Leslie Bazzett Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Leslie Bazzet is a published author.

Her fiction debuted first in New England Review. It would then go on to get a Special Mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology of that year.

Some of her other work has been featured in NER, West Branch, Carolina Quarterly, and Louisville Review, as well as other places. The most recent story that she had featured in NER was listed as Notable in Best American Short Stories. Leslie has also gotten some attention for her work as she has been a finalist for a Rona Jaffe Award and was the recipient of the NER Award for Emerging Writers.

Leslie resides in Minneapolis along with her spouse, Michael Bazzet, who is also a poet. They have two children together. She is new to the published fiction world and Mia is her first novel.

Mia is a 2026 book by Leslie Bazzet. If you have been wanting something new that you can read solo or bring to your book club, this unsettling work might just be the one for you. It’s a psychologically suspenseful novel that is all about an American woman who is adrift in Mexico for a year. When she has a chance encounter with an older expat, a relationship that seems glamorous at first quickly becomes a story of betrayal and obsession.

Sally is an American who is living in San Miguel de Allende. When she encounters Louise just outside of the school that her children go to, she feels excited to become more deeply involved in the life of the city. She’s in Mexico for just a year with her husband, who works as an architect.

From the second that they meet, Sally is drawn in by Louise. She likes everything about her, from her elegant style to how harsh she is and the interesting stories that she has about different famous American writers. Once they meet, the pair quickly are rarely seen without the other.

Louise has started to call Sally Mia, at first playing around with it and then calling her it seriously. She even starts introducing Sally to other people as her daughter, to a circle of friends that is increasingly getting larger. Sally is happy with the thought of living a new life as an effectively all new person in Mexico, but she’s also starting to wonder about the seemingly magnetic hold that Louise has over her.

Because of all this, she keeps their friendship a secret from her husband. But troubles from her childhood are starting to surface and Louise is starting to become even more magnetic in her hold over her and even more self-mythologizing. Together the two women are going to push how far you can reinvent yourself, until at last the fictions that they have made end up posing a risk to the safety of Sally’s real family.

Anything can happen in this thriller where a mother and daughter relationship plays out in its fullest– but how will it end? Can anything go well when you’re playing the type of role that does not really belong to you? Find out what happens with Sally and Louise by getting your hands on a copy of Mia by Leslie Bazzet.