The Latest in Fiction

The Heavens | Sandra Newman | $29.99 | Allen and Unwin | Virginia’s Pick This is an astonishing novel of unsettling beauty, warmth and fluidity. Set at once in ‘real’ Manhattan in the year 2000, though with a green political party in power, and Shakespearean England, the novel focuses on the relationship of Kate and Ben who meet at a party. That’s pretty much where anything conventional ends. Peopled with fascinating characters and asking difficult questions, this novel is the most creative illumination of unconsciousness and possibilities of individual power and lives I have read.

Funny, smart, astute, electric — I loved this novel! Queenie is disguised as chick-lit but don’t discount it for a minute. It is so much more! Queenie Jenkins is a young woman whose family immigrated to London from Jamaica. When she and her white boyfriend Tom decide to “go on a break”, she packs her possessions and gives Tom “some space” — here, she enters a vulnerable and liminal place where anything could happen. Queenie is fabulous, very easy to love and feel connected to, and has made me feel compelled to do better and to stand up for all women.

Machines Like Me | Ian McEwan | $32.99 | Random House | Kate’s Pick Set in an alternate version of 1980s London, McEwan drip-feeds us history — some true to our reality, while some events have completely changed the trajectory of modern society. When a limited number of Adams and Eves (the first humanoid AI inventions) become available to purchase, our narrator Charlie splurges his inheritance on an Adam. He’s at a loose end, and hopeful the machine will draw his attractive upstairs neighbour, Miranda, closer. A story of love, jealousy, and revenge ensues – in classic McEwan style.