DEBUTS

Something Blue

by Alex Sarkis

Ultimo Press £18.99, 352pp

(Ultimo Press £18.99, 352pp)

Set in Sydney’s diverse Western suburbs, this tender coming-of-age story about love, loyalty and what home means also functions as a visceral love letter to the glorious, foliage-filled melting pot of its location.

Lebanese Australian Nicole is so broken-hearted after being dumped that she’s struggling to eat. She’s also barely holding it together on the reception desk at her family’s car dealership where she works. Nicole is trying to get her life back on track but is feeling suffocated by the interference of her noisy relations. She decides to reignite her passion for photography and in the process reconnects with childhood friend Danny.

The author exposes various cultural stereotypes but then challenges and disrupts them, leaving us with a more nuanced view of the immigrant community she so evocatively describes. I rooted for Nicole and raced straight through to the end.

Things We Lose in Waves

by Lucy Ayrton

(Dialogue Books £20, 416pp)

When her beloved father dies, Jenny goes home to the seaside town of Ravenspurn. The place where she grew up is dilapidated and crumbling into the sea at the rate of a metre a year.

She finds her mother awkward and difficult to be around, has nothing in common with the people she knows from childhood and every time she comes back, year after year, she finds it a little worse than before.

Jenny has no intention of staying much beyond the funeral but the first UK lockdown puts an end to her escape plans. Forced to confront all the negative thoughts and feelings she thought she’d left behind, Jenny realises they have merely been hiding beneath the surface, waiting to trigger her afresh.

Further complicating things is the fact that her relationship isn’t doing so well since it went long distance. Brilliant on loneliness and isolation, difficult relationships and working through old hurts.

An Image In A Mirror

by Ijangolet S Ogwang

(Legend Press £12.95, 146pp)

This beautifully written short novel about identical twins forced to grow up in separate countries packs a huge emotional punch. It goes deep into powerful themes, including migration and sibling rivalry.

Nyakale’s mother wants her to have a better life, so she is sent to live with affluent relatives in South Africa while her sister Achen remains in Uganda.

The narrative is split between the perspectives of the two protagonists, highlighting the different but mirrored ways in which each feels the blow of being pulled apart. For Nyakale, being a foreign national means being constantly on trial.

Achen has always wondered if Nyakale knows she took with her a huge piece of their mother’s heart. The notion of dual identity, national and familial, is prominent and thought-provoking. I loved it.