Fabulous, compelling and wonderful…best debuts out this month: Bad Words by Rioghnach
Bad Words by Rioghnach Robinson (HarperCollins £16.99, 400pp)
Four years ago, Parker Navarro’s debut novel won him a huge advance in a nine-way auction. Congratulations poured in and early reviews were so brilliant that three months from publication, his novel was slated to be the book of the year.
But then a literary critic called Selina Chan published a scathing review that gained traction – and the book that Parker had laboured over for six years became a huge flop. Now, despite begging his publishers not to send Selina an advance copy of his second novel – for which he was paid a tiny sum, Parker is horrified to discover that Selina has written yet another terrible review.
This time, however, he’s not going to take it lying down and a viral feud ensues. Fabulous.
The Surviving Cells is available now
The Surviving Cells by Brian Willems (Les Fugitives £14.99, 260pp)
In Minneapolis, lead oncologist Dr Ana Jovanovic has tried everything to persuade her hospital’s tumour board that they should open up her latest patient to see how far his cancer has spread.
The board says her patient is too young and not sick enough for it to risk litigation if anything goes wrong. Dr Jovanovic fears she became overly emotional when describing the predicament of her 23-year-old patient, whose father she also treated before his death, and this is why her colleagues dismissed her.
They are concerned that she is too involved to be level- headed and that because she still feels bad about the father she is taking unnecessary precautions with the son. Different and compelling.
The Princes of Pauper’s Pond is available now from the Mail Bookshop
The Princes of Pauper’s Pond by Lars Elling (Orenda Books £18.99, 300pp)
Set in Norway’s northern forests, the narrative opens in 1985 where we are introduced to 19-year-old protagonist Filip who lives with his sick mother and therapist father, a sleazy lodger and his grandparents, Jennifer and Arnstein.
Arnstein is suffering from a debilitating lung disease and also embroiled in a long-running feud with his brother Truls, with no way forward.
The story moves between Filip’s life in the mid-1980s and 1912, when Arnstein and Truls were boys and loved each other deeply. The brothers were sent into the forest by their stern father, who wanted them to learn to look after themselves.
Wonderful on brotherhood, nature and art.