Travel Writer Erin Van Rheenen Pens New Fiction Set in Costa Rica About Finding Family

You Could Be Happy Here pubs September 16, 2025

SAN DIEGO, CA, UNITED STATES, September 15, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Set in wild and lush Costa Rica, the novel You Could Be Happy Here by Erin Van Rheenen publishes September 16, 2025 as a paperback and e-book from Sibylline Press, and will be issued as an audiobook from Tantor Media. This haunting story transports us to the wild, rocky coast of Central America, and into the heart of a woman searching for the father she never knew.

Lucy—single, childless, in her thirties—studies insects and ecosystems, in part to make sense of human behavior. That hard-won insight is shattered when her mother dies prematurely, her sister claims the California family home, and Lucy learns that her biological father is apparently a Costa Rican they knew when the family spent summers in the coastal village of Palmita.

Reeling, Lucy heads south in search of this phantom father. But he is nowhere to be found, and none of the locals seem to remember her. The dreamy, off-grid paradise she recalls from childhood has become a hard-edged town leery of outsiders. Is Lucy an interloper, too? Or can she find a way to belong—rethink her place in the world and expand her notion of kinship and home?

Early Praise for You Could Be Happy Here:

“…takes you someplace wonderful.” - Karen Joy Fowler, Author We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

“A brilliant debut novel that only a traveler could have written—a beautiful blend of travelers’ insights, natural history, and heartfelt truths about what to means to belong to a place—or have a place belong to you.” - Pat Murphy, Nebula-award-winning author of The Adventures of Mary Darling.

About the Author:
Erin Van Rheenen is a science, travel, and fiction writer with work in publications like BBC Travel, Bellevue Literary Review, and Best Women’s Travel Writing. After earning a BA from UC Santa Cruz and a Masters from City University of New York, she left the US to see the world. She ended up in Costa Rica, where she lived for several years, soaking up the green and researching her relocation guide, Living Abroad in Costa Rica and her children’s book, The Manatee’s Big Day. For ten years she was Senior Writer at The Exploratorium, a science museum. Erin now lives in San Francisco, where she writes in cafes and birds in the parks.

About Sibylline Press:
Sibylline Press publishes the brilliant work of women authors over 50, exclusively. Founded in August 2022, Sibylline is owned by eight women of a certain age (six of whom are also authors). The press currently publishes more than 50 titles a year. Recently, they launched a new imprint, Sibylline Digital First, to publish more work from women over 50 with new titles published every Friday as part of their “Pub Date Fridays” campaign. Sibylline Press titles encompass the genres of fiction (commercial and literary, as well as mystery, adventure, fantasy, and romance) plus memoir. Sibylline Press takes its name from the Sibylline Scrolls, the ancient writings of wise older women, the Sibyls. More at sibyllinepress.com; and follow us on FB and IG @sibyllinepress.

You Could Be Happy Here: A Novel by Erin Van Rheenen
Trade paper ISBN: 978-1960573476; $20
eBook ISBN: 978-1960573537; $9.99
262 pages, Pub Date: September 16, 2025

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You Could Be Happy Here Book Trailer

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