Whether you’re travelling abroad or staying put and looking for an escape, Edel Coffey shares the best new books to add to your reading list this month …
I love a big concept novel and Nicola Yoon’s ONE OF OUR KIND (Trapeze, €23.18) is on everyone’s TBR pile this month. Best known for her young adult novels Everything, Everything and The Sun Is Also A Star, which were both New York Times bestsellers and both made into films, One of Our Kind is her debut novel for adults. It tells the gripping story of Jasmyn and King, a wealthy black couple who have decided to move into an exclusive housing complex in California called Liberty. Jasmyn has reservations about moving into the enclave but relents under pressure from her husband. But the utopia is not what it seems and there is a sinister secret behind it. The concept is brilliantly done, the characters emotional and involving and the narrative formally inventive. Both gripping thriller and social commentary, it’s being described as Get Out meets The Stepford Wives, but bibliophiles can file it alongside writers like Kiley Reid and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.
THE SLEEPWALKERS (Scribner, €21.75) by Scarlett Thomas is an immediately gripping dark literary mystery about newly wed couple, Evelyn and Richard, who begin their Greek island honeymoon in less than ideal circumstances. A storm is coming and the hotel owner is a hostile woman who insists on telling a grim story about a couple who stayed at the hotel and sleepwalked to their death. Dark and clever, this feels like an Emma Cline retelling of a Daphne Du Maurier novel.
Kevin Barry’s writing is never anything less than instantly hypnotic and meditative. His new novel THE HEART IN WINTER (Canongate, €23.80), his first since 2019’s Night Boat To Tangier, immediately steeps the reader in a river of words that transports us into the protagonist Tom Rourke’s mind. It’s 1891 in Wyoming and Rourke is a drunk and a dope fiend who makes money writing love letters for illiterate or inarticulate suitors. Tom is unexpectedly struck by Cupid’s arrow himself when a young bride arrives in town. A love affair followed by a cross-country chase ensues in this western romance imbued with all the pathos and humour for which Barry is beloved. The story gallops along like one of the horses on the chase.
Irish thriller writer Andrea Mara is on a roll. Her previous novel No One Saw A Thing is basking in the glow of its recent number one success in the UK and her books have sold half a million copies to date. Her latest novel SOMEONE IN THE ATTIC (Bantam, €21) has a very contemporary feel as it starts with a scary TikTok trend of a masked stranger sneaking into people’s houses and posting videos of himself emerging from the attic. It’s all fun and games until somebody is found dead. The dead body is an old, estranged friend of Julia. Julia has just moved home to Dublin with her family from San Diego. The family left under a cloud, which was also caused by social media. But all is not as it seems in their wealthy Dublin gated community. Julia’s son is convinced someone is living in their attic and when Julia’s daughter finds videos of their house on TikTok anything seems possible. A creepy page-turner that will consolidate Mara’s reputation as an Irish queen of crime. Just don’t read it while alone!
Debut novelist Fiona McPhillips’ book WHEN WE WERE SILENT (Bantam, €16) was snapped up in a six-figure deal at the Frankfurt book fair and has already sold in America. McPhillips is being compared to Patricia Highsmith and Tana French. The book tells the story of Lou, a young girl who moves to a prestigious private school called Highfield Manor. Among her wealthy and privileged classmates lies a dark secret but Lou is torn about whether to expose it or not. If she does, she risks losing the friendship of Shauna Power. Fast forward 30 years to the present day and Lou is required to testify in a lawsuit against the school, which forces her to reckon with the secrets of the past. McPhillips perfectly balances the dual timeline story of the 1980s school and the present-day trial to gradually reveal the truth. A great revenge story that will appeal to fans of Gone Girl and Promising Young Woman.
New York Times bestseller Lucy Foley has perfected the art of the 21st-century murder mystery. Her novels The Guest List and The Hunting Party were international multi-million-selling sensations and her latest, THE MIDNIGHT FEAST (Harper Collins, €19.60) is another twisty adventure in a luxurious setting. When guests gather at an exclusive new country retreat called The Manor, the guest list includes some old enemies. When a body is found the motives are endless, inventive and intricate, which is all part of the fun of a Lucy Foley novel.
Natalia Ginzburg was an Italian author and essayist who wrote about family, politics and philosophy. She died in 1991 but her writing has been experiencing something of a renaissance in recent times thanks to the devotion of many popular novelists, from Sally Rooney to Maggie Nelson to Rachel Cusk, but also in large part thanks to Daunt Books who have been publishing her work in translation. The revival continues with the new publication of two more novellas, FAMILY and BORGHESIA (Daunt Books, €11.58), both translated by Beryl Stockman. Ginzburg looks at loneliness and isolation, memory and the passing of time, domestic life, and how the choices we make shape our lives. Family looks at a one-time couple whose child died but who remain friends many years after their break-up. Borghesia examines a widow’s sense of place within her family after her husband’s death. These are deeply ruminative and compelling stories that are as relevant today as they were when first published.
A literary romcom with added time travel may seem like a bridge too far for some, but bear with me. Kaliane Bradley’s THE MINISTRY OF TIME (Sceptre, €21.75) is charming enough to win over even the most cynical reader. This is Bradley’s debut novel but her short stories have won many awards, including the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize and the VS Pritchett Short Story Prize. Set in the near future, it tells the story of a civil servant who gets a job working in a new government ministry which monitors time travel. When she is charged with monitoring a polar explorer known as 1847, her work includes helping him adapt to new technologies like the washing machine. Over the course of the summer, their professional relationship grows. This book is part love story, part intellectual and political treatise. It is funny, smart and inventive but above all, very good fun.
