Under Story

By: Chloe Benjamin

The New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists returns with an intimate yet epic love story—and a sweeping odyssey of scientific discovery. Under Story invites us to consider the promise of this life, what might lie beyond it, and how far we would go for more time with the people we love, cementing Chloe Benjamin’s place among our best, and most lasting, storytellers.

“We wake up to tomorrow, never yesterday.”

At the edge of the world, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she’s ever known. For ten hours a day, six days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica. She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career and a family.

But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can’t escape her past. When a strange light appears across the ice—and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo—her former husband, Eli, won't be far behind. Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them—to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?

A breathless page-turner and a love letter to our planet, Under Story grapples with the great questions of our time: human hubris, the precarity of the natural world, and the mysterious webs of consciousness that bind us. A modern epic of science and soul, of bravery and redemption, it offers a vision of the future that demands we reckon with what we owe to one another, and to the earth itself.

Critic reviews

‘A head-spinning novel, daringly imaginative. Even as she plays with physics and fantasy, Chloe Benjamin has much to say about the nature of friendship, family, mortality and love’ –Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March

“Under Story is phenomenal, and one of the best books I've read in years. Wondrous, wildly ambitious, an epic love story that I’m so grateful exists in the world.” –Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

“A fiendishly clever, utterly original novel that gets to the heart of what it means to be alive. Under Story is dazzling: it will change you.” –Emilia Hart, New York Times bestselling author of Weyward

“A mind-bending, head-popping sci-fi love story full of intrigue and tenderness.” –Claire Fuller, author of Swimming Lessons

One of Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026

“Count on Benjamin to ask the big questions—what makes a life worth living? What is the nature of time? Where do we belong?—and entertain us fully all the while. Cannot wait to read. ” –Lit Hub