Come Back to the World

By Catherine Ryan Hyde

A single mother strives to understand the enigma of a reclusive novelist in a poignant novel about belonging, secret lives, and the want to disappear by New York Times bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde.

Amelia Booker, a journalist and expert in American literature, receives a photograph leading to the possible whereabouts of E. L. Swann, an author who vanished forty years ago after the success of her first and only novel. It's too intriguing a literary mystery for Amelia not to follow.

In Santa Rosarita, Mexico, Amelia and her seven-year-old son, Jaden, meet the elderly and guarded Ella Steinbach, known to locals for riding her donkey to market, then retreating from the world again to her hilltop house. Prickly and defensive at first, Ella reluctantly concedes the truth about her identity. If not for Ella's deep affection for the bright and introverted Jaden, she would have found the intrusion unforgivable. Instead, she grants an interview on the condition that Amelia tell no one where E. L. Swann has been found.

As days turn into weeks, and Ella reveals more than expected about her past, she and Amelia form a difficult but surprising bond. From it comes the realization that the personal struggles we endure determine the necessary choices we make to move forward. But no matter how much Amelia tries to convince her otherwise, E. L. Swann really does wish to be left alone. And only by accepting the author as she is can Amelia maintain the life-changing connection.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 166252238X
• ISBN13: 9781662522383
• Release Date: May 2026
• Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Poignant, heartwarming and memorable

Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a digital advance reader copy. All comments and opinions are my own unless otherwise noted. This was everything I hoped for and it deserves the 5 stars I’m awarding to this first book read in 2026. I have read a few other books by Catherine Hyde with plenty on my TBR shelf and I was glad this lived up to my expectations. As the author describes it, this book is “set in large part in a small fictional tourist town in Mexico. It prominently features a donkey. And a boy. And his mother. And a famous author turned hermit.” The best books are when they’re so readable I don’t want to put them down, and I think about the characters when I can’t be reading. This novel was like that – a poignant story that was realistic, believable, and memorable. I’ll be thinking about this ultimately heartwarming story for a long time. I highly recommend it.