Publication Date: June 23, 2026
Summer 2009:Â Brand-new college graduate Ann Ward has sent out nearly three hundred job applications, but nobody will employ her. The last thing she wants to do is leave Los Angeles, return to her desert hometown, and live in the shadow of her fame-hungry televangelist father-and it’s starting to look like that’s her fate. Thankfully, Ann’s luck turns after a humiliating failed job interview, when she meets the magnetic founder of upscale holistic wellness collective Sagebrush. She’s quickly drawn deep into the privileged, demanding world of Sagebrush, inventing Anneliese-a dubious new persona-to fit in. But when her funds run out and her lies blow up, Ann must choose between facing reality or doing whatever she has to do in order to get the future she wants. Both a “funny ha-ha-” and a “funny oh no” read for anyone who survived the Great Recession, Be Well explores just how easy it is to believe in something unquestioningly-and lie to ourselves and others-when everything feels uncertain and the future isn’t guaranteed.
Ann Ward will do anything to keep from returning home, even if it means setting aside her newly minted college degree.
Author Sarah Flocken sets up a fascinating story in Be Well, centering on Ann’s naive approach to fitting in as a millennial in 2009. Using the name Anneliese, she gets involved with an upscale holistic wellness center.
To keep up, she weaves a series of lies while juggling payments. Whether it’s her determination to believe everything will work out or the reader’s ability to predict an uncertain future, Ann’s world turns into a roller coaster.
Between her family’s efforts and the balance she needs to maintain between her old and newly made friends, Ann faces a series of uncomfortable choices.
Be Well highlights the challenges for a young woman who is woefully underprepared to enter the real world.
Sarah Flocken is an author who writes unhinged fiction for the silently enraged. Be Well is her first novel. She is also a public relations professional, comedian, improviser, and pun contest host (yes, it’s a thing) with performance credits worldwide. Los Angeles will always hold a piece of her heart and blood pressure, but San Diego is the place she calls home.
