banner image of fanny pack

Calling all Emma Straub fans!

Preorder American Fantasy from participating independent bookstores nationwide and receive an exclusive fanny pack! Designed in the cover's stunning colors, this limited-edition bag is your perfect new everyday accessory (ideal for stashing your essentials on your next cruise). Reserve your copy through your local indie bookstore and snag this special gift while supplies last!

Participating stores listed below, along with information and links to preorder.

Questions? Please reach out to your local bookstore or email americanfantasy@penguinrandomhouse.com.

southwest

Arizona:

Bright Side Bookshop

Changing Hands Bookstore

Stacks Book Club

New Mexico:

Bookworks

Garcia Street Books

Oklahoma:

Love Stories

Texas:

Front Street Books:

Email staff@fsbooks.com or call 432-837-3360

Monkey and Dog Books:

Email iread@monkeyanddogbooks.com or call 817-489-5747

The Plot Twist Romance Bookbar

Coming april 7, 2026

American Fantasy by Emma Straub

American Fantasy

Emma Straub

From New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow, an irresistible story about what happens when your teenage fantasy comes true after you’re already an adult.

When the American Fantasy cruise ship sets sail for a four-day themed voyage, aboard are all five members of a famous, nineties-era boy band and three thousand screaming women who have worshipped them since childhood.

Feeling slightly out of place amid this crowd is Annie, newly divorced, turning fifty with an empty nest, and here on a lark to appease her sister. Yet when the lights come up and the idols of her youth begin to sing, something is unlocked. Call it memory. Call it nostalgia. Call it the chemical reaction of hormones, hope, and sexual reawakening. Between the slushy alcoholic drinks, the familiar music, and the throngs of middle-aged women acting like lovesick teenagers, Annie finally reconnects to a long-submerged part of herself. By the time she meets one of the band members—not just a celebrity but someone in need of a friend—she has accessed a new sense of possibility.

In a smart and incisive book packed with laugh-out-loud reflections on fame, aging, marriage, and middle age, Emma Straub delivers a richly textured story that shows us real passion is never truly lost, that what we love makes us who we are, and that deep meaning can sometimes be found in a sea of screaming fans.

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