In this tautly woven tour de force, the paths of four very different women intersect, briefly but significantly, in ways that will change each of them forever. MacKenzie Bezos’s Traps is a propulsive exploration of the snares we build for ourselves, and of how life’s trials and reversals can lead to startling freedoms.

Dana is a beautiful young security guard trained in special ops can disarm a bomb or suture a wound but is terrified of committing to the man she loves. Lynn is a fiercely independent older woman living alone in Nevada and running a ranch for rescued dogs. Jessica is a reclusive movie star and mother of two whose father keeps selling her out to the paparazzi. Vivian is a 17-year-old prostitute who will do anything to protect her twin babies. Bezos brings deep intelligence and rich texture to her portraits of four women whose fates, though only tangentially connected, are linked in miraculous ways.

With infallible comic timing and enormous emotional generosity, Bezos mines the interior lives of her heroines: their fears, their longings, and above all the remarkable reservoirs of inner strength they bring to their struggles. Instantly engrossing, powerfully moving, and impossible to stop listening to, Bezos’s pause-resisting novel reminds us that sometimes our greatest gifts may come to us disguised as our greatest obstacles.