The Room

In a cramped house in Buckler's Cross, the Maxwell family lives on top of each other. Eleven children, parents, and Aunt Lavvy, who belongs to them without quite belonging to them. Ursula, one of the middle daughters, longs for a room of her own, a sanctuary from the chaos of siblings and the constant negotiation for space and attention. When eldest son Hal commits a small act that spirals into something heavier, the family's delicate equilibrium fractures. What begins as a mistake becomes a mirror held up to each family member, revealing who will judge and who will shield, who keeps secrets and who cannot carry them. The house itself becomes a character, its crowded rooms and narrow passages embodying both connection and suffocation. Stern writes with quiet precision about the way families sustain and restrain us simultaneously, how we long to escape the very walls that define us. A novel for anyone who has ever felt trapped by the people they love most.