A darkly comic suspense in the vein of All’s Well and Yellowface, She’s a Lamb! is an edgy and incisive novel that marches toward showtime with a growing unease about the dangers of magical thinking and the depths of delusion

Jessamyn St. Germain is meant to be a star. Not an actor who occasionally books yogurt commercials and certainly not a lowly usher at one of Vancouver’s smallest regional theaters. No, she is bound for greatness, and that’s why the part of Maria in the theater’s upcoming production of The Sound of Music is hers. Or it’s going to be.

Jessamyn may have been relegated to the position of childminder for the little brats playing the von Trapp children, but it’s so obvious she’s there for a different reason — the director wants her close to the role so when Samantha, the lead, inevitably fails, Jessamyn will be there to take her place in the spotlight.

This must be it. Because if it isn’t, well, then every skipped meal, every brutal rehearsal, every inch won against a man attempting to drag her down will have all been for nothing.

Sharp, relentless, and darkly funny, She’s a Lamb! is a cutting satire about the grotesque pall patriarchy casts over one woman’s delusional quest to achieve her dreams and the depths she will sink to for a chance at the life she’s convinced she deserves.

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Meredith Hambrock’s debut novel Other People’s Secrets was called “audacious” and “fabulous” by the New York Times. She has been a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize and worked extensively in television, most recently in the writers’ room for the Canadian Screen Award–winning sitcom Corner Gas Animated. She lives in Saskatoon.