Honey

'A sexy swagger of a debut' EMMA STRAUB, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR I didn't like to perform. I liked to be loved. It is 1997 and Amber Young is about to become one of the most infamous pop stars of her era.

Plucked from a small town in New Jersey to join the newly formed girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles, Amber is given the opportunity of a lifetime. Enter Gwen Morris and Wes Kingston, two of Amber's musical contemporaries who are in a highly publicized relationship. Gwen has the top music video on MTV's Total Request Live and Wes is a member of the most popular boy band in the world, ETA.

In Gwen, Amber finds the first friend who can truly understand her - maybe the only person who ever will. But when Amber goes on tour with ETA as one of their opening acts, she develops an infatuation with Wes that threatens both her friendship with Gwen and the career she is so desperately trying to build. Under the spotlight, Amber must reckon with her own desires, agency, and sense of self-and how the kaleidoscope of public opinion can distort everything.

Isabel Banta's debut novel, Honey, reimagines the pop stars of the late 90s and early 2000s, who we idolized and hated, oversexualized and underestimated, giving them the fresh, multifaceted story they deserve.