The Incendiaries

RO Kwon Virago €20.99

After Will Kendall loses his faith and swaps his evangelical college for an elite East Coast university that he can ill afford, he reinvents himself as just another preppy rich kid. Soon, the hole that’s been left in his life is filled by magnetic party-girl Phoebe Lin. But Phoebe has also lost things, and when she falls prey to a local cult leader, Will finds himself powerless to prevent the cataclysm that’s foretold at the very start of the story. First-time novelist Kwon writes with confidence and verve, embedding sharp questions of belief, identity and grief in a leanly poetic evocation of first love.

Hephzibah Anderson