Hope House (Cold Mountain Fund Series)

Hope House (Cold Mountain Fund Series)

A Debutiful Most Anticipated Book of 2026 Set in 1980s Kentucky, this striking debut novel is told from inside a treatment home for troubled teenagers, where lost boys become more than their pasts and dare to imagine different futures. They came from the streets, the sticks and every place in between. They’d stolen cars, dealt dope and hurt people. They’d been hurt themselves. There’s AWOL, who won’t stop running away. There’s Karvel, who runs the place. There’s Damico, Smoove, and Peanut. Their futures promise prison or worse, but for now they’ve been brought together to live in an old home on a hill and see about getting themselves—and each other—right. Told in chorus through the intersecting lives of a group of teenage boys, Hope House follows its ensemble cast through a five-phase program as they grapple with their pasts and search for the one thing none of them have ever really had: a family. In his deeply honest and soulful debut, Bond crafts a coming-of-age story that sears with the anger and spirit of abandoned youth. The Nickel Boys meets This Boy’s Life , Hope House is a novel about belonging, care, and the desire in all of us to find a home. “I had the great pleasure of picking Bond’s amazing short story for an award years ago, and what a thrill it is to see how it’s grown into a beautiful novel of such tender frankness, building the lives of this group of kids with bottomless care and a fiercely keen eye for detail and movement.” —Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade “ Hope House is a stunningly beautiful debut; a novel of life on the margins, written with style and grace, and populated with characters that stay with you long after the final page.” —Tom Newlands, author of Only Here, Only Now “This beautifully told novel, heartbreaking and heart-healing, illuminates what it means to call a place home.” —Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper's Daughter “[A] gut-punch of a debut [and] a clarion call for the value of compassion and the possibility of rehabilitation.” — Publishers Weekly , starred review “With sinewy, loquacious eloquence, the novel Hope House explores the tenuous cycles of youth rehabilitation and the innate need for belonging.” —Meg Nola, Foreword Reviews , starred review Joe Bond grew up around group homes and residential treatment programs in eastern Kentucky. He’s been a child-care worker, a copy editor, a security guard at a psychiatric hospital and a research librarian at a law firm in Times Square. For several years he covered mixed martial arts fighting for ESPN and various magazines and newspapers throughout the U.S., Brazil and Japan. He began working on Hope House after his story “Damico” won the Masters Review Short Story Award. He lives in New Orleans.