Hacks meets Rebecca Makkai in this rollicking novel about a cautious daughter and her eccentric, estranged mother venturing west in search of buried treasureand a way back to each otherbefore they run out of patience, money, and options

After being fired for taking an uncharacteristic risk at her commodities trading job, Bea Macon sublets her New York apartment and books a one-way ticket to stay with her mother, Christy, a free spirit who has been living in Salt Lake City on Bea’s dime.

Usually the responsible one, Bea isn’t about to admit exactly why she’s suddenly decided to visit, but she isnt the only one keeping secrets: Christy has a man. She has a map. She has . . . a username on a forum devoted to unearthing $1 million in buried treasure that an antiquities dealer claims to have hidden somewhere in the western U.S.?

Bea is convinced this is just another one of her mothers wild larks, an elaborate way to refuse, as she has for Beas entire life, to finally grow up. But Christy believes shes onto somethingand shes arranged a rendezvous in a rural town called Mercy with the guy shes been obsessively trading theories with online to prove it. Out in the desert that one woman believes to be a promised land, the other a wasteland, they find themselves barreling toward a more high-stakes, transformative escapade than either of them could have imagined.

Populated with unforgettable characters and set against one of the worlds most oddly enrapturing landscapes, Scavengers is a funny and heartbreaking novel about old injuries, new beginnings, and the lengths to which well go to find, escape, and reinvent ourselves.