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Shelby Van Pelt

Biography

Shelby Van Pelt

When Shelby Van Pelt isn’t writing, she’s herding cats and wrangling children. Her debut novel, REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES, was an instant New York Times bestseller and a "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club pick. In 2023, she was awarded the Heartland Prize for Fiction and the McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns First Novel Prize from The Writer’s Center. REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES has sold over two million copies. It has spent, in aggregate, over a year on the NYT Hardcover Bestseller list.

Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she’s now missing the mountains in the Chicago area with her family.

Shelby Van Pelt

Books by Shelby Van Pelt

Remarkably Bright Creatures
by Shelby Van Pelt - Fiction

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her 18-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over 30 years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors --- until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now he must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.