Cresting the sticky swell of a Melbourne summer, newcomer Ash trips into obsession with hook-up-turned-friend James in Thomas Vowles’ propulsive debut, Our New Gods. Amiable, easy-going James offers Ash something more than help in navigating the heady kaleidoscope of the urban gay scene. In James, there’s an escape from Ash’s complicated relationship with his late father, and a chance to reinvent himself – that is, if he can compete with Raf, James’ charismatic new boyfriend.

The novel hits the ground running from its opening act as Ash witnesses an unsettling altercation between Raf and his ex at a party. Like missing a step on a dark staircase, Vowles’ taut narrative voice snatches you from the precipice of certainty and pulls you into the fervour of Ash’s compulsive search for answers. It’s little wonder as Vowles comes from a screenwriting background and Our New Gods flows with cinematic effortlessness, as it presents a wholly original perspective on the literary thriller genre.

Beneath his page-turning prose, what Vowles quietly excels at is evoking the the incessant loneliness at the heart of Ash’s character, and how it refracts into other pockets of isolation, bubbling to the surface around him. In both the fictional and real worlds, where connection – for friendship, for sex, and for love – is seemingly more accessible than ever, Our New Gods takes a scalpel to the protective skins we’ve sheathed ourselves in, opening us to the porous lines of intimacy and violence. From cover to cover, the threat of absence is a presence in itself. But what if, as Ash comes to question, there’s something worse than being alone?