“Over 24 increasingly suspenseful hours, a family’s suburban life unravels... Leavened with occasional humor, particularly directed toward the wire service, the novel gradually and inexorably ratchets up its suspense, with each tiny choice that one of the characters makes spiraling out into a path of destructive behavior... The novel succeeds as both a disquieting tale of ordinary horror and a portrait of a marriage at a tipping point.”
–Kirkus
“In her debut novel, Jennifer Kitses spins an intriguing tale about this couple in particular, but also about the choices people make, and what happens when plans go bad... Kitses skillfully builds the tension as our protagonists slide from one crisis to the next. As in a thriller, the reader wants to yell, ‘No! Don’t do that!’”
–Star Tribune
“This intelligent debut explores a young couple's relationship with time, stress, and their own toxic secrets... The single day that unfolds in Jennifer Kitses’ debut novel, Small Hours, is packed with harrowing, edge-of-your-seat drama, high-stakes decisions, and constant physical and psychological danger.”
–Washington Independent Review of Books
“Jennifer Kitses's Small Hours is a page-turning domestic thriller... The novel’s condensed timeline creates ample tension as its hero...races against the clock in ways that many do every day – to get to work, make a deadline, meet a friend and keep a secret... But the fact that Tom’s secret is but one in a string of ordinary issues he must deal with in the 24 hours we spend with him makes Small Hours a perfect reflection of how we live today – guilty, striving, and ultimately falling short in ways large and small.”
–The Strand Magazine
“Jennifer Kitses really illustrates very well the palpable sense of constant stress that this couple is feeling... It brought up a lot of questions...like: What is true? What do we owe the people we love, in terms of honesty and truth?”
–The New York Public Library’s podcast “The Librarian Is In”
“Well paced, offering heart-pounding tension… Fans of Matthew Norman, Sarah Dunn, and Emma Straub will enjoy this cautiously optimistic domestic drama full of small kindnesses and deep betrayals.”
–Booklist
“Small Hours is a thoughtful and provocative contemporary-themed novel that readers will enjoy.”
–BookReporter
“Suspenseful, beautifully-written debut.”
–Refinery29, included in: “The Best Reads of June Are Right Here”
“What really ups the ante on Kitses’ storytelling is her believability factor: the compounding issues that rage beneath the surface of this seemingly white-picket-fence family are far from fiction.”
–Jetsetter
The Believer Book Award Longlist: Readers’ Favorite Works of Fiction In 2017
Salon: “7 Things You Didn’t Know About 5 Writers”
New York Post: “The 29 Best Books of Summer”
Publishers Marketplace: “Buzz Books 2017 Spring/Summer”
Poets & Writers magazine: selected as a “Notable Fiction Debut” in July/August 2017 issue