Online bookseller Ellen Cregan shares her five favourite reads of the year – from vivid, fragmented memoir and elegant Gothic fiction, to a funny, smart queer anti-romance perfect for summer reading.

The Adversary by Ronnie Scott

Each year I try to read plenty of Australian fiction, and 2020 was no different. This debut novel was a stand-out of this year’s cohort, and is one of the best new Australian novels I’ve read in a number of years. Set in Melbourne’s inner-north, this book follows an unnamed young man as he navigates Grindr hookups, changing friendships, and the politics of the Fitzroy Pool. This book perfectly articulates that weird, in-between period many of us go through in our twenties – you have finished your studies and fallen into a kind of routine, but ‘proper’ adulthood is not making itself apparent. The Adversary is relatable, funny, smart and superbly written.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Brit Bennett is one of the best authors working today. The Vanishing Half is her second novel, and tells the story of two fair-skinned African American twins – Stella and Desiree. When they are teenagers, one decides to leave her life behind and start masquerading as a white woman. Moving through the decades after the twins separated, and into the lives of their own daughters, this book gives insight into racism, colourism and classism throughout the second half of the 20th century in the US. It is also an intelligent look at the concept of ‘passing’ – both in a racial context, and in relation to the queer interpretation of that word.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

This is a release from 2019, but I discovered it through the Guardian Books podcast earlier in 2020 and decided to read it. Frannie Langton is born in Jamaica, the daughter of a white father and a black, enslaved mother. As a child, she is scandalously taught to read by the owner’s wife. She becomes an avid reader, taking refuge from a harsh life in any book she can access. Years later, in Georgian London, Frannie is accused of a grisly murder and sentenced to death. But she can’t remember if she actually committed the crime. This debut novel is polished, well-researched and one of the best contemporary Gothic novels I’ve ever read.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

This book comes with a content warning: it is a memoir of domestic abuse. In the Dream House is like no other book I’ve ever read. A series of interconnected short chapters, it flits between Machado’s first-hand account of an abusive relationship, queer theory, pop culture and fairy tales. The way the book is structured means that Machado is able to perfectly balance the intense and heavy accounts of abuse with the fascinating but less emotionally fraught interpretations of critical theory. This is a book that I suspect I will re-read many times in the years to come.

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

When I first heard that Emily St. John Mandel was going to be releasing a new book in 2020, I became very excited. The wait for The Glass Hotel was long, but absolutely worth it. Vincent is a young, down and out bartender from a tiny town, working the night shift at a luxury hotel in rural Canada. There she meets a billionaire who makes her a strange offer: come and live with him, and pretend to be his wife. Vincent is whisked to a world of extreme wealth, not knowing that her ‘husband’ has built his fortune on a scam. Emily St. John Mandel slips between different time periods in the lives of her protagonists to weave a story of self-reinvention, and the way the future is tied to – and shaped by – the past. This is one of those books that will linger in your mind all day.