Greta and Valdin

byRebecca K Reilly, Natalie Beran (Read by), Jackson Bliss (Read by), Eilidh Beaton (Read by), Nico Evers-Swindell (Read by), Gary Furlong (Read by)

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'Warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic' ALICE SLATER

Siblings Greta and Valdin have, perhaps, too much in common. They're flatmates, beholden to the same near-unpronounceable surname, and both make questionable choices when it comes to love.

Valdin is still in love with his ex-boyfriend Xabi, who left the country because he thought he was making Valdin sad. Greta is in love with fellow English tutor Holly, who only seems to be using her for admin support. But perhaps all is not lost. Valdin is coming to realize that he might not be so unlovable, and Greta, that she might be worth more than the papers she can mark.

Helping the siblings navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and the tendency of their love interests to either leave the country or not love them back, is the whole Vladisavljevic family: Maori-Russian-Catalonian, and as passionate and loving as they are eccentric and over-emotional.

Rebecca K. Reilly's exploration of love, family, karaoke, and the generational reverberations of colonialism will make you laugh, might make you cry, and will certainly make you fall in love with Greta, Valdin and all of the Vladisavljevics.

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
Times

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
New York Times

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

About Rebecca K Reilly

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.

Details

Imprint: Penguin
Published: 08/02/2024
ISBN: 9781804950173
Length: 569 minutes
Price: £14.00

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Greta and Valdin

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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’re gonna fall in love with the warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic Greta & Valdin

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 & 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’s like if Elif Batuman wrote Franny & Zooey, but gay. I want the whole thing as a lower back tattoo

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

About Rebecca K Reilly

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