Excerpt from Time's Mouth by Edan Lepucki, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Ursa, tall, broad-shouldered, breasts like a bulwark, hair black as a beetle's back, steps out of a stranger's Buick in San Francisco with only a knapsack and fifteen dollars and an idea of herself as untainted and free. It's half past nine o'clock in the evening at the end of September. Almost a year since Ursa discovered what she's capable of.

The man driving the car leans toward the open passenger window and asks if she needs a place to stay.

"I do not," Ursa says and walks away as if she has somewhere to go. No one has to know that she doesn't.

Excerpted from Time's Mouth by Edan Lepucki. Copyright © 2023 by Edan Lepucki. Excerpted by permission of Counterpoint Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.