Recommendations based on "The Names 'the Best Debut Novel in Years' Sunday Times"

Best friends and sisters, the four Padavano girls bring loving chaos to their close-knit Italian American neighbourhood. William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So, when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano, it's as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family: Sylvie, the family's dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. But when darkness from William's past begins to block the light of his future, it is Sylvie, not Julia, who becomes his closest confidante. The result is a catastrophic rift that leaves the family inhabiting two sides of a fault line. Can they find their way back to each other? Can love make a broken family whole?[Bokinfo].

Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience – classics which will endure for generations to come.That girl didn’t want to die. She just wanted out of that house. She wanted out of that decorating scheme.The five Lisbon sisters – beautiful, eccentric and, now, gone –had always been a point of obsession for the entire neighbourhood.Although the boys that once loved them from afar have grown up, they remain determined to understand a tragedy that has defied explanation. The question persists – why did all five of the Lisbon girls take their own lives?This lyrical and timless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life announced the arrival of one of the greatest American novelists of the last thirty years.‘A flare from my own secret world, all the inchoate longings and obsessions of being a teenager somehow rendered into book form’ Emma Cline, author of The Girls

It's fifteen years since the Second World War and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the conflict is well and truly over. Living alone in her late mother's country home, Isabel's life is as it should be- led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel's doorstep-as a guest, there to stay for the season... Eva is Isabel's antithesis- she sleeps late, wakes late, walks loudly through the house and touches things she shouldn't. In response Isabel develops a fury-fuelled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house - a spoon, a knife, a bowl - Isabel's suspicions spiral out of control. In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel's desperate desire for order transforms into infatuation - leading to a discovery that unravels all she has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva - nor the house - are what they seem.

A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.

'I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN' SHON FAYE 'A MASTERPIECE. THIS SEARING TALE OF LOVE, SEX AND CLASS WILL RESONATE FOR GENERATIONS TO COME' OWEN JONES 'Intoxicating.' Irish Times 'Electric and intimate' Guardian 'The ultimate summer read' Stylist Summer in London stops for no-one. Not the half-naked boozers, stoners, and cruisers, the hen parties glugging from bejewelled bottles, the drag queens puffing on hurried fags. It's June 2019, and everyone has converged on the city's parks, beer gardens and street corners to revel in the collective joys of being alive. Everyone but Maggie. She's 30, pregnant and broke. Faced with moving back to the town she fought to escape, she's wondering if having a baby with boyfriend Ed will be the last spontaneous act of her life. Ed, meanwhile, is trying to run from his past with Maggie's best friend Phil and harbouring secret dreams of his own. Phil hates his office job and is living for the weekend, while falling for his housemate, Keith. But there's a problem: Keith has a boyfriend and there might not be room for three people in the relationship. Then there's Rosaleen, Phil's mother, who's tired of feeling like a side character in her own life. She's just been diagnosed with cancer and is travelling to London to tell Phil, if she can ever get hold of him. As Saturday night approaches, all their lives are set to change forever. It's the hottest summer on record and the weekend is about to begin... One of the hottest debuts of 2024, as featured in GUARDIAN, GQ, ESQUIRE, THE BOOKSELLER, IRISH TIMES, INDEPENDENT, THE SKINNY, HERO MAGAZINE, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

NATIONAL BESTSELLER •An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. Now an original series on HBO Max. Over one million copies sold!Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.Look for Emily St. John Mandel’s new novel, Sea of Tranquility, coming soon!

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDIt was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation.Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Bound in innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed the city from Coney Island to Forty-Second Street, and eventually to the celebrated round table of Max’s Kansas City, where the Andy Warhol contingent held court. In 1969, the pair set up camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a community of the famous and infamous, the influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness, when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, and sexual politics were colliding and exploding. In this milieu, two kids made a pact to take care of each other. Scrappy, romantic, committed to create, and fueled by their mutual dreams and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during the hungry years.Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late sixties and seventies and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists’ ascent, a prelude to fame.

“I can’t remember the last time a novel made me laugh so hard or feel so much tenderness for its characters.” —Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters“Madeline Cash is a voice like no other.” —Lena Dunham“I’ve read entire books that contain less wit and inventiveness than a single one of Cash’s sentences.” —Eric Puchner, New York Times-bestselling author of Dream State“With a big surge of energy, Lost Lambs splits the nucleus of the American family.” —Tony Tulathimutte, author of RejectionRippling with humor, warmth, and style, Lost Lambs is a new vision of the charms and pitfalls of family dysfunction. The Flynn family is coming undone. Catherine and Bud's open marriage has reached its breaking point as their daughters spiral in their own chaotic orbits: Abigail, the eldest, is dating a man in his twenties nicknamed War Crime Wes; Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist; the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone—or something—is monitoring the town’s citizens.Casting a shadow across their lives, and their small coastal town, is Paul Alabaster, a billionaire shipping magnate. Rumors of corruption circulate, but no one dares dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with a mysterious shipping container sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy—one that may just bring them closer together.Irreverent and addictive, pinging between the voices of the Flynn family and those of the panorama of characters around them, Madeline Cash’s Lost Lambs is a debut novel of quick-witted observation and surprising tenderness. With it, Cash has crafted a family saga for the twenty-first century, all held together with crazy glue.

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' story lines intersect?

The internationally bestselling word-of-mouth hit that has captured tens of thousands of hearts across the world, The Correspondent is the story of one unforgettable woman, told through the letters that she sends. Perfect for fans of Three Days in June, Olive Kitteridge and Tom Lake. 'THIS NOVEL IS A CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION' Ann Patchett 'I CAN'T PRAISE IT ENOUGH. AN ABSOLUTE TRIUMPH' Clare Chambers 'I CRIED MORE THAN ONCE . . . SHOWS US WHAT A GLORIOUS THING GROWING OLDER CAN BE' Florence Knapp 'I DON'T HAVE ANY WORDS. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL STORY' Reader review 'I THINK I'VE JUST FINISHED MY FAVOURITE BOOK OF THE YEAR' Reader review -- Every morning, Sybil Van Antwerp sits down to write letters - to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to attend a class she desperately wants to take, to her favourite authors to tell them what she thinks of their latest books. Because at seventy-three, Sybil has used her correspondence - witty and wise - to make sense of the world. But beyond the page, she has spent the last thirty years keeping the people who love her at arms' length... Until letters from someone she had put out of her mind land on her doorstep, forcing her to reckon with her past mistakes. For as Sybil is about to learn: it's never too late to write a few post-scripts. Funny, wry and bittersweet, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of connection, the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime, told by one of the most memorable characters you will ever meet. Readers love THE CORRESPONDENT 'This is the book of the year!' 5 ⭐ reader review 'This book touched my soul' 5 ⭐ reader review 'Should be required reading' 5 ⭐ reader review 'Oh my heart. What a gem' 5 ⭐ reader review 'I found myself asking myself, "Is this the best book I've ever read?"' 5 ⭐ reader review 'Left a profound impact on me . . . explores the reflections that come with the choices we make and it does so with such grace and depth that it's impossible not to be moved' 5 ⭐ reader review