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Greta and Valdin

Greta and Valdin

Summary

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ONE OF BBC'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2024

'Hilarious, touching and hotly sublime'
JULIA ARMFIELD

'Warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic'
ALICE SLATER

'Generous and tender'
NEW YORK TIMES

Siblings Greta and Valdin have, perhaps, too much in common. They're flatmates, beholden to the same near-unpronounceable surname, and both make questionable choices when it comes to love.


Valdin is in love with his ex-boyfriend Xabi, who left the country because he thought he was making Valdin sad. Greta is in love with fellow English tutor Holly, who appears to be using her for admin support. But perhaps all is not lost. Valdin is coming to realize that he might not be so unlovable, and Greta, that she might be worth more than the papers she can mark.

Helping the siblings navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and the tendency of their love interests to flee, is the Vladisavljevic family: Maori-Russian-Catalonian, and as passionate as they are eccentric.

Rebecca K Reilly's exploration of love, family, karaoke, and the generational reverberations of colonialism will make you laugh, cry, and fall for the whole Vladisavljevic bunch.


©2024 Rebecca K Reilly (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Reviews

  • 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

About the author

Rebecca K Reilly

Rebecca K Reilly (Ngaati Hine, Ngaati Rehua Ngaatiwai ki Aotea) is a Maaori novelist from Waitaakere, New Zealand. She has a BA (hons) in German and European studies from the University of Auckland and an MA from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, where she won the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing for 2019.
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