Debut fiction to read this month
Scaffolding by Lauren Elkin
The story of two couples who live in the same apartment in north-east Paris almost fifty years apart. In 2019, Anna, a psychoanalyst, is processing a recent miscarriage. Her husband, David, takes a job in London so she spends days obsessing over renovating the kitchen while befriending a younger woman who has moved into the building and is part of a radical feminist collective. Meanwhile, in 1972, Florence and Henry are redoing their kitchen. Florence is finishing her degree in psychology while hoping to get pregnant. But Henry isn't sure he's ready for fatherhood...
Both sets of couples face the challenges of marriage, fidelity, and pregnancy, against a backdrop of political disappointment and intellectual controversy. The characters and their ghosts bump into and weave around each other, not knowing that they once all inhabited the same space.
Due for publication 18 June
Read our staff review here.
Edenhope by Louise Le Nay
Marnie is sixty-three and downwardly mobile. Her middle-class marriage is long gone, her only child more or less estranged. She's living in a granny flat behind a stranger's house. Still, things could be worse. She likes her new boss and her flat has a leadlight window depicting a galleon in full sail. Also, her daughter Lenny has just brought Marnie's adored grandchildren to stay.
She's also brought her repellent boyfriend and raging drug habit, so nothing new there. But this time it's different. This time Marnie can see with absolute clarity the danger the children are in. And this time – she's going to do something about it.
Swift River by Essie Chambers
What if the price of moving forward is losing the only family you've ever known?
Summer, 1987. In the New England mill town of Swift River, sixteen-year-old Diamond Newbury is desperately lonely. It's been seven years since her father disappeared, and while her mother is determined to move on, Diamond can't distance herself from his memory. When Diamond receives a letter from a relative she has never met, she unearths long-buried secrets and discovers a legacy she never knew she was missing. The more she learns, however, the harder it becomes to reconcile her old life with the one she wants to lead.
So begins an epic story spanning the twentieth century that reveals a much larger picture of prejudice and love, of devotion and abandonment.
Due for publication 11 June
Read out staff review here.
The Little Clothes by Deborah Callaghan
Audrey Mendes is a clever lawyer but has never made partner. Her weeks are filled with long hours in the office, visits to her ageing parents, trivia nights at the local and evenings at home with her pet rabbit, Joni.
When Audrey tries to buy wine at the pub she is ignored and walks out without paying. One thing leads to another, and soon she starts rebelling in small and creative ways against a world in which she is unseen - until a painful reminder from her childhood pushes her into a reckoning.
All the while there's a potential romance and an eccentric new neighbour to deal with. And why does Audrey buy extravagant baby clothes when she doesn't have a child?
Due for publication 11 June
BRAT: A Ghost Story by Gabriel Smith
Gabriel’s skin is falling off. His dad is dead. He owes his editor a novel. His girlfriend won’t answer his calls.
Tasked by his horribly well-adjusted brother with clearing out the family home for sale, Gabriel’s sanity quickly begins to unravel. His parents’ old manuscripts appear to change each time he reads them. A bizarre home video hints at long-buried secrets. And there’s a hideous man in the garden.
From a stunningly original new talent, this is a debut novel unlike anything you have read.
Read our staff review here.
Manny and the Baby by Varaidzo
London, 1936. Manny is forthright, intellectual, and determined to make her mark on the London literary scene. Her younger sister Rita, the Baby, just wants to dance. In the smoky clubs underneath Soho’s vibrant streets, Rita finds herself drawn into a new world of Black ambition, along with the masterful mimic and trumpeter, Ezekiel Brown, from Jamaica. As tensions rise and the shadow of fascism and war snaps at their heels, the two sisters are faced with choices that will alter their lives forever.
Bath, 2012. Itai has fled London to his late father’s flat in Bath. Listening to cassette tapes his father made, he feels both drawn in and shut out of his former life – who is Rita? Why did his father record her life story? And where can he find her now, to return the tapes? Meanwhile, his developing friendship with Josh, a young athlete who moonlights as a dealer to fund his training for the next Olympics, is on unsteady ground, as Josh has been sent by his bosses to find out what the hell Itai is doing in Bath.
Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh
When Obiefuna's father witnesses an intimate moment between his teenage son and another boy, he banishes Obiefuna to a Christian boarding school. Surrounded by unknown faces that soon become friends, lovers and enemies, Obiefuna finds and hides who he truly is, while his mother Uzoamaka grapples to hold onto her favourite son, her truest friend. When he leaves school as a young man, Nigeria criminalizes same-sex relationships – and Obiefuna's life, or the life he wants to live, becomes even harder to envision – out of reach in a way that is more dangerous and tangible than before.
Told from the alternating perspectives of Obiefuna and his mother Uzoamaka, as they reach towards a future that will hold them both, Blessings is an elegant and exquisitely moving story of love and loneliness.
Due for publication 11 June
Death in the Air by Ram Murali
Welcome to Samsara, a world-class spa nestled in the Indian Himalayas where all your wishes are only a gilded notecard away. Ro Krishna has just checked in. With his rakish charm, Oxford education, and perfect hair, he had it all – well, until he left his job under mysterious circumstances. It was super hectic, and Ro decides it's time for some much-needed R&R. At Samsara, he's free to explore the innumerable yoga classes, wellness treatments and guided meditation sessions on offer alongside the rest of the exclusive hotel's guests.
Until one of the guests is found dead. As everyone scrambles to figure out what happened, Ro is pulled into an investigation that endangers them all and threatens to spiral beyond the hotel walls. Because it turns out it's not just heiresses and Bollywood stars-to-be that have checked in: cocktail hour is over, and death is on the prowl.
Due for publication 18 June
Read our staff review here.
Spoilt Creatures by Amy Twigg
Iris is adrift when she meets the beguiling Hazel, who lives on a women's commune. As she is drawn into commune life, Iris is soon seduced by the possibility of a new start away from a world of men who have only let her down. At Breach House the women are free to live and eat abundantly, to be loud and dirty, all whilst under the leadership of their gargantuan matriarch, Blythe.
But is Breach House truly the haven it seems? And just how much can Iris trust her new family? When an unforgivable transgression threatens the commune's existence, Iris and the other women find themselves hurtling towards an act of devastating violence.
The Switch by Lily Samson
Elena and Adam are housesitting in Wimbledon and are instantly seduced by their new upscale surroundings.
Sophia and Finn are their beautiful, enigmatic neighbours who invite them into their world.
When Sophia proposes a wicked game to Elena whereby they will swap partners in secret, it's not long before Elena starts to experience a sexual awakening that blossoms into an illicit love affair.
But Sophia's plans are far more complex and dangerous than Elena could ever have imagined. Who will survive?
Due for publication 11 June
