The Lesson

Winner of the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Speculative Fiction Debut

Shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award

Longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019 in Science Fiction

A Library Journal Best Book of 2019 in Science Fiction & Fantasy

A Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year in Science Fiction and Fantasy (2019)

An alien ship rests over Water Island. For five years the people of the US Virgin Islands have lived with the Ynaa, a race of superadvanced aliens on a research mission they will not fully disclose. They are benevolent in many ways but meet any act of aggression with disproportional wrath. This has led to a strained relationship between the Ynaa and the local Virgin Islanders and a peace that cannot last.

A year after the death of a young boy at the hands of an Ynaa, three families find themselves at the center of the inevitable conflict, witnesses and victims to events that will touch everyone and teach a terrible lesson.