Kirkus Reviews starred review: 

Representing the many small towns that saw an economically revitalizing influx of newcomers during the Covid pandemic, fictional Lanier struggles to balance its long-term traditional values and the more liberal outlook of the newcomers it has welcomed. The book opens with a mysterious email sent to all Lanier residents with the subject line “Invitation To Participate: Sexual Practices in a Small Midwestern Town.” Weaving through the following stories, the survey acts as a touchstone to which characters react. In a relatively short book, Ryle richly delineates a lot of personalities, listing more than 65 in her cast of characters. Like many of them, the central five appear predictable at first until they evolve in ways unexpected to readers and themselves. Having refused to get vaccinated, grouchy former basketball coach Don Blankman was hospitalized with Covid and now needs a new lung. While publicly fulminating about sexual morality, he’s privately tortured about the long-term adulterous affair he’s carrying on and by his fear of death. When Don returns temporarily to the hospital, his wife, Joyce, enjoys her newfound independence, taking up painting and finding a new creative social circle. A member of that circle, 81-year-old Nancy, begins a romance with a retired doctor involved in downtown gentrification. Loretta Sawyer, an embittered government bureaucrat who doesn’t admit her loneliness, finds herself drawn to a hot dog vendor whose business she’s supposed to shut down because he doesn’t fit the town’s new “brand.” Loretta’s friend Rachel Barr, a self-effacing bartender, discovers a gift she can’t avoid: writing stories about her observations. Rachel’s and the author’s trenchant insights and affection for the characters, especially Lanier itself, abound. Comparisons to Olive Kitteridge are inevitable, but the tone and expansiveness of this novel-in-stories hark back to Spoon River Anthology (if not Chaucer).

Thoroughly refreshing: an astute portrait of contemporary small-town America that's genuinely fun to read.

"I've not been this undone and awed by a short story collection since The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw. Robyn Ryle proves that narrative fearlessness, ambition and radical play reach their highest resonance when foundationed on an ungodly talent and stunning skill. It's impossible to say what's more soul-snatching here: the premises or the writing. It's hard to deliver on what feels like an impossible book to imagine. It's harder to make the writing of that impossible book seem easy, or even inevitable. Robyn Ryle does both. The short story and literary sex are somewhere sweating and smiling, so thankful that they are alive, and in union, again." - Kiese Laymon, New York Times bestselling author of HEAVY: AN AMERICAN MEMOIR

"Ah, the Midwest, home of flatness and reticence. Like the people of Winesburg, Ohio, the residents of Lanier, Indiana, harbor their hopes and fears privately, afraid no one else will understand. Robyn Ryle knows her small town inside and out, celebrating the strange and mundane equally. SEX OF THE MIDWEST isn’t about sex so much as love and loneliness, and, ultimately, belonging." - Stewart O’Nan, award-winning author of EMILY, ALONE

"Set during post-Covid societal reentry, SEX OF THE MIDWEST is proof of the multitudes people contain: quirks, fetishes, gripes, and great depth. With humor and moments of grace, Robyn Ryle depicts young love, new old love, the passage of time, and our remarkable human ability to learn and change. I don’t know if Lanier, Indiana is a real place or not, but these delightful linked stories sure makes it feel real." Daphne Kalotay, Gace Paley prize-winning author of THE ARCHIVIST: STORIES

Working with MidasPR for trade reviews, book clubs, and more.

Releasing teasers via publisher Substack newsletter.

Events planned nationally.

Working with partner venues as pop-up bookstores.

Social media promotion.