Miranda Shulman is from Brooklyn, New York, and still lives there. Her first novel, Harmless, was named a most anticipated book by Forbes, Electric Lit, and Goodreads, among others, and a best book of 2026 by Debutiful.
“By turns bonkers, blissful, hilarious, and full of sorrow, Harmless drinks at the bar with McCarthy’s The Group and Dunham’s Girls.”
—Emma Copley Eisenberg, nationally bestselling author of Housemates
A twisty novel of sisterhood, friendship, and obsession that asks: Can we ever really outrun what haunts us most?
Two years ago, Bea’s life was upended when her beloved twin sister died. Audrey was captivating, an extrovert, their mother’s golden child. Bea was “different,” too intense, and chronically lonely.
Now, in her late twenties, Bea is back home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, her spirits finally buoyed by her plan to start a dog kennel. Inspired by the childhood dream she once shared with Audrey and old, now-estranged friends Tatum and Layla, she’s sure this will be the perfect ode to her sister’s memory.
But as they reintegrate into one another’s lives, Audrey’s absence is keenly felt by all. Soon, simmering tensions and attractions emerge, and a sinister darkness breaks through to the surface. What do they really want? What happens when old secrets come to light? And when is it best to bury a dream, or a cherished friendship?
Named Most Anticipated by Forbes, Debutiful, Electric Lit and Goodreads
“Shulman beautifully captures the nostalgia and dissatisfaction of trying to reconnect with old friends in your 20s… An unsettling story that mourns not only the dead but also the people and places you can never go back to.”
—Kirkus
"A Brooklyn woman forges an uneasy bond with her dead twin sister's friends in this mordant and playfully outlandish novel of obsession from debut author Shulman . . . This will keep readers on their toes until the last page."
—Publishers Weekly
“Gripping, haunting, and thought-provoking…[Harmless] examines our responsibilities, for better and for worse, towards one another.”
—Booklist
“[A] chilling debut.”
—Library Journal
“I can never tire of a group of friends navigating life. Shulman does it with such a keen eye, turning the mundane into the hilarious. The voices of each character are so distinct and original. This is a book with a big heart.”
—Debutiful, Most Anticipated Books of 2026
“At once an astute social novel of the Brooklyn bourgeoisie and a twisty tale of obsession, Harmless swept me up and surprised me with every page. This examination of the dark sides of female friendship and sisterly love will keep you guessing until the very end.”
—Anna North, author of the New York Times bestseller Outlawed and Bog Queen
“Dark and tender and spot-on about grief, old friendship, and the strange uncertainty of being in your twenties when it’s impossible to tell whether you’re unraveling or just beginning.”
—Jessica Soffer, New York Times bestselling author of This Is a Love Story
“By turns bonkers, blissful, hilarious, and full of sorrow, Harmless drinks at the bar with McCarthy’s The Group and Dunham’s Girls. A sendup of the Brooklyn rich, a study of the delusion that a group project can be a viable substitute for the work of actually loving other people, and a glittering examination of grief, I cherished this book.”
—Emma Copley Eisenberg, nationally bestselling author of Housemates
"Miranda Shulman's glorious, original debut Harmless is a beautifully observed zeitgeist novel set in Park Slope; it's also a hilarious, painful look at young adulthood, sibling rivalry, friendship, competition, love, and loss—with a shocking twist. The young women in Shulman's world are the vivid, messy, unforgettable characters everyone will be talking about. This is a fantastic debut you don't want to miss."
—Karen E. Bender, author of The Words of Dr. L and the National Book Award finalist Refund
“A compulsive, funny, and tender tale of growing up, friendship, and grief that had me hooked until the last page. Shulman’s sparkling prose and rich, unforgettable characters herald a new talent in fiction.”
—Cecile Pin, author of Celestial Lights
“Harmless is a blistering story of desire, rivalry, and unraveling loyalties. Shulman captures the volatility and magnetism between a group of friends with wit, heat, and razor-sharp insight. I raced through this novel, from its bracingly original opening, all the way to its spine-tingling end."
—Alison Fairbrother, author of The Catch
“A large-hearted and wise debut that captures something special about the way we live now and how we persist in the aftermath of tragedy. Shulman somehow manages to make grief highly readable, humorous, and delightful.”
—Stephanie Wambugu, author of Lonely Crowds
"At once a complex study of childhood friendships, and a simmering, deliciously dark work of suspense . . . A completely singular debut you'll want to pass along to all your friends so you can discuss."
—Olivia Muenter, USA Today bestselling author of Such a Bad Influence and Little One
1
An hour before her twin sister's memorial, Bea was sprawled on the kitchen floor, crying over a jar of Kalamata olives. She should've been on the train already, not shivering by the open refrigerator, unable to move. But each time she closed her eyes, it played like a looped clip from a horror film: Rosalie's fingers rooting around in the jar, her lips as she chewed, lurid and wet, the pit on a used coffee filter or cupped by a discarded clementine rind in the trash like it was nothing. Like these were normal olives. The jar was still mostly full, so Rosalie had probably only stolen one: at least there was that. If not for a droplet of reddish brine the size of a dime on the countertop, Bea wouldn't have noticed a disturbance. But she had.
She brought the jar to her face. "I'm so sorry." Her lips brushed the glass, breath clouded by the cold refrigerator air that washed over her. "I promised I'd always keep you safe."
Rosalie would be confused if Bea admitted how precious these olives were and probably disgusted to learn the unsealed jar was nearly two years old. Did Bea care what Rosalie thought? It wasn't as if she had reason to impress her; in fact, it was the opposite. The apartment had belonged to Bea first. She'd given Rosalie the room over many others from Craigslist with more convincing smiles. Ironically, Rosalie's draw was that she'd seemed quiet and private enough to respect Bea's space and things. From a roommate, Bea wasn't looking for a relationship of any kind. No one could replace her sister.
The olive jar was the only labeled item in the refrigerator and one of Bea's most prized possessions. Her sketchbook was also important, which she was always nose deep in, and so was the pair of identical quilts, stacked and neatly folded at the foot of her bed, each made up of white pinwheels, like galaxies, against a dark blue fabric collage. After Audrey's death, Bea had inherited hers. They were exact replicas of the vintage ones that decorated the twin beds in their room at the yellow house, where they'd spent their childhood summers, and had been offered as consolation prizes by their mother the year they stopped going. She remembered hers had smelled so strongly of plastic packaging at first, she couldn't stand to use it. Over time, the scent had mellowed. Now both quilts smelled like human skin-musty and warm, like the ones from her youth. And if she pressed her face into Audrey's-differentiated by a lopsided A, drawn in Sharpie-closed her eyes, and really focused, she could still faintly smell her perfume, a rich blend of jasmine and patchouli.
The more Bea thought about the betrayal-Rosalie boorishly ignoring the Post-it note on the olive jar that read "BEATRIX" in all caps-the angrier she grew. Finally, after being pinned to the floor by grief for what could have been hours, she felt herself rising, inflating like a hot-air balloon, floating to the bathroom where she stood, arm overhead, poised to hurl the jar into the shower, where it would explode brine and glass. She'd leave a few of the sharpest shards behind, clean up the juice and olives, make it look safe and normal. The next time Rosalie showered, glass would pierce her bare feet. Then she'd know the pain in Bea's heart.
What was she doing? How could she even think it?
Dazed, she lowered her arm and wandered back to the kitchen whispering more apologies, tears blurring her vision. She placed the jar on the countertop, then knelt by the white plastic trash bin and began rifling through its contents, carefully at first, then with increasing desperation.
"There you are," she said when she found it: the olive pit. She cradled it in her hand, almond-shaped and rough where the meat had been sucked off, then dropped it into her pocket.
That it was there, against her hip, through two layers of soft fabric, filled Bea with nostalgic warmth. She stood and secured the jar's lid, twisting until she was shaking, then pressed it deep into the corner of the fridge where it belonged, Post-it facing out.
With Rosalie's magnetized refrigerator pen, Bea scrawled a few words on the matching refrigerator notepad: You'll be really fucking sorry if you ever touch my things again.
She considered what she'd written, then tore off the note, crushed it into a ball, and tossed it over her shoulder.
Rage guided her pen, carving angular capital letters into the page, as she scrawled another message: DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY THINGS.
This was better. Less overtly threatening.
She underlined her words again and again until the tip of her pen had cut through most of the pad. Rosalie would be back soon-on the rare occasions when she left the apartment, she was never gone for long. She would find the note and know she'd been caught, that she'd crossed a line that must never be crossed again.
When Bea finally made it outside, red-eyed and swollen, she walked briskly with her chin tucked, using the blinding afternoon sun and her head position to shield against unwanted conversations. Park Slope was infested with people she knew or had once known, and since her sister's death, she found it humiliating to be visibly upset in public. It made her too readable. She wanted privacy in her grief, to not be the object of people's assumptions. In general, privacy wasn't easily won in Park Slope, where everyone was at least vaguely familiar and so were their stories. When she glanced up to check for the subway's green orbs, she spotted Armando of Mando's Mangos smoking outside his deli and crossed the street to avoid their usual "Sup," "Sup," exchange. Audrey used to think he was hot, "in a grandfatherly way," and would bat her eyes at him, blow kisses when his back was turned. Bea hadn't found it amusing. In general, she wasn't easily amused.
She was on her way to Westchester, where her parents had decided to host Audrey's memorial, delayed two years by COVID-19. They'd recently sold the brownstone, Bea and Audrey's childhood home, and left Park Slope for Bronxville, terminating loyalties to their hairdresser of the past two decades, the old-school knife sharpener who cruised around the neighborhood in his red truck, ringing his bell, and to their only living daughter, who would've inherited the brownstone one day. Their loyalty to the Park Slope Food Coop, however, was apparently eternal. They commuted to and from it every other week for supplies, or for their shifts, which consisted of Bea's father bagging groceries while her mother did something-Bea didn't know what-in the membership office upstairs. They either relied on Metro-North to get them there or braved the Brooklyn Queens Expressway traffic and subsequently what was known, in Park Slope, as "the parking situation."
By the time Bea made it to the Bronxville station, people were already arriving, and her parents couldn't pick her up, so she power walked across pristine suburban pavement, past single-story homes, freshly shorn lawns, and sprinklers spitting rainbows into sunbeams. A stinging bubble formed on her heel, her hamstrings ached, but she did not slow her pace. As she streaked along, she gulped down crisp, clear air, hoping to ingest the pallidness of this place, like a low dose of quetiapine, which, for a while, had made everything in her world very quiet and her eyelids droop until she'd made the private, executive decision to stop taking it. Today, given the fizzy, crowded feeling in her brain-and where she was headed-a bit of vacancy might've served her well. She still had the pills; they rolled around in their orange cartridge like a little rain stick whenever she opened her desk drawer.
As she walked, she muttered to herself, "So, I have this idea . . ." again and again with a slightly different intonation each time. At some point she began adding an extra word for emphasis. "So, I have this great idea . . ." "So, I have this brilliant idea . . ."
To Bea, the notion of a two-year delayed memorial service was pointless, verging on embarrassing, and Audrey would've felt the same. Everyone had already said the obligatory "I'm sorry for your loss," though at the time the sentiment could only be relayed via Facebook Messenger or email and accessorized by either a broken heart or a crying emoji due to pandemic isolation. By now, Bea's grief was like her father's bad shoulder, which he'd injured playing football when he was seventeen. It made her life worse but was more like a nagging soreness than acute pain, most of the time at least. The morning's olive incident had added sting to the day, which would've been appropriate, convenient even, had it not made her so late. She touched her pocket which held the pit and felt a shade brighter.
Bea was there on a mission. Her primary reason for journeying to the memorial both did and didn't have to do with Audrey, which could be said about her whole life. An idea-a brilliant one, she was certain, or possibly an amazing one-had been percolating in her mind for weeks, trapped in her skull like a fly in a hot car, and one of the only living people to whom it would mean something would be there. Telling her would be like rolling the window down; the buzzing would finally end. And it was possible, if Bea played her cards just right, presented it using the perfect words, that Tatum would want to help.
Before entering the front yard, standing belly button to gate latch, miniaturized by the rampart-type hedges to her left and right, Bea paused to suck in a deep breath. "You can do this," she said, her voice rippling the unearthly suburban quiet like a stone skipping across a lake. She tugged open her pocket and spoke into its small darkness, to the pit she knew was there but couldn't see: "We can do this." As she pressed open the gate, she muttered, "So, Tatum, I've got this marvelous idea . . ."
The new house was sprawling; the gardens were frizzy and lush, confettied by pockets of cheerful flowers working overtime to brighten her parents' gloom. For the first time, she noticed silver was beginning to stain the fresh wood clapboard on the newly constructed wing which her parents had commissioned to include an enlarged primary bedroom, a walk-in closet the size of Bea's whole apartment, and a bathroom with a skylight and a claw-foot tub. Bea often wondered what her parents would do if she died. What they would or wouldn't build, where they would or wouldn't move, if they would or wouldn't cry.
When she entered the house the chalky, new-car smell of fresh plaster mixed unpleasantly with that of cheese and earthy perfume. In the center of the crowded living room, amidst a sea of suits, knee-length skirts, and elderly, swollen ankles, was her sister's urn. A bouquet of red roses stood behind it, and next to it, a smiling picture of Audrey. Bea was thankful her parents had selected that photo, taken by their father in their old living room, rather than one of the sterile, retouched campaign pictures printed on glossy paper that lived in the big leather scrapbook Audrey had brought to castings. She'd also been contractually obligated to post them on Instagram, making her profile a collage of vanity. Slightly blurry and flushed, nestled into their old couch, was how Bea preferred to remember her sister, though it was a far cry from what she'd looked like at the end of her life.
Bea's gaze focused next on the potbellied urn itself-her first order of business, she'd decided on the train. Once long and elegant at five-foot-ten, Audrey had been reduced by their mother to the size and stature of a garden gnome. The matte-black urn reminded Bea of Patricia's tear-soaked surgical mask, how it had stuck to her face, sucking in and out with her breath, as she'd stalked the long aisles of urns, repeating the words "We need something chic and unassuming," until they were as grating as a bleating alarm clock that couldn't be switched off. Bea had had to fight the urge to cover her ears. For a year, it had lived on the mantelpiece in their old brownstone, and now here it was in this new house in the suburbs, which Audrey had never known and where she never would've wanted to be. Patricia had demanded that Audrey be cremated, and no one had had the heart to fight her on it. She was the mother, after all.
"Homeless people pee on tombstones," was Patricia's unfortunate refrain in defense of her decision. "I want to keep my daughter safe and dry with me."
As she neared the urn, Bea felt nothing. Once, before her parents had left Brooklyn, she'd opened it. She'd let herself into the old brownstone uninvited, and ignored the racket Patricia was making upstairs, her incessant calls of, "Bea, is that you down there? Speak so I know it's not an intruder," as she ran her fingers through the dull ash. She'd drawn a lopsided smiley face in it, then replaced the lid before ducking into the cramped bathroom beneath the stairs and washing her hands slowly, watching dark, powdered remnants of her sister circle down the drain. When she'd finally greeted her hyperventilating mother on the landing, Patricia had scolded her for taking so long to respond and for not texting before stopping by. "I was about to start throwing things downstairs," she'd said, explaining why she was brandishing an unplugged table lamp, "I was going to try knocking you out-the intruder, I mean, not you of course."
Standing in front of the urn now, Bea felt eyes on her, like she was the unapproachable popular kid Audrey had once been. She lowered her head, pretending to pray or whatever people did at these things. When a commotion erupted by the window-someone had dropped their drink-she was able to dig the olive pit out of her pocket, lift the urn's lid, and drop it inside before attention shifted back to her.
As waitstaff pushed paper towels around and everyone else in the room recovered, Bea closed her eyes and imagined the pit sprouting into an olive tree right there in the living room, destroying the urn, her parents' new roof, and their freshly stained floors. Audrey's leaves would glitter against the sky, as big and beautiful as she had been in human form. Bea would climb her sister toward the sun.
When she opened her eyes, people were watching her again, many of whom-judging by their thick makeup and pearls-were her parents' new Westchester neighbors. There was also her distant cousin whose name she couldn't remember from her family's Republican enclave. Notably, none of these people were Tatum.