San Antonians may have heard of local author Isa Arsén, whose debut novel, Shoot the Moon, garnered great reviews from publications like the Associated Press (AP) and Publishers Weekly (PW). Now she's back with a new novel, The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf.

It will be available to read starting January 7, 2025. San Antonians can join the launch in person at Nowhere Bookshop, an independent, author-owned book store with a coffee, wine, and beer bar.

Both novels by Arsén — who calls herself a a certified bleeding heart — so far are romances, but the premises are very different. Shoot the Moon focused on a physics graduate starting a career at NASA while navigating feelings about a coworker — and time travel. AP called it "a bold and unconventional love story," and PW says "Arsén expertly navigates the back-and-forth of the story’s time-travel events."

For The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf, a press release heralds "darker themes with an atmospheric mid-century novel about two Shakespearean actors in an unconventional marriage finding their place in the world." According to the release, Arsén has spent some time in theater, so her writing is at least partially based on experience.

The plot follows the couple to the desert in New Mexico, where Margaret hopes for an escape from the stresses of everyday life and instead finds an eccentric director, a mysterious affair, and a challenge in figuring out how to move forward together.

Early reviews have flagged this novel as a culturally adept adept story that does justice to magical realism (Booklist), queer relationships (Kirkus Reviews), and of course, Shakespeare (CrimeReads).

“I had to write this book five times before it held any water," said Arsén in the release. "It used to be about opera singers and housewives and a very passive protagonist, which might still have made for an interesting story if that was anything close to what WOLF truly needed to be. This is the one that taught me to quit pulling my punches. ..."[I]ts core has been the same from the beginning: two twice-shy people find their teeth and learn to bite back, refusing to be leashed.”

The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf will be on sale January 7, 2025, for $30. It is published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of the Penguin Group.