Release Date: April 21, 2026
About The Book:
Ina is a 41-year-old literary scholar on the cusp of professional success. With a coveted university job, a kind husband, and a book on Eugene O’Neill due in months, her life appears enviably stable. But when an impulsive kiss with a stranger shatters her self-control, Ina finds herself plunged into an erotic and emotional freefall.
She tells herself it’s research—a brief detour before returning to real life. But what begins as a flirtation becomes a reckoning with everything Ina thought she wanted: marriage, intellect, control. As she navigates the ecstatic confusion of newfound desire, she risks upending her work, her relationship, and her understanding of who she is.
Set in Brooklyn and Manhattan at the turn of the millennium, Don’t Stop is a bold, immersive debut that explores what happens when a woman dares to want more—of the world, of her body, of herself. Bonnie Friedman delivers a novel of transgression, transformation, and unapologetic longing.
About The Author:
Bonnie Friedman is the author of the bestselling Writing Past Dark, named one of the Essential Books for Writers by the Center for Fiction and Poets & Writers. She is also the author of The Thief of Happiness and Surrendering Oz, a finalist for the PEN Award in the Art of the Essay. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Ploughshares and numerous other literary journals, and she has been named a notable essayist four times in The Best American Essays. She has taught writing at the University of Iowa, Dartmouth, NYU, and the University of North Texas. Don’t Stop is her first novel. http://www.bonniefriedman.com/
Social Media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bonniefriedmanauthor
Book Blurbs:
Don’t Stop is a moving, laser-eyed story about love, desire, betrayal, and destiny, which manages, mysteriously, to be simultaneously funny and profound. Not to mention the fact that the whole exquisitely-wrought, deeply human story springs from a kiss to rival the kiss that brought Snow White back to life.”—Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours and Day
“With hypnotizing imagery, Don’t Stop tells a compelling story of a scholar in search of satisfaction in her life whose quest leads her beyond the conundrum of her marriage, her family of origin, and her academic career, to a new realm she never imagined—the furthest reaches of her own sexuality. Where this takes her is the subject of this gorgeous depiction of the journey of a soul. This is one of those novels where readers will be as eager to keep turning the pages as they are to savor every sentence slowly. I hated for it to end.”—Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point and In the Gloaming
“In this daring, compelling novel, we are invited into the world of Ina, a 41-year-old woman embarking on a journey of self-discovery and awakening. Don’t Stop elegantly uncovers the concealed dimensions of desire. It is luminous, evocative, and original.”—Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times best-selling novelist
“Don’t Stop is a masterly portrait of Ina, a 41-year-old married woman on the run from the prosaic and the unexciting in her life. Her fearless search for deeply buried erotic desires allows her to reevaluate her complex relationships and open a hidden door into her true self. It is a powerful and moving story of urgent quest and stunning self-discovery, a book you won’t be able to put down.”—Elena Gorokhova, author of A Train to Moscow
“I’ve been waiting my whole life for this novel, a book that’s as sexy as it is smart, as sophisticated as it is compelling. You don’t have to pick between body and brains with Bonnie Friedman’s Don’t Stop, a novel that has it all. I’m going to quick join a book group so I can dish about Don’t Stop with a bunch of ladies over a bottle of wine. Joyous, provocative, propulsive, Don’t Stop is destined to be the best book club book ever.”—Pamela Redmond, New York Times best-selling author of Younger
“Long one of our finest writers of literary nonficton, Bonnie Friedman now makes a triumphant debut as a novelist. Don’t Stop is warm, moving, frequently hilarious, and bursting with life.”—Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening and Tasha: A Son’s Memoir
“Neither raucous nor raunchy… this is a well-mannered and funny novel about what happens when the heart rebels against the mind, and the body demands that “‘what was growling up from deep within you didn’t deserve to be ignored.’”—Kirkus Reviews
“This coming-of-middle-age story explores a woman’s obsessive affair and the unraveling of her life… A fiction debut that will appeal to fans of Miranda July’s All Fours.”—Booklist
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