BookView Review

BookView Review rated it:

Buy now

Pub date April 29, 2025

Muse of the Moon Books

ISBN 9798992780567

Price $9.99 (USD) eBook

Pages 233

A young man searches for meaning in a world that no longer feels solid in Hayden’s  atmospheric debut. Set in a vividly drawn 1996 Chicago, the story follows Isaac André—a jazz lover, sci-fi reader, and VHS clerk—as he drifts through a life haunted by memory, absence, and the eerie pull of synchronicity. When Isaac logs into a clunky early internet chatroom and connects with Noa Gayle, a sharp, curious woman who seems to already know his rhythms, his life takes a sudden turn. 

Hayden’s writing is warmly fluid and textured, alive with the rhythms of Southside Chicago. Side characters, such as the old-school Tommy, the playful Pete, the abrasive Sharika, and the creepy Teddy, are rich with personality, but it’s Isaac’s quiet inner life, his hesitations, longings, and subtle shifts, that give the novel its weight. Hayden doesn’t rush. He lets the atmosphere build, and by the time things start to feel uncanny, the reader is already invested. At its core, this is a meditation on place, memory, and soul; a slow-burn portrait of human experience. And like the best works of speculative realism, it leaves you with a haunting question: what if all of this isn’t just chance? What if you were always meant to be exactly where you are?

A beautiful, tender, and quietly profound novel that lingers long after the final page.

***