POOLSIDE PAGE-TURNERS
1. The Million Pieces of Neena Gill by Emma Smith-Barton (Penguin, approx €9.99, out July 11) Author Emma Smith-Barton says there is a lot of herself in Neena, drawing on personal experience to write this moving and sensitive YA debut. Neena has spent her life being good. Her grades are great, her parents love her friends, and there’s never been a boyfriend around. But suddenly, something changes.
Her brother Akash leaves and she begins to fall apart. She loses herself in wild behaviour and no longer recognises herself.
2. Expectation by Anna Hope (Doubleday, approx €15, out July 11) Three friends – Hannah, Cate and Lissa – are sharing a house in East London with great expectations for their futures; anything is possible, and they are as close as can be. Ten years on, we meet them again: Hannah and Nathan, who are trying to become parents; Lissa and her failed career as an actress; and Cate, who married Sam and cannot understand why. Life hasn’t gone the way they hoped it would; their friendship frayed. A coming-of-age look at the complexities of female friendship.
3. The Red Daughter by John Burnham Schwartz (Corsair, approx €18.99, out August 1) Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin’s only daughter, caused a huge uproar when she was deflected to the US in the 1960s. Using Svetlana’s fictionalised journals, the historical novel follows Svetlana, who, at age 41, abruptly abandoned her homeland for the States, leaving her two children behind in the hope that they can have a fresh start under a new identity. She begins to create a new life, but is never able to fill the void of the family and place she’s left behind. 4. The July Girls by Phoebe Locke (Wildfire, approx €19.99, out July 25) Every year, on the same night in July, a woman is taken from the streets of London; murdered by a killer who leaves no trace. Fast-forward to the morning of Addie’s tenth birthday – when four bombs were detonated across the city – when her dad arrived home covered in blood. From the attacks, he said. So why is there a purse of a missing woman found in their house? She must not tell. She must keep the secret. Brilliantly twisted.
5. Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls (Hodder & Stoughton, approx €19.99, out July 11) Few do made-for-holiday reads like Nicholls, back with a new love story ten years after One Day was published. This time, it’s one of first love, friendship and how a teenage summer can change everything for 16-year-old Charlie Lewis. At home, he doesn’t expect much, looking after his father. He rarely thinks of the future, and he is barely remembered by others until he meets Fran Fisher. Longing for change,
an adventure, anything, he begins, quite unexpectedly, to fall in love. Magical. 6. Do Not Feed the Bear by Rachel Elliott (Headline, approx
€18.99, out August 8) Sydney, a cartoonist and free runner, is about to celebrate a birthday she has no interest in celebrating. She lives her life on the edge, but has never come to terms with the event that ripped her family apart when she was ten years old. It markedly changed her. She returns to a place in her past to face up to her guilt. But it turns out to be a trip which is unexpected in almost every way. A mysterious and moving take on grief.