Somewhere Soft to Land

In this crackling portrayal of friendship in peril, a young woman's world is upended when a tragedy in her best friend's life tests the boundaries of their sisterhood--a sharp and compelling debut novel from a Ghanaian American writer.

Dzifa has always felt a bit off. Maybe it's the family baggage, or maybe it's just how she's wired. Depleted by cycles of burnout, she lives in a perpetual state of bracing: for another lost job, another lost home, another piece of evidence she isn't doing being right. If it weren't for the encouragement--and occasional overstepping--of her magnetic best friend, Tatiana, Dzifa doesn't know if she'd have made it as far as she has. Despite their differences, the two women share a desire to be their authentic selves, and to shed the grip of the respectability politics they've been taught should govern their lives.

Just as each begins to find her way, the sudden passing of Tatiana's child upends everything. Dzifa rushes to Tatiana's hometown to help her friend prepare for the funeral. But when she arrives, Dzifa is immersed in an unsettling conflict between two diametrically opposed families, one of whom seems intent on seeding doubt about Tatiana's capacity as a mother. When Tatiana asks her for the ultimate favor, Dzifa must choose between loyalty at the expense of her own well-being and authenticity at the expense of her most valued friendship.

A riveting exploration of sisterhood, what it means to mother and be mothered, and what it means to be well, Somewhere Soft to Land reckons with the sometimes funny, sometimes fraught friendship between women with divergent ideologies, aspirations, personalities, and paths.

Author: Kai Alonté
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 04/21/2026
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.18lbs
Size: 9.52h x 6.41w x 1.23d
ISBN: 9780593726792


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 02/01/2026 pg. 50
Booklist 03/01/2026
Publishers Weekly 03/16/2026

About the Author
kai alonté is a Ghanaian American artist based in northern Europe. Her short story "3-Step Face Mask" was published in Sycamore Review in 2021 and won first place for nonfiction in the 2020 West Virginia Writers Contest. In 2024, her essay "Embracing Life's Layers Through Collage" was published in Onko Maailma Valmis?, a collection organized by Kulttuuria kaikille (Culture for All). She graduated from Trinity College Dublin's MPhil program in creative writing and has been an artist-in-residence at Gullkistan, NES, Arteles, and Hub Feenix.