In Bloom: A Novel

One of The Observer (London)’s Best Debut Novels of 2026

A story of class and coming-of-age as a group of best friends investigates the allegations against their teacher.

It’s the mid-nineties, and in the small, shitty coastal town of Vincent, Australia, four Nirvana-obsessed fourteen-year-old girls form a grunge band. The Bastards are “forgettable girls”—poor, not particularly clever, ridiculed by their better-off classmates, and desperate to escape the fates of their mothers, who seem lock...