Daytime Moon - by Kerri Schlottman (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Isa has a gift. Premonitions, intuitive insight, a knack for tarot. But she is adrift.

Years ago, she ran away from one coast to the other and never looked back, but when her brother Cole unexpectedly shows up on her stoop, she's convinced that it's time to go home. Back in the California desert, Isa is swept up in her former life of late-night drag races by the Salton Sea, beers with the locals, and haunting reminders of the twin sister she lost and the mother she never got to meet.

When Dane, the man who raised them, becomes terminally ill, Isa is forced to confront everything she ran away from. In a posthumous letter, his revelations ignite her fearless internal drive. Traveling up and down California highways, through desert and forest, roaring coastline and border towns, Isa will follow the signs so delicately woven into the fabric of her life - a name, a constellation, a painting, a gleam of recognition on the water's surface. If she can piece them together, she just might reunite the shattered remains of her beloved family.

Artfully narrated, Schlottman's novel is an unforgettable journey through hidden stories, the depths of women's secrets, the shimmering fluidity of memory, and the magic of transmutation.

Praise for DAYTIME MOON

"Daytime Moon is magnificent. It beautifully illustrates the longing we all have for the places we came from and the places we hope to arrive to, both transitory like sand castles. Gorgeous and intensely felt, Schlottman adds a worthy milestone on her journey of excellence." --Scott Semegran, award-winning writer of Starman After Midnight and The Codger and the Sparrow

"With exquisite writing, openhearted characters, and a compelling quest to unearth family secrets, Daytime Moon absolutely shines. From New York to coastal California, a vivid and thoughtful story unfolds. Pieces of a mother's hidden life come together, while Mother Earth shows signs of coming apart. The harsh realities of stranded whales and Amazonian fires meet the mystical powers of tarot cards and dreamcatchers, as Schlottman creates a wonderfully complex texture giving readers an immersive and unforgettable read." --Candi Sary, author of Magdalena

"Daytime Moon is a book about the ties that bind and the ties we find along the way. It's about the journey inward to meet ourselves, and the journey outward to connect with the people who want to love us. The writing is as beautiful as the characters' stories. The tears you cry will be the kind that remind you of what it means to be human." --Kim Hooper, author of Woman on the Verge

Review Quotes

Praise for DAYTIME MOON:

"Daytime Moon is magnificent. It beautifully illustrates the longing we all have for the places we came from and the places we hope to arrive to, both transitory like sand castles. Gorgeous and intensely felt, Schlottman adds a worthy milestone on her journey of excellence." --Scott Semegran, award-winning writer of Starman After Midnight and The Codger and the Sparrow

"With exquisite writing, openhearted characters, and a compelling quest to unearth family secrets, Daytime Moon absolutely shines. From New York to coastal California, a vivid and thoughtful story unfolds. Pieces of a mother's hidden life come together, while Mother Earth shows signs of coming apart. The harsh realities of stranded whales and Amazonian fires meet the mystical powers of tarot cards and dreamcatchers, as Schlottman creates a wonderfully complex texture giving readers an immersive and unforgettable read." --Candi Sary, author of Magdalena

"Daytime Moon is a book about the ties that bind and the ties we find along the way. It's about the journey inward to meet ourselves, and the journey outward to connect with the people who want to love us. The writing is as beautiful as the characters' stories. The tears you cry will be the kind that remind you of what it means to be human." --Kim Hooper, author of Woman on the Verge

Shelf Awareness Best Book This Week

2025 Storytrade Literary Fiction Finalist

2024 PenCraft Fiction

Award Winner 2023

American Book Fest Best Literary Fiction

"[A] dynamic, character-driven debut... Schlottman acutely nails the misty, gold-hued atmosphere of the 1980s, and deeply explores themes of class and privilege...This thought-provoking work will put readers on the lookout for what the author does next." ​--Publishers Weekly

"At the start, the novel moves chronologically, with each section headed by the name and descriptive details of one of Quinn's photographs. Eventually, however, the sections loosen, with one dated 1990 and another titled Time Traveling and dated merely Various. This shift cleverly mirrors the way the novel increasingly blurs lines, leaving readers to question their understanding of such concepts as time, art and success." --Shelf Awareness Best Books This Week

"Sensitive, stunning and staggeringly brilliant. I would give it ten stars if I could."​ --Reedsy

"At once the expansive story of two women navigating two disparate, intersecting lives, and a thoughtful meditation on the transtemporal power of photography, Kerri Schlottman's Tell Me One Thing is that rare book: an art world novel with heart."​ --Rachel Lyon, author of Fruit of the Dead

"Kerri Schlottman has delivered us the richest of reading experiences. I read Tell Me One Thing voraciously with equal parts intrigue and admiration, thinking how did she pull this off? Slinking expertly between time and location and point of view--the contrasts here are bright and nuanced, honest and vulnerable, jagged yet tender. This is a novel of great heart, examining the lines we draw as we become who we are. A devastating and rich exploration of trauma, art-making, love, and the unmistakable hauntedness of what we cannot control, yet long to. I want everyone to read this book."​ --Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman ​​

"With a clear, empathic gaze, and with a sharp, startling intelligence, Kerri Schlottman's Tell Me One Thing traces two paths--that of artist, and that of subject--through the cruel disparities of the Reagan eighties and beyond. The result is a book that asks enduring questions about what art is for and what we, all of us, owe one another. Tell Me One Thing is phenomenal."​ --Matthew Specktor, author of Always Crashing in the Same Car ​​

"In Tell Me One Thing, two women's stories begin in an instant--with a shutter click. Divergent yet inextricable, the paths and aspirations of a photographer and her young subject leap and shatter through the passage of four decades and at the mercy of American dearth, all of which Schlottman relays with understated grit and unflinching humanity. As we follow the photographer through seedy 1980s New York to today's commercially sterilized iteration, Schlottman proceeds to vivify a Polaroid snapped in a Pennsylvania trailer park, infusing viscerality and tragedy into a portrait that would have otherwise hung static on a collector's wall. By reframing an object to be admired as a child to be protected, Tell Me One Thing will both compel and confront readers with questions that only the finest of novels can posit." --Jakob Guanzon, author of Abundance, longlisted for the National Book Award ​