In the new novel from the author of Last Night at the Lobster , a middle-age couple goes all in for love at a Niagara Falls casino Lokk out for City of Secrets coming from Viking on April 26, 2016   Stewart O'Nan's thirteenth novel is another wildly original, bittersweet gem like his celebrated Last Night at the Lobster . Valentine's weekend, Art and Marion Fowler flee their Cleveland suburb for Niagara Falls, desperate to recoup their losses. Jobless, with their home approaching foreclosure and their marriage on the brink of collapse, Art and Marion liquidate their savings account and book a bridal suite at the Falls' ritziest casino for a second honeymoon. While they sightsee like tourists during the day, at night they risk it all at the roulette wheel to fix their finances-and save their marriage. A tender yet honest exploration of faith, forgiveness and last chances, The Odds is a reminder that love, like life, is always a gamble. “ Haunting, funny, and gorgeously eloquent . . . O’Nan’s expertly drawn tension builds to a conclusion that’s as surprising and satisfying as an unexpected kiss. In the end, THE ODDS is a gorgeous fable, a stunning meditation, and a hope-filled Valentine about what is won in love , what falls away, and how truly, it is always, always worth the cost.” — The Boston Globe “ O'Nan really shines …For virtually the entire book, O'Nan is in firm but understated control of his material. And the novel's conclusion — when Art and Marion, all dressed up, bet everything they've got — is thrilling .” — The Seattle Times “ Stewart O’Nan seems incapable of writing a false line. Whether describing the unimaginable or the mundane, his modest sentences crystallize the lives of ordinary people…. O’Nan is an author you learn to trust, no matter what he’s writing about…. A few hours with this witty, sad, surprisingly romantic novel might be a better investment for troubled couples than a month of marriage counseling… Odds of enjoying this novel: 1 in 1.” — Ron Charles, The Washington Post “He brings lightness to every scene, while still making the characters tremendously real, recognizable yet fresh. He works in the micro — the novel slips in under 200 pages — writing close, with fine detail. There is a clarity to O'Nan's prose: It doesn't call attention to itself, doesn't flaunt dazzling sentences or stunning descriptions. This may undersell his work, which is delightful. There is something movie-like in it — not that this should be a movie, as his novel "Snow Angels" was — but it's movie-like in its easy immersion . Cracking open "The Odds" is like settling back to watch a film as the theater lights come down: It plays out, brightly, before your eyes. ” — Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times “O'Nan is a master of that ambiguity that can never be mistaken for confusion. In cold-as-glacier-melt prose, his quotidian characters grow indelible in LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER and EMILY, ALONE and now THE ODDS . ” — The Cleveland Plain Dealer "THE ODDS is a slim volume, sparse in its language and as finely crafted as the tightest of short stories. Some use a barrage of details to make a point. O'Nan trains his eye on the one or two that, in their nakedness, reveal much. The reader cannot help but recognize the rhythms of [a] relationship, disturbed by the pressure imposed by external forces. O'Nan makes points, but never belabors them. The result is an experience that is colored as much by the reader's experience as by this fine writer's craft.” — The Denver Post “O'Nan . . . captures the emotional machinery that binds and separates two people in love.” — The Minneapolis Star-Tribune “THE ODDS  will strike more than a few chords for long-married baby boomers…who will appreciate its honest and raw depiction of what marriage can be like after many years…The novel is not without O’Nan’s trademark humor, subtly sprinkled throughout...THE ODDS   is…delightful in its candor and moving in its perceptiveness.” — The Miami Herald "This compact page-turner of a novel examines how much good luck a long-term marriage requires." — More “Relentlessly honest, O’Nan never averts his eyes from the unpleasant eruptions of the body or soul, nor is he shy of giving affection, admiration, and tolerance their due . . . O’Nan’s settings—the bus from Ohio, the bridal suite in the hotel, the layers of the casino, the freezing Falls, the Heart concert—are rendered with such vivid intelligence that they have the verve of the exotic .” — The Atlantic “ THE ODDS…offers a compelling window into the way that the 2008 economic collapse has affected the lives of average Americans.” — The New Yorker Book Bench “[THE ODDS] keeps you on the edge of your seat through the 179 pages of this brisk, pungent journey into a marriage afflicted by the 21st century.” — The Pittsburgh Post Gazette “The odds of the Fowlers reconciling should their marriage fail may be slim (1 in 20,480 t