Five new books to read this week
FICTION The Gallopers by Jon Ransom Muswell Press
Eli is 19 and lives with his strange aunt Dreama alongside a cursed field with a hidden secret in post-war Norfolk. Six months earlier, his mother mysteriously disappeared during the North Sea flood. Unsure of his place in the world, and with a deep-rooted sense of shame, Eli is ready to run.
When Jimmy Smart, a tight-lipped showman, arrives at Dreama’s barn, Eli is plunged into uncharted waters. He turns to Jimmy for reassurance, but realises he is not all that he seems.
The Gallopers explores grief and the social stigma of forbidden love in this gritty and unsettling novel.
Wild Houses by Colin Barrett Jonathan Cape
Wild Houses is the debut novel from renowned short story writer Colin Barrett.
Set in rural Ireland, the open countryside offers not freedom, but entrapment. Local drug dealers Gabe and Sketch choose to pursue a debt by abducting Doll, the brother of the man who owes them.
There is comedy in the incompetence of how this plays out, but what Wild Houses is really about is the overfamiliarity and closeness of small communities, and the impossibility of escaping judgment.
Barrett tells this tale with the eye for detail that elevated his short stories, and with his lyrical talent for description.
Come And Get It by Kiley Reid Bloomsbury Publishing
Kiley Reid’s follow-up to smash hit Such A Fun
Age feels more pedestrian. Like its forerunner it follows multiple perspectives - this time we have Millie, a black woman and Resident Assistant at a university; Agatha Paul, a white visiting professor who has just gone through a break-up; and Kennedy, a white student struggling to fit in.
The loose story arc is Agatha paying Millie to listen in on students’ chat which she writes up as stories for Teen Vogue – and the two soon fall into a relationship. It’s engaging and well written, but the plot meanders until it accelerates into a grim happening.
NON-FICTION Fluid: A Fashion Revolution by Harris Reed Quadrille
This is a stunning book, full of pictures of designer Harris Reed’s opulent clothes, worn by Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Sam Smith, Iman and more.
It’s gorgeous but much more than just a coffee table book.
It’s part autobiography, part fashion manifesto – tracking Reed’s journey discovering fashion.
It dives into the history of gender fluidity in fashion, making for an infinitely readable and powerful book. Reed is fast becoming one of the most prominent names in fashion, and this is the perfect window into his world.
CHILDREN PLEASE! by Simon Philip, illustrated by Nathan Reed Bloomsbury Children’s Books
For parents who want to teach kids good manners, this is the ideal way to instil the notion of “please” and “thank you”.
Simon Philip (author of ACHOO! about covering your mouth and nose when you sneeze) is back with a tale about a boy who forgets to say the magic word when ordering ice cream.
The consequences are a tad extreme - being kidnapped by alien toads and taken on an adventure through space, a jungle and a fairytale land.
But the illustrations by Nathan Reed are wonderful and the snappy rhyming prose will keep children hooked.