About the Author

Ivy Pochoda

is a novelist and writer, previously a world ranked squash player. Her novel

Visitation Street

was chosen as an Amazon Best Book of 2013 and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel.

Reviews

‘Pochoda is a master at homing in on the details of both exterior and interior landscapes and crafting characters so palpable that you can feel blood throbbing in their temples and rivulets of sweat evaporating off their necks.’ https://bookpage.com/reviews/21918-ivy-pochoda-wonder-valley#.XWffZehKjIW
*Bookpage*

‘Wonder Valley is an epic novel told on a personal level . . . Each of the characters in this novel resonates with traits familiar to all readers, and yet every one of them is a unique individual . . . By focusing on those at the fringes of society, Pochoda effectively examines both the flaws and perfections of humanity at large.’ http://bolobooks.com/2017/11/wonder-valley-the-bolo-books-review/
*BOLO Books*

‘Pochoda’s novel is compelling . . . the author’s skill creates an experience of total immersion’
*The Common*

‘It’s a California novel through and through: a collection of character studies drenched in enough sunlight to illuminate the harshest of truth . . . The ending is magnificently unexpected, almost ingenious, and the surprise factor sneaks up on you.’ https://ew.com/booksThe Common – Lisa Alexander and Julia Lichtblau 26th January 2018 ‘Pochoda’s novel is compelling . . . the author’s skill creates an experience of total immersion’
*Entertainment Weekly*

‘a dizzying, kaleidoscopic thriller that refuses to let readers look away from the dark side of Southern California.’ https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-wonder-valley-pochoda-20171110-story.html
*The Los Angeles Times*

‘an ode to the misunderstood parts (and people) of California’ https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/ivy-pochodas-wonder-valley-ode-misunderstood-parts-people-california
*Interview magazine*

‘In Wonder Valley, everything is fully realized. Especially the characters—first defined against the running man—and the setting—a portrait of Southern California that’s attentive to the harrowing issues of race and class but never embraces cynicism.’ https://brooklynrail.org/2017/12/books/Structures-in-Service-to-WonderIvy-PochodasWonder-Valley-Harper-Collins-2017
*The Brooklyn Rail*

Genre Be Damned: Smith Henderson interviews Ivy Pochoda ‘a gripping, gritty, and deeply humane novel of flights and collisions, rich with the profound mistakes and redemptive urges of a wonderfully interlinked cast of characters’ https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/genre-be-damned/
*The Los Angeles Review of Books*

‘Pochoda’s novel is compelling . . . the author’s skill creates an experience of total immersion’ http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/bookreview/wonder-valley-a-novel
*Washington Independent*

‘Slowly, and with skill, Pochoda brings these characters together in a melancholy tale of people who have been bruised and abused by life . . . Pochoda gifts each of her characters with a rounded backstory and a sense of dignity that their circumstances have denied them.’ http://bookoxygen.com/?p=7999
*Book Oxygen*