he writes is a totally distinct type of genius. Every time. He’s in a league of his own.”
—Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers
“McAdam teases and turns around language, giving us a creative and wondrous portrait of nonhuman society from the inside out.”
—Dan Kois, Slate
“Both disarmingly familiar and richly, movingly strange.”
—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
