The Crane Husband

In a near-future Midwest town hemmed in by corporate cornfields and surveillance drones, a teenage girl runs her household: she cooks, budgets, raises her six-year-old brother Michael, and quietly keeps their fragile life together after their father’s death. Then her mother—an acclaimed textile artist who takes in strays—brings home an injured crane wearing a hat, spectacles, and the dead father’s shoes, and insists the children call him “Father.”

The crane doesn’t leave. Instead, he consumes the home from the inside: food vanishes, feathers multiply, the sheep panic, and the mother’s body accumulates cuts and bruises she refuses to name. As the daughter investigates, she discovers the crane can become a man, and the “romance” is violence disguised as devotion. Trapped between social services, poverty, and a family legacy of mothers who “fly away,” the girl makes a desperate plan—one that saves her brother in the moment, but fractures their lives for years to come.

• Listeners who want a dark, folkloric horror tale about coercive love and domestic violence, told in an urgent, intimate voice.
• Fans of modern myth retellings and literary horror set against economic decline, corporate control, and family inheritance.
• Readers drawn to stories about older siblings forced into adulthood, with emotionally sharp consequences and no easy rescue.

Kelly Barnhill is an American author known for both adult and middle grade fiction. Her works include When Women Were Dragons and the Newbery Medal–winning The Girl Who Drank the Moon. She is also a recipient of the World Fantasy Award and lives in Minneapolis.