Selected for The Booksellers List inaugural Fall 2025 edition

Cayley creates an environment in which everything has heightened meaning and in which no action or transgression however small is without potential consequenceEmily MerninLiterary Review of Canada

Sentence after remarkable sentence Cayleys portrayal of a day in a neighbourhood simultaneously dazzles and induces a deep discomfortBrett Josef Grubisic Quill amp Quire starred review

A day in the life of a Rube Goldburb where all actions have an equal and opposite culdesaction every child a potential bad seed every adult heading for a minor nick or major cavein A fun and disturbing read strong in characters paced with perfect momentum and its morbid heart residing in the right placeIan McCord Avid Bookshop

Sincere unsettling and intimatekeenly observant of characters inner and outer worlds Cayleys narration expands and dissolves elongating time and blurring subjectivityPropertyshows how it is our unspoken intrinsic understanding of debts to one another that holds us accountableLillian LiaoBooklist

Cayley masterfully renders each characters inner world showing how their fears and prejudices are amplified by loneliness Its an unflinching tale of a communitys fragile bondsltstrong style fontweight bold color rgb17 24 39 fontfamily Roboto Segoe UI GeezaPro DejaVu Serif sansserif applesystem BlinkMacSystemFont fontsize 14px fontstyle normal textalign start textindent 0px texttransform none whitespace normalgtltstrong style fontweight boldgtPublishers Weekly

In this insistently particular and richly detailed portrait of a single street Kate Cayley has captured the quiet dramas of our private lives the contested spaces of our neighbourhoods and the imperfect ways in which we try to understand one another A wonderful and captivating novel with a devastating shock at its heartJon McGregor author ofLean Fall Stand

Holy crap What a novel Its about a day but also about deep time About knowing your neighbours and not having the least clue about your neighbours or frankly your loved ones Keenly observed superbly crafted taut surprising unflinching tender sharply circumscribed and truly expansivePropertyis a wonderAnne FlemingCuriosities A Novel

Kate CayleysPropertyis both minutely observed and movingly kaleidoscopic a meditation on fate accident free will and of the elusive and illusive qualities of selfhood Its questions and hopes layered into a single day on a single street are a living breathing presenceMadeleine ThienThe Book of Records

Praise forHouseholders

Cayley writes with a passion that seems to extend that longedfor forgiveness to her characters when they cannot bring themselves to do it for themselvesMemphis Flyer

You dont have to come from a foreign country to be a stranger in your land Cayleys haunting short stories weave together stealthily gentle until the cosh strikes your skull Brutally beautifully lyricalLavender Magazine

Full of startling turns of phrase and evocative descriptions Cayleys background as a poetshe has published two collections of poetryshines WithHouseholdersCayley has envisioned a world that mirrors our own like a distorted funhousea place where the moral and physical stakes are heightened where emotional bonds run deeply and where something menacing is often lurking Its a frightening world but it makes for a compelling story collection as good to tear through for the narrative as it is to savor and savor again for the languageZYZZYVA

Cayleys world is a dangerous place all the structures built with discarded slivering wood and rusted nails but one where strange sacredness arrives in the middle of the ordinary day The mysterious reasons that push her misplaced displaced people are as convincing as memories painful but necessary to relive Read these stories youll be glad you didMarina Endicott author ofThe Voyage of the Morning Light

Taut and brimming with claritySouvankham Thammavongsa Scotiabank Giller Prizewinning author ofHow to Pronounce Knife

Reading each story in Kate Cayleys Householders is like entering a household one that is unique in its treasured secrets and hidden corners of glory and shame The inhabitantsa trio of aging hippies a blogger masquerading as a nun a group of traumatized escapees from a fanatical commune a washedup but still brilliant musicianare all seekers after whatever good life or good death they can find Having met them the reader is left with a lingering sense of responsibility as for worrisome old friends who are loved in spite of themselvesKD Miller author ofLate Breaking