The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

In Holly Gramazio’s witty and thought-provoking debut, we follow a woman named Lauren who returns from a night out to find a random man in her London flat. She thinks he’s an intruder. However, it turns out he’s actually her husband. The problem is that Lauren has never seen Michael before, but according to her friends and family, and photos of them on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

While piecing together how this could have happened, including questioning the neighbours and catching up on their text exchanges, Michael climbs into the attic to change a lightbulb and he vanishes. In his place, a new husband emerges.

Lauren soon finds out that her attic is creating an endless supply of men. She uses this to her advantage, and when she doesn’t like the man she’s married to in one life, she can send him hiking and another will climb down. This is Gramazio’s clever spin on modern dating. With each husband, Lauren discovers new friends, careers, and even finds that her closest family members have changed. This leaves her questioning all the ways her life could be different.

With time ticking on, Lauren’s patience starts to run thin and she must make a decision. Should she continue cycling through husbands within the boundaries of her cozy flat or would she rather step out and experience the real world, even if that means settling for less than absolutely perfect? 

Gramazio, a writer and game designer from Auckland, breathes life into a charming cast of characters who we come to know and cherish throughout this uplifting novel. With advanced praise from Gabrielle Zevin, Marian Keyes, and Naomi Alderman, The Husbands is on sale April 2nd. 

By Diana Patient

Holly Gramazio is a writer, game designer and curator from Adelaide, currently based in London. She founded the experimental games festival Now Play This, and wrote the script for the award-winning indie video game Dicey Dungeons. Her recent projects include New Rules, a zine collecting essays about play during the pandemic, and a collaboration with artist Lawrence Lek on a game for his exhibition NOX. She's particularly interested in rules, play, cities, gardens, games that get people acting creatively, stories that buy into a ridiculous premise and then really commit to it, and art that gets people interacting with their surroundings in new ways. The Husbands is her first novel.

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio is available for pre-order, releasing April 2nd in paperback, e-book, and audiobook formats. Check Bookshop.org, Libro.fm or Penguin Random House Canada for a retailer near you. 

My thanks to Doubleday Canada for the advanced copy. Avocado Diaries is part of the Bookshop.org affiliate program and may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.