Melissa Broder is the author of the novels Milk Fed and The Pisces, the essay collection So Sad Today and five poetry collections, including Superdoom. She has written for The New York Times, Elle, and New York Magazine's The Cut. She lives in Los Angeles. melissabroder.com / @melissabroder / @sosadtoday

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019. Profoundly modern and darkly comic, The Pisces is about a heartbroken PhD student who over one summer falls in dangerous, ecstatic love with a merman

Named as one of Rolling Stone's '50 Funniest People Right Now' in 2017, Melissa has also been the subject of profiles and interviews in Elle, the New York Times, the New Yorker and Vanity Fair

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019'Of all the books that I read this summer I think this was my absolute favourite. It really blew me away' DOLLY ALDERTON'Frank, provocative and brilliant' INDEPENDENT'Utterly mesmerising' TATLER'Hilarious, poignant, sexy. A brilliant story about why we crave connection and how to find ourselves' ELLE'Laugh-out-loud funny' iCHOSEN AS A SUMMER READ BY TATLER, THE TIMES, ELLE AND YOU MAGAZINELucy has been writing her dissertation for nine years when she and her boyfriend have a dramatic break up. After she hits rock bottom, her sister in Los Angeles insists that Lucy dog-sit for the summer.Staying in a gorgeous house on Venice Beach, Lucy can find little relief from her anxiety - not in the Greek chorus of women in her love addiction therapy group, not in her frequent Tinder excursions, not even in Dominic the dog's easy affection.Everything changes when she becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer while sitting alone on the beach rocks one night. But when Lucy learns the truth about his identity, their relationship, and Lucy's understanding of what love should look like, take a very unexpected turn.