DAUGHTERS, DREAMS and dark secrets
The heat is on in Sarra Manning’s pick of July’s best fiction
Living The Dream by Lauren Berry (Virago, £14.99; out 6th July)
Emma Derringer and Clementine Twist are almost 30, working jobs they hate and hustling hard, while their filter-free frenemy, Yasmin, is about to marry the dullest man in London. In this funny/sad novel, Berry paints a millennial world of zero-hour contracts, corporate buzzwords masquerading as inspirational quotes and moving back in with your parents. Living The Dream will strike a chord with anyone who’s survived their twenties.
Gather The Daughters by Jennie Melamed (Tinder Press, £16.99; out 25th July)
A dystopian novel, set on an isolated island, where a small community live after the rest of the world has become ‘wasteland’. Girls are regarded as ‘little wives’ to their fathers, then married off as soon as they start menstruating. Told from the point of view of four girls who question the rules they live by, Gather The Daughters is an always-compelling and sometimes-shocking read as the horrific secrets of the island are slowly revealed. I read it in one sleep-deprived sitting.
Eureka by Anthony Quinn (Vintage, £14.99; out 6th July)
It’s the summer of 1967, and man-about-town Nat Fane is adapting a Henry James story for cult director Reiner Kloss in between dropping acid and partaking in questionable sexual acts. Meanwhile, actress Billie Cantrip gets her debut starring role as her first love turns sour. Swinging London and its inhabitants come alive under the expert touch of Anthony Quinn, who always finds the dark heart of the story.
They All Fall Down by Tammy Cohen (Black Swan, £7.99; out 13th July)
When it comes to psychological suspense, few writers do it better than Tammy Cohen, and They All Fall Down is her best book yet. Hannah is currently being held in a psychiatric unit for reasons that aren’t immediately clear. But when her fellow patients keep dying, Hannah is convinced that there’s a serial killer on the loose – but who’s going to believe the theories of a mentally unstable woman? You’ll be kept guessing right to the end.
The Party by Elizabeth Day (Fourth Estate, £12.99; out 13th July)
Scholarship boy Martin Gilmour and the privileged Ben Fitzmaurice have been best friends since public school, but the bonds between them grow tighter after an incident puts Ben forever in Martin’s debt. Then, at Ben’s 40th birthday party, the secrets between them split wide open. A tense, intricately plotted novel, like the problem child of Brideshead Revisited and We Need To Talk About Kevin.