The wait is over. Deschutes Library Foundation has announced the 2024 pick for A Novel Idea, the library’s longstanding community reading event featuring programs and discussions centered around an adult title and a young adult book, capped with local appearances by the respective authors.

Participants will be reading “Shark Heart” A Love Story,” by Emily Habeck, as this year’s adult selection. The debut novel tells the story of Lewis, a newly married man who is gradually mutating into a great white shark — and Wren, the wife who must grapple with marrying a Lewis only to learn he’s Jaws in waiting.

Deschutes Public Library Adult Programs Supervisor Liz Goodrich is already a big fan of “Shark Heart,” calling it funny and heartbreaking.

“(It) sounds like the most preposterous premise of a love story, but it works,” she said. “It’s such a lovely story.”

Although it’s genre defying, it would be accurate to describe it as magic realism, accent on realism.

“One of the things that I appreciate most about the novel is that the author doesn’t spend any time trying to explain why this is happening, and it’s happening to other human beings as well.” And not just sharks. They’re also mutating into other species, including a Komodo dragon. Another character is pregnant with peregrine falcon twins.

“No Matter the Distance,” by Cindy Baldwin, an Oregon author living in Hillsboro, is the year’s youth selection. An 11-year-old girl named Penny, who has cystic fibrosis, is the protagonist of the book. Penny and her family live on a creek upstream from a delta.

“One day, they’re out on their dock and they discover that there’s a dolphin that’s swum up and arrived in their neighborhood. It turns out that the dolphin is sick,” Goodrich explained. As Penny’s health deteriorates, she knows she must help guide newfound friend Rose, as she names the dolphin, back to the ocean and her pod if Rose is to recover.

“It’s also a beautiful story,” Goodrich said, noting that the adult and youth books share dovetailing themes: central characters battling major, life-changing circumstances, and the difficult necessity of having to say goodbye.

The selected books were announced at a public unveiling event Saturday evening at the Downtown Bend Public Library.

After people have had some time to read them, A Novel Idea-related programming will get started in the spring.

Baldwin will be in town May 17 and 18, doing school visits the first day. On May 18, she will lead a morning writing workshop for young writers (registration will be required), followed by a 2 p.m. public reading. Both events will be held at the Downtown Bend Public Library.

Habeck will visit on June 1, leading a 10 a.m. writing workshop (fee required, location to be determined) and speaking that evening at 6 p.m. at Caldera High School in Bend. Free tickets will be available starting May 11 at dplfoundation.org/tickets and at all branches.

For more information, visit dplfoundation.org.