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REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK • BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB PICK
Named a Most Anticipated Book of Summer 2026 by NPR, People, Oprah Daily, Harper's Bazaar, Town and Country, Esquire, The New York Post, The Boston Globe, WGBH, Real Simple, The Root, Publishers Weekly, and more
“Delicious . . . Our ghost-narrator hashes out the tale with an endearing mix of tenderness and resentment. . . . Woven through this story are enough characters and plotlines to fill several more novels, but Sanders handles the abundance of material with restraint. . . . Sanders’s narrative shifts gorgeously through time and place to reveal all that’s been passed down through generations of Lambs.”
—The New York Times
“Expectations were running high for Shannon Sanders' first novel. . . . A playful and poignant intergenerational saga about a haunted farm in which ancestors watch over and critique the living for posterity and entertainment, The Great Wherever leaps over that bar. . . . Inventive and new . . . I was hooked from the first sentence.”
—NPR, 15 Most Anticipated Books of Summer
“A gripping saga of Black legacy.”
—People, Must-Read Books for Summer 2026
“Wonderfully satisfying . . . [The] voice is one of the more winning I’ve encountered in any novel of the past decade.”
—The Boston Globe
“Simply put, this book is a pleasure and a treasure. Witty and wise, intelligent and engaging, heartbreaking and heartmending. Shannon Sanders is a writer to keep your eye on.”
—Tayari Jones
“The Great Wherever is an epic and deeply human story of family and fortune that reaches across the divide between the living and the dead with grace, humor, and emotional conviction. Shannon Sanders’s love for her characters is matched only by her ability to make us care about them as much as she does. I’m in awe of what she accomplishes in this astoundingly good debut novel.”
—Patrick Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of Buckeye
“If you like a little moral complexity along with your entertainment, I recommend Shannon Sanders' rich, Black, generational epic The Great Wherever. . . . Fans of The Love Songs of W.E.B DuBois, this one's for you.”
—WYPR
“Sanders’s debut novel sings, joining a choir of voices alongside Toni Morrison and August Wilson in conjuring memory with contemporary urgency.”
—The Brooklyn Rail
“This is a truly magnificent novel from a uniquely powerful voice. A bighearted triumph.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A gripping multigenerational epic of land, home, and inheritance . . . Sanders poses timely questions of ownership and ancestry, and she packs the novel with indelible imagery. . . . This resonates.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Powerful . . . I ate up this debut. ”
—Modern Mrs. Darcy
“A debut novel that is part family saga, part historical fiction, part ghost story, and entirely captivating . . . Sanders expertly portrays familial relationships, imbuing her characters with pathos and humor as they grapple with the complexities of family legacy.”
—Booklist
“Sanders is a sublime writer with unparalleled talent. I could read her writing all day, every day.”
—Debutiful, The Most Anticipated Debut Books of 2026
“A brilliant creation—funny and chaotic.”
—Good Housekeeping (UK)
“Sanders writes with pace and emotion, tackling a multigenerational story rooted in the American South. Oh, and the afterlife has a starring role.”
—Elle (UK)
“Sanders has created something remarkable here, that feels haunting, hopeful, funny, sad and longing all at the same time.”
—Red
“The Great Wherever is fertile ground for Shannon Sanders’s vast gifts as a writer. Dead or alive, righteous or wrong, every one of her Lambs is a singular, beautiful mess, together growing the rich family history she seeds, from page one, with great care, heart, and unyielding humor. By the novel’s end, I felt as dazzled as one of the ancestors at the edge of the pond, in awe of all its beauty and magic.”
—Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
“In The Great Wherever, Sanders masterfully bridges generations and yet is still able to home in on her characters' intricate inner lives. By the end, they all feel like family, and reading their story feels like coming home. Gripping, moving, witty, and wise, this is historical fiction at its finest.”
—Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of On the Rooftop, a Reese’s Book Club pick
“What unfolds in The Great Wherever is not a single story but a gathering of them—voices overlapping, correcting, and remembering differently. Shannon Sanders allows those differences to stand, creating a narrative that feels layered, unsettled, and true to the way families actually move through time — together, but not always in agreement. Sanders writes the Lamb family with enormous care and irresistible vitality; even their ghosts carry vanity, heartbreak, and humor. An utterly transporting debut.”
—Essie Chambers, bestselling author of Swift River, a Today Show Read With Jenna Book Club Pick
“The Great Wherever is an arch yet heartwarming tale of family, the ghosts that haunt them, and the place we call home. Between the story's heartbreaks, we get leaps of humor that made me love every member of the Lamb family, the ones dead and the ones alive. It is rare to root for every character and yet I found myself doing so. What a gift of a book.”