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THE NEXT BIG READ FOR FANS OF GRETA & VALDIN AND LOST LAMBS

‘Funny, moving and alive with family lore’ Catherine Chidgey

‘A gift to queer literature’ Pip Adam

‘Rita considered the dead. Shut her eyes. Stacked each person in order like folded laundry, warm and crisp from the sun. She wondered how her name would sound amongst them.’

The Gordon girls are no strangers to local gossip. Growing up with a mystic grannie and a mother in a lesbian relationship with the reverend will do that to a family. But for Rita – the fifty-year-old baby sister, back in the village for possibly the final time – there is nowhere else quite like home.

As four generations gather beneath the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree, and the kettle comes to a boil, Rita steels herself to share her big news, not yet aware that hers won’t be the only secret laid bare before the festivities are over.

With plenty of tipples, a sexy baptism and several German Shepherds named Roger, Hoods Landing is a darkly funny, deeply affectionate novel about the extraordinary lives hidden inside ordinary places and the imperfect bonds that hold families together.

Publisher Review

Laura Vincent has the rare gift of making every member of her richly drawn cast feel indispensable. Funny, moving and alive with family lore, Hoods Landing is a novel to savour — Catherine Chidgey, author of The Book of Guilt A family portrait for the ages. Vincent’s whip-smart debut entertains and devastates in one sentence, considers mortality and biscuit preference in the next. We are left desperate to enter the Gordon household and meet its intricately-rendered family, and grateful for our own not so dissimilar homes — Gab Torr, author of Hard Place It’s a tremendous family drama; operatic in scope, intimately detailed, deeply funny, and so real it scratches a familiar itch — Sam Brooks * The Spinoff * This is a deeply affecting book. . . Vincent seamlessly and skilfully weaves the aesthetics of film, musical, opera, food and the occult to create a work about love and death like no other I can remember — Pip Adam, author of Audition Quirky and playful, with a gently self-deprecating Kiwi humour and a dash of romantic sizzle. A delightful comfort read that’s full of heart * Scorpio Books * Hoods Landing examines what is lost and what remains in the face of collective tragedy. . . A raw, raucous and riveting slice of social realism — Dominic Amarena, author of I Want Everything