It's a wonderfully heartfelt twist on The Invisible Man, where the mad scientist is driven by a desire to (ironically) be seen and a raging, untreated neurospiciness that leads to hyperfixation and difficulty interacting with others. He ends up meeting a runaway popstar with a different flavor of neurospiciness and forced proximity, there's only one bed, and secrets too big to stay hidden lead to fantastic discoveries.

Emory Griffin is one of those characters who seems unlikeable upon first meeting, but quickly becomes the favorite you would like to hug and tell everything's going to be alright. Meanwhile, Gerard James Wells is the stereotypical superstar who's done with fame but stuck in it because he can't handle conflict and he can't face his family with his truths; he cares deeply about people and things, he just needs time and space to process. They seem like opposites, and they kind of are, but they're the kind of opposites who work better together.

Janovsky excels at creating worlds that feel incredibly real, so even if there's something as fantastic as a scientist figuring out an invisibility serum, you can relate to the characters that inhabit them. The little made-up island of Iping feels like a wonderful community where two slightly broken souls can find shelter. The people who are around Emory and Gerard help anchor the world in reality by being as varied and strange as you would expect the inhabitants of a slowly disappearing island in the middle of Chesapeake Bay to be.

You'll have to suspend disbelief a bit to fully enjoy this one, but it will be more than worth it.

Delighted thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the wonderful read!