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12 of the most anticipated debut books of 2024

Bon Vivant

Rebecca K Reilly (Ngaati Hine, Ngaati Rehua Ngaatiwai ki Aotea) is a Maaori novelist from Waitaakere, New Zealand. She has a BA (hons) in German and European studies from the University of Auckland and an MA from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, where she won the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing for 2019.

In the mid-1980s, Auckland university student Beatrice is on her first trip abroad. Noisy, cosmopolitan Sicily is a far cry from the isolated Maori community where Betty grew up. 
 
But the biggest surprise is her friend Xabi’s charismatic brother, Giuseppe, fleeing Rome’s troubled queer scene. In smoky discotecas and cramped bedrooms, they fall headlong into a secretive romance. 
 
Back home, Betty struggles to maintain her fragile connection to Giuseppe over long-distance calls and separate lives. When his distance turns emotional as well as literal, Betty finds solace in Xabi’s flatmate, Linsh – an intense, attentive scientist who looks at her like she hung the moon… and who has his own reasons to dislike Giuseppe. 
 
Decades later, all three must confront the decisions of their past, while navigating the sprawling present and the messiness of desire, family and ambition. Bon Vivant is a balm for our times; an ode to longing, romance and second chances perfect for fans of Kiran Millwood Hargrave's Almost Life and David Nicholls's One Day.

Rebecca K Reilly

Reilly’s voice is delightfully confident . . . Greta & Valdin is a fantasy — specifically, one about the kind of quirky, progressive, dramatic-but-not-traumatic family everyone daydreams about. And for that reason I think lots of people will find it a total pleasure

'[A] funny, clever, emotionally intelligent novel . . . Very witty but also moving and full of great one-liners

Greta & Valdin is hilarious, touching and hotly sublime. The kind of novel that simultaneously makes me wish I were funnier and absolves me from the need to try - I'll never be as funny as Rebecca K Reilly (and that's ok)

A big fat slice of joyful queer family life, peppered with messy breakups, bad dates and terrible decisions. You&rsquo;re gonna fall in love with the warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic Greta &amp; Valdin

The novel is most lovable when the family's dynamic is explored. You can't help wanting to pull up a chair when they gather around the dinner table... Reilly's warm, overflowing novel defies categorisation because its characters are too complex and multifaceted to be easily summed up... If this novel shows us anything, it's that love — of family, of romantic partners, of community — is most joyful when it's without limits

A huge hit when it was published in New Zealand, fingers crossed its considerable charms chime with an international audience – such success very much deserves repeating

Within the first few pages of GRETA & VALDIN, I was already struggling not to laugh aloud in my crowded office. I wanted to tap my colleagues on the shoulders and read lines to them, in the hopes they, too, would cherish Rebecca K. Reilly's little kernels of humor and truth

Greta &amp; Valdin is one of the few genuinely funny books I've ever read. Totally delightful, psychologically astute, and dry as an astronaut's space cracker. It&rsquo;s like if Elif Batuman wrote Franny &amp; Zooey, but gay. I want the whole thing as a lower back tattoo

GRETA AND VALDIN feels somehow totally new and beautifully familiar at the same time, like the kind of book you've been longing to read your whole life. Part comedy of manners, part family epic and all contained within a compulsive, charming clutch of pages we couldn't put down. Both ruthless and hilarious, offering hope and a wink for queer romantics everywhere

Mikaella Clements & Onjuli Datta, authors of THE VIEW WAS EXHAUSTING

An absolute delight … a gloriously picaresque celebration of messy, complicated love

I laughed, I cried, I cheered with Greta and Valdin. This is a novel that tastes like life

Heartwarmingly tender and raucously funny, with the sophistication of a Shakespearean comedy, Greta & Valdin is replete with swoonworthy queer romance, hilariously eccentric sibling hijinks and mature reckoning with the complexities of family heritage. A deliciously perfectly bittersweet delight

As Greta and Valdin come into their own&mdash;helped by, and helping, the many weirdos in their lives&mdash;readers can root for only one outcome: If Reilly won&rsquo;t give us a sequel, then we can at least hope she won't make us wait too long for her next novel. Say hello to your new favorite fictional family.

THIS BOOK IS INCREDIBLE! I can't remember the last time I read something that was so genuinely and uniquely funny. Thank YOU for sending this wonderful book my way. I look forward to talking about it with everyone I know! 
 
I can't remember the last time I read a book that was as genuinely and uniquely funny as GRETA AND VALDIN. But it's also so much more than that. Reilly's voice is wise and full of life, and her observations about queer love, heartbreak, and the complexities of family are poignant without ever succumbing to sentimentality. This is a wholly original, laugh-until-you-ugly-cry-on-the-subway debut

Grant Ginder, author of The People We Hate at the Wedding

Greta & Valdin is hilarious, touching and hotly sublime. The kind of novel that simultaneously makes me wish I were funnier and absolves me from the need to try - I'll never be as funny as Rebecca K Reilly (and that's ok)

Heartwarmingly tender and raucously funny, with the sophistication of a Shakespearean comedy, Greta & Valdin is replete with swoonworthy queer romance, hilariously eccentric sibling hijinks and mature reckoning with the complexities of family heritage. A deliciously perfectly bittersweet delight

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 
 
'Delightfully confident . . . a total pleasure' TIMES 
 
'Warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic' ALICE SLATER 
 
'Hilarious, touching and hotly sublime' JULIA ARMFIELD 
 
'Lovable and joyful' NEW YORK TIMES 
A BROTHER. A SISTER. A LOT OF EMOTION IN ONE APARTMENT. This is the story of Greta and Valdin: twenty-something brother and sister with a near-unpronounceable surname, a sprawling Maori-Russian-Catalonian family and questionable taste in partners.While Valdin can’t seem to get over his ex-boyfriend who fled the country, Greta has an unrequited crush on fellow English tutor Holly, who uses her for admin support. But all hope is not lost for these lovelorn siblings. Through the misadventures and mess of modern adulthood, at least they still have each other — unless drama gets in the way.From bad dates to family feuds and embarrassing karaoke nights, this acclaimed bestseller from New Zealand is a fresh, heartwarming and hilarious story about the trials and tribulations of love in its many forms.

Rebecca K Reilly

Books by Rebecca K Reilly

Articles featuring Rebecca K Reilly

12 of the most anticipated debut books of 2024

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