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Needle Lake
  • Published: 16 December 2025
  • ISBN: 9780593447239
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $70.00

Needle Lake

A Novel

  • Justine Champine
Formats & editions
EBook
2 Dec 2025
Audiobook
2 Dec 2025
Hardback
16 Dec 2025
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Two cousins on very different sides of teen girlhood spend one winter together that changes both of their lives forever.

Two cousins on very different sides of teen girlhood spend a winter together that changes both of their lives forever.

“A searing, unforgettable novel that captures the intense and dangerous alchemy of girlhood.”—Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman

And once, after Elna came to stay, I watched a man drown there on Christmas Eve, his body trapped beneath the ice.

Fourteen-year-old Ida was born with a hole in her heart. Forbidden from most physical activities and considered strange by her teachers and peers, she prefers spending time alone, memorizing countries and capitals on her globe and imagining the world outside the tiny logging town of Mineral, Washington.

One afternoon, in walks her cousin Elna, there to stay for a few weeks. Ida hasn’t seen Elna since they were children, and she’s immediately drawn to her older cousin, who’s everything Ida is not: confident, glamorous, charismatic, and daring. Elna lives in San Francisco, a city Ida has seen only as a dot on her globe. She doesn’t treat Ida like she’s a fragile kid whose heart might give out at any moment. She isn’t scared off by Ida’s quirks and fixations. Ida is enraptured.

Then, on Christmas Eve, a man dies out in the woods near Mineral, and the two cousins suddenly share a secret beyond the scope of anything Ida has dealt with before. Fear begins to mix with the reverence Ida feels toward her cousin, especially when she discovers Elna is hiding more than she ever suspected. Brimming with lush prose and careful observation, Needle Lake is an arresting portrait of girlhood and the overwhelming, sometimes dangerous intensity of adolescence.
  • Published: 16 December 2025
  • ISBN: 9780593447239
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $70.00
Categories:

Praise for Needle Lake

  • "Haunting and gorgeously wrought … with characters so alive and real they leap off the page and prose so exacting it took my breath away. Justine Champine has once again proven herself to be a master of small-town American psychological drama." – Gabrielle Korn, author of Yours for the Taking
  • "Immersive, atmospheric, and wise, this is a spellbinding exploration of identity, belonging, and the treacherous journey through adolescence. Chock full of suspense and beauty, Needle Lake cements Justine Champine as a brilliant and original voice." – Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman and Godshot
  • "Needle Lake is girlhood at its most chillingly relatable. ... Beautiful and deliberate prose pulses like an invigorating nightmare, inviting readers into moments of wonder before presenting realities we can't wake up from. Delicate and sharp pacing moves through the spooky, small-town setting in the Pacific Northwest, leading us to the scariest people in the world: girls. For fans of Brutes, Nightbitch, and Boy Parts." – Marissa Higgins, author of A Good Happy Girl
  • "I couldn't turn the pages of Needle Lake fast enough. … Champine has created a truly unforgettable character in Ida and has so beautifully captured the quiet terror of otherness, of growing up different and longing for an escape, longing for a place that may or may not exist at all." – Marisa Crane, author of A Sharp Endless Need

  • "Haunting and gorgeously wrought … with characters so alive and real they leap off the page and prose so exacting it took my breath away. Justine Champine has once again proven herself to be a master of small-town American psychological drama." – Gabrielle Korn, author of Yours for the Taking
  • "Immersive, atmospheric, and wise, this is a spellbinding exploration of identity, belonging, and the treacherous journey through adolescence. Chock full of suspense and beauty, Needle Lake cements Justine Champine as a brilliant and original voice." – Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman and Godshot
  • "Needle Lake is girlhood at its most chillingly relatable. ... Beautiful and deliberate prose pulses like an invigorating nightmare, inviting readers into moments of wonder before presenting realities we can't wake up from. Delicate and sharp pacing moves through the spooky, small-town setting in the Pacific Northwest, leading us to the scariest people in the world: girls. For fans of Brutes, Nightbitch, and Boy Parts." – Marissa Higgins, author of A Good Happy Girl
  • "I couldn't turn the pages of Needle Lake fast enough. … Champine has created a truly unforgettable character in Ida and has so beautifully captured the quiet terror of otherness, of growing up different and longing for an escape, longing for a place that may or may not exist at all." – Marisa Crane, author of A Sharp Endless Need