Orchid and the Wasp

From the moment 11-year-old Gael Foess confronts her dad in the shower while he suds off the scent of another woman, readers know they are meeting a one-of-a-kind heroine. Gael realizes that she will have to support her mother, a symphony conductor who appears oblivious to her family, and her brother, who suffers from a psychosomatic illness. To do this, Gael will model her despised father, Jarleth, a man who, even during the 2008 economic meltdown, worked the system with aplomb. Her mother's new friend Art, recounting an old family story, plants the seeds of a brilliantly deceitful plan in Gael's fertile imagination. Traveling from Dublin to London to Manhattan, Gael reinvents herself in an effort to alter her family's financial trajectory. Along the way, we learn fascinating tidbits about art forgery, musical composition, and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Hard, calculating, and often tone-deaf to the needs of those she loves, Gael is nevertheless an appealing, complex character. Debut novelist Hughes, an award-winning poet, employs wry, crackling prose to proffer existential questions about what constitutes a meaningful life.