DAW Books has acquired North American rights for Mad Sisters of Esi, a  stunning meta fantasy about the power of stories, belief, and sisterhood by Tashan Mehta. 

In the vein of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi and Italo Calvino’s If On A Winter’s Night a Traveler, Mad Sisters of Esi is told from the alternating POVs of sisters Myung and Laleh, the keepers and sole inhabitants of the impossible whale of babel. 

About the acquisition, Executive Editor Navah Wolfe says “I have never read anything quite like this book–it haunted me from the first page to the powerful final line. Reading it felt like spending time inside a dream–unsettling, but in a way that makes sense and comes together beautifully. It’s gorgeous, unsettling, powerful, and absolutely haunting.”

You can read more about the acquisition along with an excerpt from this brilliant novel on Reactor.