The best debuts and blockbuster novels of the year so far …
THE NAMES (Phoenix, €16.99) by Florence Knapp is the buzziest debut of the year so far. It asks the question: can a name change the course of your life? In 1987, Cora gives birth to a son but has been prevented by a storm from registering his birth. Which means she has had time to think about what her son should be called. Her husband wants her to follow family tradition and call their son after him. Her daughter wants to call the baby Bear, and Cora wants to give her baby a chance to forge his own path, by calling him Julian. This book explores all three possible lives, asking what is really in a name. Original and emotionally rich.
Five years ago, Jeanine Cummins enjoyed global success with her blockbuster novel, American Dirt. Now Cummins returns with a new saga, SPEAK TO ME OF HOME (Tinder Press, €20) which explores the idea of belonging via three generations of one family. Rafaela grew up in San Juan and married Irishman Peter, before they moved to the American midwest to make a new life with their children, Ruth and Benny. Ruth now lives in New York, while her own 22-year-old daughter Daisy has returned to San Juan in search of “home”. Cummins brilliantly unfurls all three women’s stories, creating an utterly believable tale of what home and family really mean and what it means to belong, all carried along with tension and suspense. As emotional as it is insightful, this is a big, sweeping story of family and identity. Put this one aside for your summer holidays.
John Boyne brings his elemental quartet to a close with AIR (Doubleday, €18), the final instalment in his collection of short novels tackling the subject of abuse from differing perspectives. We meet Aaron again, now 40, who we met briefly in Boyne’s previous novel, Fire, as a teenage victim of sexual predator Freya. Now, we learn how Aaron’s childhood trauma shaped his life. As he and his teenage son travel back to the island that featured in the first instalment, Water, all of the stories’ loose ends are brought to a close. These short novels can be read as standalones, but there is an extra layer of satisfaction in reading them in order to spot the various mentions of recurring characters and places throughout.
THE GOOD MISTRESS (Hachette Books Ireland, €15.99) is New Zealand-based Irish author Anne Tiernan’s second novel. Those who fell in love with her gorgeous debut, The Last Days Of Joy, will not be disappointed by this. The book opens with Juliet, who returns home for her childhood friend Rory’s funeral. As far as everyone else knows, Juliet was just an old friend, but in reality she was having a long-time affair with him and he is the only man she ever loved. Rory’s wife Erica is not as perfect as she seems, while Maeve, another childhood friend, is having it all, but tired of doing it all. Tiernan skillfully weaves the three women’s stories together into a highly relatable novel. Fans of Meg Mason will love this.
Ocean Vuong started life as a remarkable and lauded poet (Night Sky With Exit Wounds won the TS Eliot award, making him the youngest recipient and only the second ever poet to win the prize). His debut novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous won him legions of fans. His latest novel THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS (Jonathan Cape, €20) tells the story of 19-year-old and his relationship with an elderly woman, who stops him from jumping off a bridge. Through his relationship as her carer, Vuong explores ideas of family, love and American life and values. Vuong’s language and imagery is drop-dead gorgeous.
Irish writer Elaine Feeney was longlisted for a Booker prize with her last novel, How To Build A Boat, and her debut, As You Were, won the Kate O’Brien Prize along with many others. Her latest, LET ME GO MAD IN MY OWN WAY (Harvill Secker, €16.99), tells the story of Claire, who returns from London to the west of Ireland after splitting up with her boyfriend. When he unexpectedly moves to Ireland for work, she has to reassess their relationship. As always with Feeney, the novel is about so much more than the surface, and this becomes a book that looks at inter-generational trauma, and on a larger scale, the historical trauma of war and how it lives on in a culture. Fiercely intelligent and multi-layered, with a gripping, passionate heroine at its heart, this is a deeply emotional story.
Another Irish writer, Gethan Dick, publishes her intriguing debut novel this month with the prestigious Tramp Press. WATER IN THE DESERT FIRE IN THE NIGHT (Tramp Press, €16) is about an underachieving millennial, a retired midwife and a charismatic Dubliner seeking sanctuary.
In crime fiction, Andrea Mara returns with her latest domestic thriller. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU (Bantam, €16.99) has a runaway plot that gallops along at breakneck speed to its breathtaking conclusion. The story starts off with your basic nightmare, as Susan accidentally sends a gossipy text about her neighbours’ secret affairs and misdeeds not to her sisters, as she thought, but to the neighbourhood WhatsApp group. It’s shared around social media and when a woman is found murdered, it appears to be a case of mistaken identity … it was meant to be her. Mara excels at taking ordinary suburban fears and turning them into heart-stopping thrillers. The twists are ingenious and addictive.
Northern Irish writer Brian McGilloway is best known for his Ben Devlin and Lucy Black mystery series. His latest novel, THE ONE YOU LEAST SUSPECT (Constable, €15.99), is his 13th and takes an agonising moral dilemma as its beginning. Katie lives in a small Derry neighbourhood with her daughter and works in the local pub where she has a fling with one of the married barmen. She refuses when a couple of mysterious heavies try to force her into informing on her boss’s brother, a shady character. But when they increase the pressure, she’s faced with an impossible choice. McGilloway is a masterful mystery writer and his storytelling is such an easy pleasure. Beneath the pacy storyline are acutely insightful observations into everyday life in post-Good Friday Northern Ireland.
MRS SPY (Head of Zeus, €16.99) by MJ Robotham is a lighthearted spy novel with a twist – its secret agent protagonist is a widowed single mother with bunions. When she meets a Russian agent, she discovers a chilling secret. If you liked Netflix’s Black Doves, you might enjoy this. Good fun.
TO AVENGE A DEAD GLACIER (Lilliput Press, €15.95), is a striking debut collection of short stories from Irish writer Shane Tivenan, who won the RTÉ Francis McManus Prize and John McGahern Award. The stories are unequivocally Irish in tone and spirit, full of glinting humour. A new talent to follow.
SEE MORE: 40 Of The Best Books So Far This Year
