Snowflake How To Kidnap The Rich

by Louise Nealon Manilla, 304pp, £12.99 Too many debut authors are being dubbed “the new Sally Rooney.” Louise Nealon is one of them – blame the fact she’s Irish, her book features Trinity College Dublin, and the rights have been sold to the same people who adapted Normal People. Debbie’s smart and used to it, but when she starts university she must commute from her family’s dairy farm – and even this arrangement means leaving her troubled uncle, Billy, and her unreliable mother on their own for too long at a time. Still she makes a go of it, becoming friends with the glamorous Xanthe and throwing herself into obliterative nights out – until family drama gets its claws in and drags her back. Nealon tackles uneasy conversations around trauma and grief, sex and consent, self-delusion and the fear of what you might be capable of, deftly and with humour (there’s a debacle with a coffin that's laugh-out-loud funny). Some of the mythic elements of the story aren’t as distinct as they could have been, but Debbie's rougharound-the-edges character, and the descriptions of life in rural Ireland, ground the rest in a story that’s sharp, clever and affecting.

Ella Walker by Rahul Raina Little, Brown, 304pp, £14.99

A satirical crime thriller and profound social commentary rolled into one, How To Kidnap The Rich is an uproarious ride through the caste system of Delhi, new and old. Rahul Raina’s prose is full of energy and wit, and she tackles inequalities in race, sex and social class with candid clarity and an acerbic bite. Clever, impoverished Ramesh and rich, lazy teenager Rudi make an unexpectedly successful double act, careering around the city and getting involved in high jinks that involve extortion, butchery, kidnap and cross-dressing. Veering from ridiculous to heart-wrenching, Raina’s exhilarating debut is pure entertainment from start to finish.

Rebecca Wilcock