IMMERSIVE LITERARY FICTION

Jay McInerney has written about Russell and Corrine Calloway in three linked novels that are deeply moving in their exploration of contemporary life in America. The first novel is Brightness Falls.

Corrine Calloway is a young stockbroker on Wall Street, her husband Russell an underpaid but ambitious publishing editor. The happily married couple head into New York’s 1980s gold rush, awash with prospects and promise, where the best and brightest vie with the worst and most craven for riches, fame and the love of beautiful people. But the Calloways soon discover that what goes up must come crashing down, both on Wall Street and at home.

Further suggestions…

• If you haven’t yet heard us rave about Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, please see here. And now please go find yourself a copy of My Brilliant Friend immediately.
• Steven Carroll’s The Art of the Engine Driver is a luminous, evocative tale of ordinary suburban lives in Australia, and the first of his acclaimed Glenroy novels.
• The My Struggle series by Karl Ove Knausgaard are some of the most biggest books to be published in recent years. The first volume is A Death in the Family.

ADDICTIVE FANTASY WORLDS

Full of relationships, power dynamics and political intrigue – C.S. Pacat’s Kings Rising is a worldwide phenomenon for a reason.

Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos, but when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave. Beautiful, manipulative and deadly, his new master Prince Laurent epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country…

Further suggestions…

• Game of Thrones meets Ocean’s Eleven in Leigh Bardugo’s two linked books, Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. While no third book has been revealed yet, we have our fingers crossed…
• V.E. Schwab has a lot of fans here at Readings. We love her Shades of Magic series with kicks off with A Darker Shade of Magic and is set in an alternative London.
• Speaking of alternative Londons – the beloved Rivers of London series continued this year with The Hanging Tree. This is the sixth instalment of the popular saga, and you find the first book in the series here.

SCI-FI PAGE-TURNERS

Pierce Brown’s Red Rising trilogy has been popping up a host of best science fiction books of the year lists, and deservedly so.

The Earth is dying and Darrow is a Red, a miner in the interior of Mars. His mission is to extract enough precious elements to one day tame the surface of the planet and allow humans to live on it. Until he discovers that it’s all a lie: Mars has been habitable for generations and inhabited by the Golds. Darrow – with the help of a mysterious group of rebels – disguises himself as a Gold and infiltrates their command school, intent on taking down his oppressors from the inside.

Further suggestions…

• Illuminae is the first book of the bestselling YA sci-fi space opera trilogy, The Illuminae Files.
• Justin Cronin’s thrilling The Passage trilogy came to an end this year. Start with The Passage and prepare to be terrified…
• We also love Becky Chambers’s two exciting, heartwarming and funny linked novels: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit.

COMPELLING CRIME FICTION

Sulari Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair Mysteries are fun, juicy and ideal for Phryne Fisher fans. As our crime columnist Fiona Hardy writes: ‘There is something so completely delicious about Rowland Sinclair and his louche band of comrades, the rapscallion Australian heroes of Sulari Gentill’s 1930s-set series.’ You can read her full review here.

In Australia’s 1930s, the Sinclair name is respectable and influential, yet the youngest son Rowland – an artist – has a talent for scandal. A Few Right Thinking Men is the first book of the series, and sees the young gentleman and artist’s routine disrupted by a brutal murder, one that exposes an extraordinary conspiracy.

Further suggestions…

• Jack Reacher is an iconic character for a reason – hulking (ignore Tom Cruise, book Reacher is huge), emotionally closed, tough to the core, and very, very competent at getting bad guys. You really can start anywhere with Lee Child’s series (including the most recent book), though his first two novels are available in an omnibus.
• We were hooked on Barry Maitland’s Australian crime series, The Belltree Trilogy, which wrapped up earlier this year. Start with Crucifixion Creek.
• Tana French doesn’t write a series per se, but all her books in the Dublin Murder Squad series are linked through repeated characters. While her first book is In The Woods, most of our staff’s gateway read was the fifth book.