Cherry Baby: A Novel2026

#1 New York Times bestselling author Rainbow Rowell returns with a breathtakingly honest novel about how imperfectly we fall in love. Everybody knows that Cherry’s husband, Tom, is in Hollywood making a movie… Almost nobody knows that he isn’t coming home. Tom is the creator of Thursday—a semi-autobiographical webcomic, turned bestselling graphic novel, turned international phenomenon. Semi-autobiographical. That means there’s a character in this movie based on Cherry… “Baby.” Wide-hipped, heavy-chested, double-chinned Baby. Cherry never wanted this. No fat girl wants to see herself caricatured on the page—let alone on the big screen. But there’s no getting away from it. Baby looks so much like Cherry that strangers recognize her at the grocery store. While her soon-to-be ex-husband is in Los Angeles getting rich and famous and being the Internet’s latest boyfriend, Cherry is stuck in Omaha taking care of the dog he always wanted and the house they were going to raise a family in…and wondering who she's supposed to be without him. Cherry had promised to love Tom through thick and thin. She’d meant it. One night, Cherry decides to leave all her problems, including Tom’s overgrown puppy, at home. She ventures out to see her favorite band play her favorite album…and someone recognizes her from across the room. Russ Sutton knew Cherry when she was a young art student with a fondness for pin-up dresses and patent leather heels. Before Tom. Russ knows Cherry. He likes Cherry. And best of all…he’s never heard of Thursday. Cherry Baby is Rainbow Rowell’s richest, most ambitious—sexiest—novel yet. Told with deep tenderness and shot through with Rowell's signature wit—this is a second-chance romance for grown-ups. For people who understand how rare it is to get even one chance at love, and how impossible it can feel to make it work.