somafrazier

Since 2019, I’ve spent my nights in a well-worn armchair—late enough to aurally pinpoint the tree where a great horned owl calls out in the darkness beyond my window—and written a novel about college dropout Mei, who does her best to mind her own business but gets tangled up in a dicey international issue.

Here are some early words about Off the Books:

“This book tossed me into the back of the car and drove me out to horizons that were startling, hopeful and utterly captivating.”

—Daniel “Lemony Snicket” Handler, bestselling author of A Series of Unfortunate Events

“Off the Books made me put my kid to bed late—but I’m not mad about it! Instead, I’m grateful to Soma Mei Sheng Frazier for this riveting read. Without a doubt, one of the most complex, cool, hilarious, politically astute, and unexpected yet totally necessary novels I’ve read in forever.”

—Kate Schatz, New York Times bestselling author of Do the Work and Rad American Women A-Z

“What an improbable page-turner! Suspenseful and political, OFF THE BOOKS proves deeply compassionate as well. A real pleasure.”

—Gish Jen, author of The Resisters

“In Soma Mei Sheng Frazier’s Off the Books, student-turned-limo-driver Mei and her mysterious passenger travel from San Francisco to Syracuse and back, but also around the world and into the dark corners of humanity, as well as into Mei’s past and her struggle to make sense of her own identity and the recent death of her father. Along the way, we meet one of my favorite characters in a good long while, Mei’s iconoclastic, pot-smoking, funny, and wise grandfather. Soma Mei Sheng Frazier is a masterful storyteller who draws on humor and compassion to show us the world we live in, then asks us not to look away. I could have kept driving cross country with these characters forever.”

—Lori Ostlund, author of After the Parade

“Off the Books takes us off the beaten path. You will find yourself on a suspenseful ride with treacherous twists and turns that make this debut novel hard to put down. Frazier’s soulful, conversational style welcomes us into an easy friendship with Mei, the quirky, main character. When she discovers what matters to her, it matters to us.”

—April Sinclair, author of Coffee Will Make You Black

I hope these characters will matter to you as well.

Please consider preordering now. (It was news to me that some authors buy their way onto bestseller lists, and to make it on without cheating, preorders are key: major bestseller lists only take the book’s first week of sales, plus preorders, into account—and some do not count Amazon orders; only bookstore buys!)

Happy reading, and thank you for helping ensure the owl outside my window isn’t the only witness to my storytelling.