LATEST TITLES

CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS by Sally Rooney, Faber & Faber, £14.99 (ebook £8.03) HHHHH CONVERSATIONS With Friends is 25-year-old Sally Rooney’s debut novel. It is the gripping story of 21-year-old Frances and her increasingly complicated friendships.

Frances is an aspiring writer/poet, living, but defiantly not working, in Dublin, with her friend (and sometimes girlfriend) Bobbi. It establishes the importance of female friendship, the consuming nature of first love and loves, and the difficulty of navigating your way through your 20s.

Frances embarks on an affair with a married man, but Rooney’doesn’t pass judgement. She has littered the novel with references to modern popular culture – at times it reads like a hipster Mills and Boon.

It is an addictive read and an exceptional introduction. THE WOOLGROWER’S COMPANION by Joy Rhoades, Chatto & Windus, £12.99 (ebook £7.99). HHHH H IN her debut, Joy Rhoades – a lawyerturned-writer now living in London – uses her memories of her grandmother’s sheep farm to create this pastoral romance.

The story begins in January 1945 and moves through the final months of World War II. It’s an easy-to-read tale of Australian rural life and family drama.

The protagonist, Kate, is not always easy to like, but we sympathise with her as she copes on a remote sheep farm with an absentee, soldier husband and an ailing, war veteran father.

Kate relies on a tatty copy of The Woolgrower’s Companion, a difficult farm manager and his orphaned nephew, two Italian POWs and an aboriginal maid.

As Kate battles to save the farm from the bank, there are misunderstandings, hidden treasure, forbidden love and a disturbing secret.

Rhoades paints a vivid picture of the Australian bush, the strict social code, snobbery and racism.