Description

***SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024***

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

‘Delightfully confident . . . a total pleasure’ TIMES

‘Warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic’ ALICE SLATER

‘Hilarious, touching and hotly sublime’ JULIA ARMFIELD

‘Lovable and joyful’ NEW YORK TIMES

A BROTHER. A SISTER. A LOT OF EMOTION IN ONE APARTMENT.

This is the story of Greta and Valdin: twenty-something brother and sister with a near-unpronounceable surname, a sprawling Maori-Russian-Catalonian family and questionable taste in partners.

While Valdin can’t seem to get over his ex-boyfriend who fled the country, Greta has an unrequited crush on fellow English tutor Holly, who uses her for admin support. But all hope is not lost for these lovelorn siblings. Through the misadventures and mess of modern adulthood, at least they still have each other – unless drama gets in the way.

From bad dates to family feuds and embarrassing karaoke nights, this acclaimed bestseller from New Zealand is a fresh, heartwarming and hilarious story about the trials and tribulations of love in its many forms.

Publisher Review

Reilly’s voice is delightfully confident . . . Greta & Valdin is a fantasy – specifically, one about the kind of quirky, progressive, dramatic-but-not-traumatic family everyone daydreams about. And for that reason I think lots of people will find it a total pleasure * Times * ‘[A] funny, clever, emotionally intelligent novel . . . Very witty but also moving and full of great one-liners * Daily Mail * Greta & Valdin is hilarious, touching and hotly sublime. The kind of novel that simultaneously makes me wish I were funnier and absolves me from the need to try – I’ll never be as funny as Rebecca K Reilly (and that’s ok) — Julia Armfield A big fat slice of joyful queer family life, peppered with messy breakups, bad dates and terrible decisions. You’re gonna fall in love with the warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic Greta & Valdin — Alice Slater The novel is most lovable when the family’s dynamic is explored. You can’t help wanting to pull up a chair when they gather around the dinner table… Reilly’s warm, overflowing novel defies categorisation because its characters are too complex and multifaceted to be easily summed up… If this novel shows us anything, it’s that love – of family, of romantic partners, of community – is most joyful when it’s without limits * New York Times * A huge hit when it was published in New Zealand, fingers crossed its considerable charms chime with an international audience – such success very much deserves repeating * Marie Claire * Within the first few pages of GRETA & VALDIN, I was already struggling not to laugh aloud in my crowded office. I wanted to tap my colleagues on the shoulders and read lines to them, in the hopes they, too, would cherish Rebecca K. Reilly’s little kernels of humor and truth * ELLE * Greta & Valdin is one of the few genuinely funny books I’ve ever read. Totally delightful, psychologically astute, and dry as an astronaut’s space cracker. It’s like if Elif Batuman wrote Franny & Zooey, but gay. I want the whole thing as a lower back tattoo — Hera Lindsay Bird GRETA AND VALDIN feels somehow totally new and beautifully familiar at the same time, like the kind of book you’ve been longing to read your whole life. Part comedy of manners, part family epic and all contained within a compulsive, charming clutch of pages we couldn’t put down. Both ruthless and hilarious, offering hope and a wink for queer romantics everywhere — Mikaella Clements & Onjuli Datta, authors of THE VIEW WAS EXHAUSTING An absolute delight … a gloriously picaresque celebration of messy, complicated love — Emma Hughes