What Wild Women Do: A Novel

If you want to transform, you can’t be tentative. —Eddie Callaway, Wild Women Handbook (1975)

An aspiring contemporary screenwriter, a 1970s socialite-turned-feminist, and the camp in the woods that ties their stories together forever, in #1 internationally bestselling author Karma Brown’s new novel about ambition, betrayal, and the wildness that exists in all of us.

Rowan is stuck. Her dream of becoming a Hollywood screenwriter is stalled, and so she and her novelist fiancé, Seth, retreat to an isolated cabin in the Adirondacks to hopefully get out of their creative ruts. There, Rowan finds herself drawn into a mysterious and unsettling story—that of socialite-turned-feminist-crusader Eddie Callaway, who vanished in these same woods the summer of 1975 and was never heard from again. A handbook found in the abandoned ruins of the Callaway camp gives Rowan glimpses into who Eddie was, and then a fateful discovery offers clues about what might have happened to her. Soon, Rowan finds herself with a story potentially more shocking than Eddie’s notes about sun salutations and pineapple upside-down cake would indicate.

As Rowan learns more about the enigmatic Eddie, who got a second chance at life after a profound loss, she discovers the camp leader’s greatest wish: to help other women unlock their true, though long-repressed, “wildness.” However, Eddie’s methods and wild ways weren’t welcomed by all, and rifts between the camp owners threatened her mission, perhaps perilously. As Rowan draws closer to the truth of Eddie’s unsolved disappearance, she realizes that the past may hold two keys: one that reveals what really happened to Eddie Callaway, and another that unlocks a future beyond her wildest imagination.