The best new books to read in July

BWhen it comes to debut novels, you (in most cases) just judge the book without knowing much about the author. That’s obviously not the case with Hollywood superstar Keanu Reeves. The Book of Elsewhere (Del Rey, co-writer China Miéville), which is inspired by the comic book series BRZRKR and Reeves’ upcoming Netflix film. Given the nature of the prose on a randomly opened page (“this interaction should not be a bond between a mysterious chosen one”), there could be more dazzling debuts to come, and July is certainly rich in them.

Not all of this month’s debuts are from young writers. I liked Jane Campbell’s 2022 short story collection Cat brush and the novel of the eighty-year-old Interpretations of love (Riverrun), set in the 1940s, has moving things to say about grief. Other debuts worth checking out include Orlaine McDonald’s No small matter (Serpent’s Tail), a thrilling generational story set in a south London estate; and Essie Chambers’ Fast flow (Dialogue), set in a dying New England factory town, is about a lonely teenager named Diamond and her search for the truth about her dead father. Olivia Petter, who regularly writes for The Independentexplores celebrity culture and consent in Gold Rush (4th Estate), a sharp, eye-opening #MeToo story about what happens when a young PR executive named Rose has an affair with a famous pop musician.

In her moving, lyrical debut, poet Hannah Regel deals with the theme of young women and a crisis of desire The last healthy woman (Verso). Debut novels, even as successful as those of Paddy Crewe My name is Yipis supposed to be followed by the “difficult second novel” (at least a cliché), but that certainly does not apply to Crewe’s successful second work True love (Doubleday), a moving story about the relationship between Keely and Finn.