Debut fiction to read this month
Before we race headlong into November new releases and the end of the year, we're taking the time to spotlight some of the wonderful debut novels that you may have missed over the past couple of months.
Green Dot by Madeleine Gray
Hera Stephen is clawing through her mid-twenties, working as an underpaid comment moderator in an overly air-conditioned newsroom by day and kicking around Sydney with her two best friends by night. Instead of money or stability, she has so far accrued one ex-girlfriend, several hundred hangovers, and a dog-eared novel collection.
While everyone around her seems to have slipped effortlessly into adulthood, Hera has spent the years since school caught between feeling that she is purposefully rejecting traditional markers of success to forge a life of her own and wondering if she's actually just being left behind. Then she meets Arthur, an older, married colleague. Intoxicated by the promise of ordinary happiness he represents, Hera falls headlong into a workplace romance that everyone, including her, knows is doomed to fail.
The Opposite of Success by Eleanor Elliott Thomas
All Lorrie wants is to get promoted, accept her body and end global warming. By Friday. Is that really too much to ask?
Council employee Lorrie Hope has a great partner, two adorable kids and absolutely no idea what to do with her life. This Friday, she's hoping for change- it's launch day for her big work project, and she's applied for a promotion she's not entirely sure she wants. Meanwhile, her best friend, Alex, is stuck in a mess involving Lorrie's rakish ex, Ruben-or, more accurately, his wife. Oh, and Ruben's boss happens to be the mining magnate Sebastian Glup, who is sponsoring Lorrie's project...
As the day spirals from bad to worse to frankly unhinged, Lorrie and Alex must reconsider what they can expect from life, love and middle management.
Everyone and Everything by Nadine J. Cohen
When Yael Silver’s world comes crashing down, she looks to the past for answers and finds solace in surprising places. An unconventional new friendship, a seaside safe space and an unsettling amount of dairy help her to heal, as she wrestles with her demons – and some truly terrible erotic literature.
Funny and tender, Everyone and Everything is about friendship, grief and the deep, frustrating bond between sisters. It asks what makes us who we are and what leads us onto ledges. Perfect for fans of Meg Mason, Nora Ephron and Victoria Hannan, this is an intimate, wry and wise exploration of one woman’s journey to the brink and back.
One Day We're All Going to Die by Elise Esther Hearst
At 27, Naomi is just trying to be a normal person. A normal person who works at a Jewish museum, who cares for lost things, found things, sacred things and her family. A person who finds herself going on bad blind dates, having cringe-worthy sex, a tumultuous, toxic affair, and falling for a man called Moses.
Being a normal person would be easy and fine if she didn't bear the weight of the unspoken grief of Cookie, her Holocaust-survivor grandmother. It would all be fine if she just knew how to be, without feeling the pull of expectation, the fear of disappointing others, and that pesky problem of being attracted to all the wrong people (according to her parents, anyway). But by endlessly trying to please everyone around her, Naomi can't seem to figure out what she wants for herself, or how to get it.
Pearl by Siân Hughes
Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother’s love. As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother’s disappearance and the secrets she’s sure her father is keeping from her. Discovering a medieval poem called 'Pearl' and trusting in its promise of consolation, Marianne sets out to make a visual illustration of it, a task that she returns to over and over but somehow never manages to complete.
Tormented by an unmarked gravestone in an abandoned chapel and the tidal pull of the river, her childhood home begins to crumble as the past leads her down a path of self-destruction. But can art heal Marianne? And will her own future as a mother help her find peace?
Songs for the Dead and the Living by Sara M Saleh
Jamilah has always believed she knows where her home is: in a house above a paint shop on the outskirts of Beirut, with her large, chaotic, loving family. But she soon learns that as Palestinian refugees, her family's life in Lebanon is precarious, and they must try to blend in even as they fight to retain their identity. When conflict comes to Beirut, Jamilah's world fractures, and the family is forced to flee to Cairo: another escape, and another slip further away from Palestine, the homeland to which they cannot return. In the end, Jamilah will have to choose between holding on to everything she knows and pursuing a life she can truly call her own.
The Modern by Anna Kate Blair
Things seem to be working out for Sophia in New York: having come from Australia to be at the centre of modernity, she’s working at the Museum of Modern Art, living in a great apartment with a boyfriend interviewing for Ivy League teaching positions. They’re smart, serious, dine in the right restaurants and have (a little unexpectedly) become engaged just before he leaves to hike the Appalachian Trail.
Alone in the city, Sophia begins to wonder what it means to be married – to be defined, publicly – in the 21st century. Can you be true to yourself and someone else? In a bridal shop she meets Cara, a young artist struggling to get over her ex-girlfriend, and the two begin a connection that leads Sophia to question the nature of her relationships, her career and the consequences of being modern.
Something Bad is Going to Happen by Jessie Stephens
Adella is facing the dawn of a new year and the end of her twenties - and she's in a psychiatric unit recovering from a mental breakdown. A decade earlier, her life held such promise; she had every option in her hand. How did it come to this?
As we go back and walk with Adella through her twenties, she searches for her grand purpose through love, career and travel. At her side through the tumultuous highs and lows is her best friend, Jake, facing his own challenges and opportunities. They both know the future must have something better to offer - but why does it also always feel, in the bottom of their stomachs, as though something bad is going to happen?
The Love Contract by Steph Vizard
Single mum Zoe has to return to work but there's a childcare drought and she can't find anyone to look after little Hazel. Enter Will, Zoe's nemesis and frustratingly handsome neighbour. When Will's boss mistakenly assumes Will is Hazel's father and insists he take parental leave, it seems like a simple white lie could get Zoe out of a jam and help Will to make partner at his law firm.
But life with an adorable toddler - and a growing attraction between Will and Zoe - is never as tidy as their agreement's bullet points and dry clauses suggest. As they get deeper into the lie, the lines between truth and fiction blur. But Zoe's hiding a secret and when it comes out, the consequences for all of them could be devastating.
Burn by Melanie Saward
When a tragic bushfire puts two kids in hospital, Indigenous teenager Andrew knows the police will come after him first. But Andrew almost wants to be caught, because at least it might make his dad come and rescue him from suburban Brisbane and his neglectful mother.
Growing up in small-town Tasmania, Andrew struggled at home, at school, at everything. The only thing that distracted or excited him was starting little fires. Flames boosted his morale and purified his thoughts, and they were the only thing in his life he could control. Until one day things got out of hand, and Andrew was forced to leave everything behind. Now as the police close in and Andrew runs out of people to turn to, he must decide whether he can put his faith in himself to find a way forward.
The Vanishing Point by Andrea Hotere
London, 1991: Alex Johns, an art intern at the Courtauld, believes a hidden secret lies within Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas - one of the most written about paintings of all time. Her mother died in mysterious circumstances while trying to uncover its secrets and Alex is troubled by memories of her own encounter as a child with the girl in the painting - the Infanta Margarita - who continues to haunt her. Alex must take up her mother's work and find evidence to uncover the truths within the canvas.
Madrid, 1656: The Infanta Margarita senses that those around her believe the royal household is cursed. She wonders why her father, the King, is a pale shadow of himself and why the Queen is distressed. What threatens the royal offspring? She struggles to fight for her own destiny as the forces around her seek to marry her off and send her from the home she loves.
And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott
On the surface, Alice is exactly where she should be in life: she's just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her ever-charming husband Steve-a white academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture-is nothing but supportive; and they've moved into a new home in a wealthy neighbourhood in Toronto, a generous gift from her in-laws.
But Alice could not feel more like an imposter. She isn't bonding with Dawn, a struggle made more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother. Every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their picture-perfect neighbours, amongst whom she's the sole Indigenous resident. Her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story.
And then strange things start happening.
