Top

Pool House

On sale

11th June 2026

Price: £24.99

Select a format

Selected: Audiobook Downloadable / ISBN-13: 9781399641609

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

Stevie cannot wait to escape her mother. Whilst many people dream of moving to LA and into the spotlight, she is desperate to get out and start over.

Moon is many things: an out-of-work actress, a recovering addict, a nineties iconoclast, a dysfunctional mother – and whatever a mistress becomes when she’s widowed. Reeling in the aftermath of her lover and TV husband’s death, Moon is plunged into despair. The last thing she expects is for her daughter to leave her too.

Now, neither Stevie nor Moon can afford to quit each other, forced to move into the glass pool house in their back yard while their home is rented out to pay the bills. When Adam, Moon’s former TV son and Stevie’s girlhood crush, arrives for the funeral, the three of them are pulled into a messy triangle, moving back into the Big House and play-acting a picture-perfect family, even as tensions rise and relationships unravel.

Hilarious, biting and unexpectedly moving, Pool House is a brilliantly observed novel about the complexities of love, sex, fame, family and grief, and an unforgettable portrait of two women grappling with what it means to grow up and grow older in Hollywood.

Reviews

Michelle Zauner, author of Crying in H Mart
It's time we recognize Mary H.K. Choi as an auteur
Lisa Ko, author of Memory Piece
Smart and stylish, Pool House is a fast-moving story of grief, fame and the mess and meaning of family, told with Choi's trademark wit and insight
Rachel Khong, author of Real Americans
A sharp, hilarious, unsparing mother-daughter story
Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk
Mary H.K. Choi's Pool House is a deep full-bodied dive into joy. Her clarity, precision and deep understanding of the bond between mothers and daughters will leave you underlining whole paragraphs with a trembling hand and calling your best friend to read them aloud. What a sparkling, astonishing novel!
Bryan Washington, author of Memorial
Choi's prose is unflinching, dynamic, effervescent and expansive - Pool House is a magnum opus and a vibe. With delight and melancholy, Choi stretches questions of care, family and becoming to their outer limits - the novel is a gem of honesty and clarity amidst the messiness of being a person among other people. Choi continues to astound and Pool House is a wonder