First impressions

What does the year hold for fiction? Mark Broatch checks out five promising titles from first-time novelists.

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Freddie Gillies’ previous book was The Big Bike Trip, an account of a bicycle tour from Indonesia to England he took with friends in 2017. His latest is a novel, Because All Fades (Bateman Books), which explores the relationships of two Kiwi couples on a trip to Italy. Gillies graduated from the University of Auckland with degrees in arts and commerce. He’s now in London and working for a tech company. In the novel, out next week, 20-somethings Andrew and Jess are grinding their way through their professional careers in England and their relationship has hit a rough patch. Andrew’s friend Jaryd, a charismatic live wire, and his partner Liv, meanwhile, are living their best lives in Paris.

Their business venture has gone global. The chance to have a bit of fun with them on an Italian road trip is impossible to pass up. Thanks to the prologue, we know disaster will strike, friendships will be tested and secrets forced into the open. The novel, a kind of psychological thriller full of subtle dialogue and effective revelations, explores the shakiness of happiness, male emotional repression and delayed adulthood. Miles Franklin’s autobiographical novel, My Brilliant Career, launched the Australian writer and hers became one of the most famous names in the country’s literature, adorning one of its most prestigious awards, the Miles Franklin Award. Melbourne-based Kiwi Amy Brown, a teacher, poet and children’s author, has taken elements of Franklin’s story for her first adult novel, My