A coming-of-age story that follows the meteoric rise of singer Amber Young as she navigates fame in the late-90s and early-2000s era of pop music superstardom.

It is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It’s a chance thousands of girls would die for: the opportunity to join girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles and escape her small town. She quickly finds herself in the orbits of fellow rising stars Gwen Morris, a driven singer-dancer, and Wes Kingston, a member of the biggest boy band in the world, ETA.

As Amber embarks on her solo career and her fame intensifies, her rich interior life is frequently reduced. Surrounded by people who claim to love her but only wish to exploit her, and driven by a desire for recognition and success, for love and sex, for agency and connection, Amber comes of age at a time when the kaleidoscope of public opinion can distort everything and one mistake can shatter a career.

Isabel Banta’s debut novel, Honey, redefines the narratives of some of the most famous pop icons of the ’90s and 2000s. It reimagines the superstars we idolized and hated, oversexualized and underestimated, and gives them the fresh, multifaceted story they deserve.

Despite all evidence to the contrary—my lack of musical talent and a general aversion to cameras, for example—every once in a while I’ll entertain a fantasy that I could become a major pop star. If I wanted to. Look, I say, there are plenty of just-OK singer-songwriters who have broken big. Why not me? Then I read a brilliant, emotionally riveting novel called Honey about the rocky rise of a young musical idol, and let that fantasy go for good…

Amber Young gets the call of a lifetime in 1997. She has been invited to Cloud9, a rising pop girl group, and asked to move from her claustrophobic hometown to glitzy Los Angeles. Quickly falling in with other rising stars and performers, Amber eventually leaves Cloud9 to embark on a solo career. The glare of the spotlight goes brighter as she rises to further fame and fortune. Along the way, she must navigate the pitfalls of public opinion, media toxicity, and unfair gender double standards as she comes of age in public. From the start, you’ll be rooting for her like her most fervent fans, and the show only gets better with each new song.

It is hard to believe Honey is a debut. Isabel Banta writes with such brio and confidence, bringing characters and their unruly lives to visceral life. And like the best earworms, it won’t ever leave your mind or memory once you hear it! Come rock and roll.