Books by Steph Cha

Your House Will Pay: A Novel

by Steph Cha

WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE
“[A] suspense-filled page-turner.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Sympathizer

"A touching portrait of two families bound together by a split-second decision.” —Attica Locke, Edgar-Award winning author of Bluebird, Bluebird
A Best Book of the Year
Wall Street Journal * Chicago Tribune * Buzzfeed * South Florida Sun-Sentinel * Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel * Book Riot * LitHub
A powerful and taut novel about racial tensions in Los Angeles, following two families—one Korean-American, one African-American—grappling with the effects of a decades-old crime
In the wake of the police shooting of a black teenager, Los Angeles is as tense as it’s been since the unrest of the early 1990s. But Grace Park and Shawn Matthews have their own problems. Grace is sheltered and largely oblivious, living in the Valley with her Korean-immigrant parents, working long hours at the family pharmacy. She’s distraught that her sister hasn’t spoken to their mother in two years, for reasons beyond Grace’s understanding. Shawn has already had enough of politics and protest after an act of violence shattered his family years ago. He just wants to be left alone to enjoy his quiet life in Palmdale.
But when another shocking crime hits LA, both the Park and Matthews families are forced to face down their history while navigating the tumult of a city on the brink of more violence.

Your House Will Pay: A Novel

by Steph Cha

“[A] suspense-filled page-turner.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Sympathizer

"A touching portrait of two families bound together by a split-second decision.” —Attica Locke, Edgar-Award winning author of Bluebird, Bluebird

A Best Book of the Year
Wall Street Journal / Chicago Tribune / Buzzfeed / South Florida Sun-Sentinel / Book Riot / LitHub / BOLO Books

A powerful and taut novel about racial tensions in Los Angeles, following two families—one Korean-American, one African-American—grappling with the effects of a decades-old crime

In the wake of the police shooting of a black teenager, Los Angeles is as tense as it’s been since the unrest of the early 1990s. But Grace Park and Shawn Matthews have their own problems. Grace is sheltered and largely oblivious, living in the Valley with her Korean-immigrant parents, working long hours at the family pharmacy. She’s distraught that her sister hasn’t spoken to their mother in two years, for reasons beyond Grace’s understanding. Shawn has already had enough of politics and protest after an act of violence shattered his family years ago. He just wants to be left alone to enjoy his quiet life in Palmdale.

But when another shocking crime hits LA, both the Park and Matthews families are forced to face down their history while navigating the tumult of a city on the brink of more violence.

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2025

by Don Winslow, Steph Cha

A collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction selected by the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of City in Ruins, Don Winslow,and series editor Steph Cha.
The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction, and it is the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.
Don Winslow, the Raymond Chandler Award-winning author of City in Ruins, picks the best twenty mystery and suspense stories from the previous year.

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024 (Best American Mystery Stories)

by Steph Cha, S.A. Cosby

A collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction selected by New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby, author of Razorblade Tears, and series editor Steph Cha.
In his introduction, guest editor S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is “a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.” The stories in this col-lection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong. From an eleven-year-old drawn to the neighborhood spookhouse to a scholarship kid at an exclusive boarding school, a nefarious Old West gunman to a Florida woman’s struggle against both outer and inner demons, the characters in The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024 are haunted and haunting, and wholly unforgettable.
The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024 includes MEGAN ABBOTT • ALYSSA COLE • TANANARIVE DUE • ABBY GENI • JORDAN HARPER • GAR ANTHONY HAYWOOD •TONI LP KELNER • BOBBY MATHEWS • LISA UNGER • and others

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023

by Lisa Unger, Steph Cha

A collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction selected by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger and series editor Steph Cha.
“This form has a special kind of magic, the ability to transport you quickly, intensely, to capture character, time, place, and story with immediacy,” writes guest editor Lisa Unger in her introduction. The transporting stories in this year’s The Best American Mystery and Suspense are populated by those who exist on the fringe of our society and want more than what life has dealt them: A haunted veteran turned career criminal is on the run. An injured fighter turned bouncer seeks vengeance for his lost love. An assassin on his last job finds himself questioning his life choices and breaks all the rules to understand his final victim. By turns thrilling and enlightening, each story, according to Unger, “will have you holding your breath, flipping the pages, will leave you thinking about people and why they do the dark, dangerous, frightening things that they do.”
The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023 includes Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier • William Boyle • S. A. Cosby • Jacqueline Freimor • James A. Hearn • Ladee Hubbard • A. J. Jacono • Adam Meyer • Silvia Moreno-Garcia • Walter Mosley • Leigh Newman • Joyce Carol Oates • Margaret Randall • Annie Reed • Anthony Neil Smith • Faye Snowden • Jervey Tervalon • Joseph S. Walker • Thaai Walker • Jess Walter

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022

by Jess Walter, Steph Cha

A collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction selected by #1 New York Times bestselling author and guest editor Jess Walter and series editor Steph Cha.
New York Times bestselling author and “superb storyteller” (Boston Globe), Jess Walter flexes his genre chops and selects twenty short stories that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

The Best American Mystery And Suspense 2021

by Alafair Burke, Steph Cha

Steph Cha, a rising star who brings a fresh perspective as series editor, takes the helm of the new The Best American Mystery and Suspense, with best-selling crime novelist Alafair Burke joining her as the first guest editor.
“Crime writers, forgive the pun, are killing it right now creatively,” writes guest editor Alafair Burke in her introduction. “It was difficult—painful even—to narrow this year’s Best American Mystery and Suspense to only twenty stories.” Spanning from a mediocre spa in Florida, to New York’s gritty East Village, to death row in Alabama, this collection reveals boundless suspense in small, quiet moments, offering startling twists in the least likely of places. From a powerful response to hateful bullying, to a fight for health care, to a gripping desperation to vote, these stories are equal parts shocking, devastating, and enthralling, revealing the tension pulsing through our everyday lives and affirming that mystery and suspense writing is better than ever before.
The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2021includes
JENNY BHATT• GAR ANTHONY HAYWOOD• GABINO IGLESIAS• AYA DE LEÓN• LAURA LIPPMAN DELIA C. PITTS• ALEX SEGURA• FAYE SNOWDEN• LISA UNGER and others

Follow Her Home (Juniper Song Mysteries, 1)

by Steph Cha

A stunning, edgy debut introducing Juniper Song, an amateur sleuth taking on the darkness in the veins of L.A. with razor-sharp wit and a breaking heart.

Juniper Song knows secrets–how to keep them and how to search them out. As a girl, noir fiction was her favorite escape, and Philip Marlowe has always been her literary idol. So when her friend Luke asks her to investigate a possible affair between his father and a young employee, Juniper (or "Song" as her friends call her) finds an opportunity to play detective. Driving through L.A.'s side streets, following leads, tailing suspects-it all appeals to Song's romantic ideal of the noir hero. But when she's knocked out while investigating a mysterious car and finds a body in her own trunk, Song lurches back to the real L.A., becoming embroiled in a crime that goes far beyond role play. What's more, this isn't the first time Song has stuck her nose in other people's business. As she fights to discover the truth about her friend's family, Song reveals one of her own deeply hidden secrets, something dark and damaging, urging her to see the current mystery through, to rectify the mistakes of her past life.

A dazzling debut from fresh new talent Steph Cha, featuring a strong, modern, sharply observant heroine with an unforgettable voice, Follow Her Home takes readers through dangerous twists and turns, beyond the glittering high-rises and freeways of L.A. on a case that will stay with them long after the final page.

Praise for Follow Her Home

"[Song] is a compelling and original protagonist… One only hopes that Cha and her driven, neo-noir detective have more opportunities to explore those troubling intersections over many books to come." –LA Times

"Stephanie Cha's brilliant debut is as Noir as Old Nick's sense of humour. Compelling from first to last page, she takes on contemporary L.A., sweeping the reader through Chandler's twilight, heartbroken city from mansions to faux K-town hostess bars. L.A. Noir at its finest." -- Denise Mina, author of The Dead Hour

"Follow Her Home takes a fresh trip down the sunny, dark streets of Los Angeles, and Juniper Song is a great guide - young, sharp, and worldly-wise. Keenly observed and deeply felt, the story slowly got under my skin. I couldn't put it down." - Meg Gardiner, Edgar Award-winning author of Ransom River

"In a glittery L.A. of pretty, privileged twentysomethings, Stephanie Cha's Follow Her Home opens like a playful homage to Raymond Chandler but deepens into something darker: an utterly 21st-century ode to sisterhood in the face of crime. A fast-paced thriller told in smart, sparkling prose, Follow Her Home is a moving exploration of mothers and daughters, men and women, immigrant history, loss, and hope." –Joy Castro, author of Hell or High Water