PERFECTLY HUGO, Barbara Monier’s sixth novel is coming November 18, 2025!! (Amika Press).
Perfectly Hugo is a gently provocative and emotionally layered novel that explores the boundaries of love, memory, and identity in an age of advancing technology.
Enid and Hugo built a life together—full of quiet joys, deep conversations, and unshakable devotion. But when faced with the inevitable, they make a decision few would dare: to sign with Assembled Souls, a cutting-edge company that offers the ultimate promise—rebirth through AI. If one of them dies, the other can bring them back.
A haunting meditation on the increasing loneliness of the modern world, Perfectly Hugo is ultimately a deeply human love story. Set against the background of a future that may be closer than we think, the book explores the uncertain path between the longing to hold tight and the desire to let go—a path that underpins grief, now brought into sharp relief by new technologies.
EARLY REVIEWS ARE UNCANNY!
“In Monier’s novel, a grieving widow grapples with the possibility of life after death.
Enid, who’s nearly 70, is no stranger to grief, having lost her brother at a young age, but nothing prepares her for the death of her husband, Hugo. The two built a quiet life together, marked by pleasant morning coffees and strolls through the local grocery store. As they grew older, however, they came face-to-face with the inevitable: One of them would have to go on living without the other. Hoping to ease their future pain, the couple turned to Assembled Souls—a new artificial-intelligence technology that digitally recreates loved ones after their deaths. Enid was initially uneasy with the idea, but after Hugo died unexpectedly in his sleep, she must now confront the unthinkable. With just a year to decide whether to activate Hugo’s holographic Assembled Soul, Enid wrestles with uncertainty, writing letters to her late spouse, reflecting on their shared past and on her future without him. When she finally decides to bring the Assembled Soul online, she’s struck by how familiar the simulation seems: “He was perfectly Hugo. A shudder went through her. And then another.” Although she’s troubled by inconsistencies in its memory and the impossibility of physical touch, she soon settles into old patterns with the new Hugo. Equal parts heartwarming and bittersweet, Monier’s novel reimagines the universal experience of grief through the lens of technology, addressing both the comfort and the uncanniness that AI can bring.
With cutting-edge technologies emerging around the globe, the author effectively asks what this kind of tech-assisted afterlife would look like in the real world, where people are already turning to chatbots to fill emotional voids. Some readers may wish that the novel probed the emotional and ethical implications of its premise more deeply. However, the bond between Enid and Hugo remains tender and affecting, while also reminding readers that not everything that technology allows can replicate reality.
A touching meditation on love and loss in a futuristic world that may be closer than one thinks.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Perfectly Hugo is a novel about a couple that builds a strong relationship and life together. It explores how their creation can continue beyond death. The cutting-edge tech company Assembled Souls offers a rare opportunity to continue life via AI, giving them the promise that they will never be alone and that death won’t part them.
Within that promise lies danger, however, as Enid and Hugo find that it’s not easy to build a future based on unlimited potential and the specter of living together forever.
What does it mean to be human under such conditions? Enid and Hugo forge new territory as they enter into murky, uncharted waters with their AI experiment and desire to remain connected even beyond death.
Barbara Monier establishes a baseline for ethical and psychological examinations of love that stretch the boundaries of connection through Enid and Hugo’s experiences. Her story embraces the humor and give-and-take in a long-term couple’s successful relationship, building a foundation and dialogue of their intimacy before venturing into this strange new world:
“…if Assembled Souls were choosing a décor for me alone, I would expect a lot more… animal heads on the walls. Animal skin rugs…tossed here and there.” Hugo burst out laughing.
Enid hit him lightly on the arm, then hit him a second time for effect. “Oh my God, you’re a horrible human being!” It was an expression the two of them had tossed back and forth for years. “Why am I even here? Why would I want more time with this horrible human beside me.”
Accompanying questions such as whether relationships and bonds are the sum of memories (especially if they can’t transfer within the AI environment) raise issues about the touchstones of what it means to stay human in a world that might be populated not just by artificial constructs, but artificial connections.
The thread of humor which connects the couple provides comic relief, interjecting inspections about long-time habits which are as thought-provoking as they are fun:
“First, I’m perfectly capable of picking out a shopping cart. Second, do you have any idea what percentage of shopping carts you tend to find unacceptable? Honestly, for years I worried that this was a thing with you. Your seeming need to find the first thing you chose completely… deficient. Like you always needed to trade up or something. I thought for the longest time that meant my days were numbered. Seriously!”
As Hugo and Enid’s story unfolds, the delightful interplay between them leads to new choices involving hard decisions. Some are surprising revelations (no matter how much they feel prepared for an unusual future) that outline the differences between AI and human.
Libraries interested in stories that reflect the intersection of technology, psychology, and social inspection in a personal, involving way will find Perfectly Hugo a lovely dance between a couple that faces new challenges that nobody has ever tackled before in what it means to stay human and in love.
Filled with moments of connection and revelation, Perfectly Hugo is an enlightening, moving story that will delight book clubs and general-interest leisure readers with its foray into the costs of staying intimate and connected in a technology-enhanced world.”
—Midwest Book Review
Barbara Monier’s Perfectly Hugo follows the story of an elderly widow as she sets out to share her life with a revived personification of her beloved husband through new age technology. Enid and Hugo made a deal with Assembled Souls, a technology company that offers services of manifesting AI holographic versions of one’s loved ones. If one of them dies, the other will bring them back as an Assembled Soul. After Hugo passes away peacefully in his sleep, Enid makes the difficult decision to revive him as Dense Hologram Hugo. She is surprised to discover how much this AI version resembles her late husband. However, Enid slowly begins to realize that not everything about this Hugo is the same. Will Enid continue to live with him, or will she find the strength to move on?
Perfectly Hugo is a poignant tale that illustrates how advancements in AI technology can influence the very nature of our lives in the near future. Author Barbara Monier has crafted an absorbing narrative about the moral, philosophical, and emotional implications of advanced AI technology on everyday human lives. It’s a character-driven story about a couple deeply in love, trying to deal with the inevitable nature of loss and human mortality. Monier’s character work is stellar. Every scene featuring Enid and Hugo together is laced with humor and playful banter. Enid’s character development as she navigates the loss of her husband by reviving Hugo’s AI avatar is the book’s highlight for me. Anyone who has dealt with the loss of a loved one will find Enid relatable. Overall, I enjoyed the book and highly recommend it to literary fiction readers. —Reviewed by Pikasho Deka for Readers’ Favorite
“Pitch-perfect blend of literary wit, believable dialogue, and psychological insight.” –B.L.
“This one will rock you hard and stay with you.” –R.D.
“A superb, quietly magical story that should not be missed by anyone who has ever loved.” –P.C.
“The story is packed with movement and depth.” –P.S.
“Thought provoking, insightful, perceptive, creative and unputdownable.” –J.F
“A page turner! A perfectly satisfying read.” –D.P.
“Monier had done a fantastic job.” – L.J.
She has five previously published novels. She published THE READING, PUSHING THE RIVER and A ROCKY ORCHARD with Amika Press. YOU, IN YOUR GREEN SHIRT and A LITTLE BIRDIE TOLD ME are available on Amazon.
AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE ON AMAZON!
THE READING
Synopsis:
An unexpected – and unrecognized – visitor attends veteran writer Esme’s reading and brings events of forty years past squarely into her present. Struggling with writer’s block and uncertain about a future with her romantic partner, Esme undertakes a journey through her own history. Esme revisits a particular year she had written off as the worst of her life as well as her whirlwind early marriage. In the process, Esme ultimately overcomes the wounded hesitancy that has characterized her life and rediscovers her former courage and openness to risk.
REVIEWS of THE READING:
“Barbara Monier’s The Reading is a literary novel about an established writer named Esme. From the outset, you are immersed in Esme’s vivid world. Esme is critically aware of her feelings and those of the people surrounding her. This is partly because her father died when she was very young, and this trauma has left a lasting impression. When a friend from her worst days in college shows up forty-odd years later at one of her book readings, Esme is confronted with her troubled past and identity. On the same day, her long-term partner asks Esme to take the next step in their relationship. The timing of these two events leaves Esme bewildered, causing her to reflect on other factors that have shaped her into the person she is now.
Barbara Monier allows us to accompany Esme on her journey of self-discovery. The Reading deals with the human condition of loneliness, addresses the complexity of relationships (regardless of age), and illustrates the difficulty of understanding both youth and loss. I relished the descriptions of Esme’s physical surroundings because they were poignant and evocative. Monier also uses humor, and I found myself laughing out loud at some of Esme’s observations in her internal monologue. Besides her wit, Monier’s intertextuality and literary references are particularly apt and add context to Esme’s character. The novel also touches on the contemporary concerns of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Reading will appeal to anyone who appreciates self-reflective writing and a complex main character.” —Kayleigh Perumal, Readers’ Favorite
“In Barbara Monier’s masterful novel The Reading, we meet Esmé, an established writer in her early sixties. She is giving a reading. We are there with her every step of the way, including watching her being festooned with a Mardi Gras style necklace. As she’s signing books she’s surprised by a visitor, Tom Killarney, who traveled from the East Coast to be at her reading that night. He tells her that she changed his life, back when they were freshmen at the Ivy League school she hated. Later in the novel we learn how Esme’s speaking truth to him in her outspoken, caring way halted his downward slide at school. “Tommy, what the fuck are you doing,” Esmé asked.
The novel moves back and forth in time. We readers get to see Esmé at the hated school as we live through each trauma and disappointment with her. Esmé says: “stories are never about events.” We hear Esme’s precocious voice, very much like her namesake Esmé in J.D. Salinger’s story, as she takes us through that dreadful year and on her adult journey with her boyfriend Gino.
There are some gorgeous, meaningful passages, such as:
“It is amazing the lies we can tell ourselves- how fully we can convince ourselves, fool ourselves into believing that various things about us are true. With a spirit of creativity and a zest for denial, I managed to bend and twist my great dislike of eating alone into a belief that I never actually did it.”
“The way the morning sun creates an ever-shifting mosaic of brilliant glints that dance across the surface of the harbor remains as breathtaking as ever. And yet, mornings are entirely changed. What used to be a steady rumble of white noise that the lakefront traffic produced has died down to a murmur, the low purr of a gentle breeze.”
“I get it now. I get that Montgomery Treadwell III—and the scores of others like him—had always been and would always be the same. But what about Tom? What about the smart, seething boy who had bought me turtlenecks and brought me coffee and handed out flyers side-by-side with me—how did the Toms of the world go from wanting to make real and good and lasting changes to turning tail, wandering away, at the very least looking in the other direction. Or perhaps, as Rob said, taking part in fucking over so many others, directly taking part, choking the life out of them with their own bare hands.
What happened to us?”
“Let go of the ghosts. Take the risks.”
Thank you, Esmé, for speaking truth so brilliantly. Thank you, Barbara Monier, for writing this up front and personal novel that’s so profound, so witty, so real. I’m not surprised your caring, take no prisoners voice changed lives.” —Carol Orange, author, A Discerning Eye
“Esme, a noted sixtyish writer, has been living alone in a home she loves. She is reasonably happy with her situation, until Gino, her companion of many years, asks her to move in with him. Then, after a reading of her latest book, she is approached by Tommy, an old friend she hasn’t seen since her first year of college. The meeting awakens memories of what she considered the worst year of her life, when she had been introduced into a company of old-money, upper-class individuals that represented ideals she found not only uncomfortable but ethically upsetting. Tommy was her only real friend during that year. His reappearance, though brief, causes her to reexamine her life values and her decision to move in with Gino. Chapters alternate between present-day and 1972 as the reader learns of Esme’s life in two very different worlds as she makes decisions about her future, and wrestles with the realization that her views of today’s world have very much to do with her college experience. Monier’s style of writing is compelling, filled with details and occurrences of everyday life that most people don’t notice, but once the author mentions them, we know how meaningful they are. This is a book that will make you examine your own values, and is a must read, particularly if you are unhappy about what is happening in today’s troubling times.” —Patricia Camalliere, author, Cora Tozzi Historical Mystery Series
“With striking sensitivity, humor, and superb awareness, Barbara Monier brings to life the trials of a young creative woman finding her way in the world, and yet through it all in her older years, the woman finds herself still searching. The author weaves past and present beautifully through artistic touches — including odes to James Joyce and the great naturalist poet Gary Snyder. And in turn is able to create a literary gem with the kinds of characters you deeply care about and would love to spend hours with, talking about art, life, and the unavoidable connective tissue between the two. It’s a masterful story from a masterful writer.” —David Berner, author, Sandman: A Golf Tale and 9 others
“I read this novel over two days, which is not my normal practice. I can always find reasons to stop reading and The Reading is not what I would describe as a “page turner,” in the sense that I felt compelled to tear through the book to find out what happens next.
On the contrary, the writing is so clean and the voice so authentic, that there is a tendency to take it slow and reflect on what’s on the page. It is the story of a seasoned novelist, Esme (named after the character in the Salinger short story), who is on a reading tour for her latest novel, when she encounters a man whom she knew forty years ago when they were both first year students at a prestigious university. That was the “worst year of her life,” so she is shocked to discover that the man had come to her reading to tell her she had changed the course of his life.
Okay, so that is a page-turning revelation, but when we turn the page, we don’t learn about this man/boy from the past, we learn that Esme is on this extended reading tour because she has writer’s block. She is out of stories – a frightening prospect for a novelist.
The encounter triggers memories for Esme. Monier does a masterful job of sharing the hopes and fears of a young woman away from home for the first tine in her life and struggling to find her place. This is a poignant, often funny, life-story of a character whose company I enjoyed. She is the kind of person I wouldn’t mind having a beer with, or perhaps in her case, a shot of Southern Comfort.
Highly recommended.” —Len Joy, author, Dry Heat
“This latest novel from a writer who loves language and crafts stories that deeply mine a character’s past to allow them to understand a key truth that illuminates their present, takes this formula to a new height. Here, in a reverie triggered by a surprise guest at one of her readings, author Esme reflects on “the worst year of her life.” A year when the reluctant student—fortified by a hard shell as protection from an old grief– arrives as a square-peg scholarship student in a very round-hole ivy league college. Her heavily Salinger-inspired experiences are wry, painful and relatable. After this year, the narrative moves forward, dipping into key inflection points along her 62-year-old life, involving past lovers, a carnival physic’s prophecy, and the tragedy of COVID. These detailed memories allow her to crack away at that shell to understand her impact on others, shed her grief and open her heart to the opportunities offered by her current lover. It’s a deeply personal and “quiet” story that goes in and out of time and arrives at less a climax than a massive epiphany, as Esme assembles the previously mysterious puzzle pieces of her life into a recognizable pattern that has been within her grasp all along. A positive message in our turbulent times.” —Rita Dragonette, author, The Fourteenth of September
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