Upstate

From New York Times bestselling author Kim van Alkemade comes a story of love, loss, and healing that speaks to our present moment while richly evoking the past. A grieving writer who sets out to revive an abandoned bookshop in upstate New York discovers forgotten letters that reveal the shop’s secret sapphic history.

Coming October 27, 2026

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About Upstate

Praise for Upstate

“A beautiful and moving novel about the love we carry for those who leave us suddenly or who slip away little by little. Sharply observed and elegantly woven across two timelines, Upstate is an ode to our shared humanity, the power of stories, and the grace we find in opening our hearts to each other. A breathtaking meditation on grief and healing.”

- Marjan Kamali, NYT bestselling author of The Lion Women of Tehran

Praise for Upstate

"In Upstate, expert storyteller Kim van Alkemade deftly weaves together the voices of three extraordinary women, each looking for love, meaning, and a way to make their shattered families whole again. This page-turner has it all: starting over in midlife, sapphic longing, a dreamy bookstore - even a flock of sheep. I couldn't put it down, and cried more than once! By turns tender and unflinching, Upstate is the kind of novel you can wholeheartedly recommend to every reader you know."

— Amy Shearn, author of Animal Instinct

Praise for Upstate

"In Upstate, Kim van Alkemade tells a layered, deeply human story about the ties that bind us—between partners, across generations, and within the communities that carry us when life breaks open. It’s a novel that stays with you, a reminder that even in our hardest moments, we are not alone."

- Geneveive Graham, bestselling author of The Chambermaid's Key

Praise for Upstate

"A big-hearted tapestry of a novel about three women whose lives intersect at a bookstore in upstate New York. Starting in the 1950s, when one woman falling in love with another could have dangerous ramifications, and moving into the time of COVID, when you could lose your loved one over the course of a weekend, this is a profoundly moving story about grief, healing, love, caretaking, entrepreneurship, sheep, bees and, most of all, the joy of the community of the bookstore. You cannot read this novel and not want to hug your local bookstore owner. Or perhaps open a bookstore yourself."

- Susan Breen, author of Merry

Praise for Upstate

"A heartwarming tale of second chances and the power of community despite our differences, Upstate is the novel we all need right now. It reminds us that we are stronger for our losses and that it is never too late to forgive. It's the best bookstore book I've read in years."

- Amy Meyerson, author of the international bestseller, The Bookshop of Yesterdays

Praise for Upstate

"Brimming with richly detailed emotion and prose, Upstate offers a poignant, inspiring and triumphant example for anyone who has dreamed of an escape to the country and the chance to restore connection, both to the past and to each other."

- Natalie Jenner, internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society

Praise for Upstate

"Kim van Alkemade deftly juggles important and well-developed themes; love and loss, familial function and dysfunction, new beginnings, reinventing of self, building of community, masking and unmasking of the true self, regeneration, and unexpected connections. The story of women leaving their urban environments to escape to a simpler and quieter rural setting belies the more profound questions of confronting generational trauma, loss, emotional exposure, self-examination and the acceptance of new truths that await them in their new home. What many may view as silvan, simple lifestyles of the rural folk is here presented with all its complexities and nuances of the human condition everywhere. Open the book, sit back, and get ready to enter a world of interesting characters, unexpected situations and discovery of historical truths seldom explored in our society."

- Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, award-winning author of Daughters of the Stone and A Woman of Endurance