Why we’re excited
San Diego, 1969. The world is watching Apollo, and Gwen is watching her mother. Since a blow to the head, eighty-year-old Lucille has become reckless and cheerful, and she has moved a much younger man into her home. Gwen, bound by a promise to her late father, tries to stop it while her own teenage daughter withdraws after a death in Vietnam.
Susan Meissner is a USA Today bestseller known for women-centred historical fiction such as Secrets of a Charmed Life, The Last Year of the War and A Map to Paradise. With three generations in one family and a moon landing overhead, this looks made for book clubs.
On our most-anticipated list since 1 November 2026. See all the most anticipated books →
What to know about Somewhere, Something Incredible
We have reviewed one of Susan Meissner’s books so far: A Map to Paradise.
From the publisher
When her elderly mother starts making impulsive choices, Gwen panics – but her mother insists everyone, regardless of age, has the right to choose their own happiness in this new novel by beloved author, Susan Meissner.
San Diego, 1969. As Apollo astronauts prepare to take the first steps on the moon, Gwen is simply trying to hold her world together. A devoted daughter, wife, and mother, she has honored a promise to her deceased father to care for her well-off but fragile and dependent mother, Lucille.
But when a head injury transforms eighty-year-old Lucille into a bold, impulsive woman who brazenly invites a younger, ponytailed opportunist to live with her, Gwen’s grip begins to falter. She can’t believe what her mother is doing, but can she stop her? Meanwhile, her eighteen-year-old daughter, Natalie—reeling from a friend’s death in Vietnam—has gone quiet. Too quiet.
As the moon landing draws near, Gwen must confront the limits of control, the weight of promises, and the terrifying beauty of letting go.
Description supplied by the publisher.
We haven’t read Somewhere, Something Incredible yet. When our review goes up, it will replace this page.
