UNDERLAKE receives starred review from Booklist

My debut novel, Underlake, has received a starred review from Booklist, a rare accolade. The review was published on March 1, two months ahead of Underlake’s official launch on April 21, 2026.

Here’s an excerpt of the review:

“With flowing prose and an unflinching style, McCoy takes on the mystical ideas of the book as well as the harsh realities behind them, and the reader is given a gorgeously written novel on the power of religious fanaticism, familial love, and the responsibilities we carry in the face of tragedies we cannot control.”

—Lily Hunter, Booklist

Thank you to Lily Hunter for this incredibly thoughtful review. It takes time and labor to read and review books. I cannot express how grateful I am to have a reader that understood what I was aiming to achieve.

I’ve stayed so busy with pre-launch tasks and real-world practicalities (a very busy job, etc.), the book launch is now sneaking up on me fast. I’ve forgotten to sit with it at times, perhaps because of the anxiety that surfaces when I think about the incredibly vulnerable fact of putting a book into the world. So when I receive these reminders that people are actually out there reading my book—and that it’s meant something to them—it’s a surreal feeling.

The same goes for the reviews on Goodreads and the StoryGraph. I have been blown away by the thoughtful, generous readers who have taken the time to not only read but post about my book ahead of its launch. What a gift.