No One Dies in the Garden of Syn by Michael Seidelman

A long-awaited appointment with a geneticist ultimately reveals nothing about what’s causing Tophs’s drops in blood sugar, his processing delays–but it does reveal something unexpected about Taylor’s own health. Some days, her sweet, charismatic boy seems just fine others, he struggles to answer simple questions. She spends countless hours trying to navigate health and education systems that can be hostile to Black mothers and children at night she googles, prays, and interrogates her every action. With every question the doctors answer about Tophs’s increasingly troubling symptoms, more arise, and Taylor dives into the search for a diagnosis. But at the hospital, her maternal instincts are confirmed: something is wrong with her boy, and Taylor’s life will never be the same. She rushes Tophs to the doctor, ignoring the part of herself, trained by years of therapy for generalized anxiety disorder, that tries to whisper that she’s overreacting. One morning, Tophs, Taylor Harris’s round-cheeked, lively twenty-two-month-old, wakes up listless, only lifting his head to gulp down water. How can they repair their relationship, and is it even worth saving? From debut author Rachel Lynn Solomon comes a luminous, heartbreaking tale of life, death, and the fragile bond between sisters. These opposite outcomes push them farther apart as they wrestle with guilt, betrayal, and the unexpected thrill of first love. When the results come in, one twin tests negative for Huntington’s. While Tovah finds comfort in their Jewish religion, Adina rebels against its rules.

It’s turned their Israeli mother into a near stranger and fractured the sisters’ own bond in ways they’ll never admit.

But one thing could wreck their carefully planned futures: a genetic test for Huntington’s, a rare degenerative disease that slowly steals control of the body and mind. Overachiever Tovah awaits her acceptance to Johns Hopkins, the first step on her path toward med school and a career as a surgeon. Viola prodigy Adina yearns to become a soloist-and to convince her music teacher he wants her the way she wants him.

Eighteen-year-old twins Adina and Tovah have little in common besides their ambitious nature.

No One Dies in the Garden of Syn by Michael Seidelman