"A phantom ache made real. Garcia vividly chronicles the fraught love within a splintered family, their isolated world rippling with a hint of the uncanny beneath her polished prose." -Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold With sharp human insight and unflinching prose, Other Evolutions is O. Henry Prize-winning author Rebecca Hirsch Garcia's dark, speculative debut, perfect for readers of Iain Reid and Emily St. John Mandel. Alma Alt, the sheltered youngest daughter of an interfaith, interracial Jewish-Mexican couple, rarely ventures far from her home on a wealthy tree-lined street in Ottawa, where nothing ever happens. The one time she did, striking out to visit her older sister, Marnie, in Montreal, things ended in disaster as she found out that beautiful, blonde Marnie had been lying about their family's background, trying to pass herself off as white. The fallout from that betrayal leads to a devastating accident, one that claims Alma's arm and someone's life. Alma is now stuck in a holding pattern, unable to move past her grief. But Alma's life is turned upside down by an encounter just steps from home with an impossible person: the boy she watched die. Other Evolutions is a literary debut with a dark twist that reveals the uncanny in the mundane, seeing us through the worst parts of our lives toward the weird and wonderful things right in our own backyard.

"Bridging tenderness and violence, and brimming with danger and magic, The Girl Who Cried Diamonds will leave you breathless." - Anuja Varghese, author of Chrysalis "In these 14 hard-edged and unapologetic stories, debut author Garcia tackles topics ranging from human trafficking and drug abuse to eating disorders and middle-age angst, and in no-frills prose, carves out bizarre and palpable realities, breathing strange life into a horde of depressed, deprived, and abused characters." - Publishers Weekly The boundaries between realist and fabulist, literary and speculative, are shattered in this remarkable debut collection for readers of Carmen Maria Machado, André Alexis, and Angélique LalondeA girl born in a small, unnamed pueblo is blessed-or cursed-with the ability to produce valuable gems from her bodily fluids. A tired wife and mother escapes the confines of her oppressive life and body by shapeshifting into a cloud. A girl reckons with the death of her father and her changing familial dynamics while slowly, mysteriously losing her physical senses. Infused with keen insight and presented in startling prose, the stories in this dark, magnetic collection by newcomer Rebecca Hirsch Garcia invite the reader into an uncanny world out of step with reality while exploring the personal and interpersonal in a way that is undeniably, distinctly human.