Anna Stothard’s debut novel is an erotically charged coming-of-age story that explores contemporary London in a fresh and compelling way, while never losing sight of the humanity within her characters. Brother and sister Isabel and Rocco live in Camden Town with their parents, who were once very much in love. Now they are secretive and distant; Isabel and Rocco don’t know what the problem is, but they suspect that whatever has happened between them is very bad. The siblings share a close relationship. No subject is taboo to either and they are often forced to fend for themselves in a household where mother and father seem far too concerned with their own tribulations to worry about theirs. Isabel is at the cusp of adulthood; she’s thirteen going on fourteen, and a world of sexual awakening, cigarettes and boyfriends is unfolding before her, alerting her senses to all sorts of possibilities. At beginning of the novel she contemplates writing a diary made up of all her ‘first times’, and at her brother’s bidding, she shares these moments with him; her first Silk Cut, her first kiss, even the first time she makes love. As the story opens their intimacy is warm, filled with love and care; but as the reader progresses further, as their parents’ actions become ever stranger, as Isabel and Rocco begin to react to this in their own, separately rebellious ways, the close nature of their relationship becomes blurred by something else, something so terrible almost no one dares to speak its name…     

This is the type of book I thought I was beginning to see more of a few years back – one that truthfully depicts the lives of teenage Londoners and the ever-changing city around them. I’ve always thought that many authors have an archetypal London drawn in their heads, whether depicting youths, adults or pensioners; a hastily cobbled city of Carry On Films, bad gangster movies and old musicals. It was a refreshing change to see someone dare to be a little different. Stothard’s Camden is a place that I immediately recognise, a dark town that is also confusingly beautiful at the same time, a town that is rich and poor, black and white, dual in its very nature. Her light-handed prose is elegant, compelling and erotic without becoming smutty – her depictions of Isabel and most especially Rocco filled with a truth that I found myself very grateful for. I lost count of the amount of pages I turned while thinking, yes; that particular thought, feeling or phrase is one that I’ve heard recounted by teenagers many times, or one that I remember well myself. The simplicity of the story and the drama behind the twin relationships of Isabel and Rocco versus Kate and Jack – their parents – is told without hyperbole until both reach a breathtaking climax I found very hard to second guess. If you like your fiction quirky and a little on the steamy side, you’ll love this book.

Courttia Newland is the author of three acclaimed novels, The Scholar, Society Within and Snakeskin. He has also co-edited IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain with Kadija Sesay. He is Writer in Residence at The Post Office Theatre in West London and is currently writing the screenplay to a film adaptation of The Scholar.