Starting Out - From the 2025 Booker shortlisted author of The Rest of Our Lives

Meet Lisa. Smart, bookish, an only child.

Having navigated school and adolescence – mainly under the influence of the Brontës and Jane Austen – she goes to college and falls in love with Eric, a fellow student, whose ambition pushes him towards a summer work placement in NY and then a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford. But it’s Lisa who helps him, who may have to follow him if she wants their relationship to have a chance, and who could be compromising her own ambitions and friendships in the process.

From the author of The Rest of Our Lives, Starting Out is a richly relatable story about growing up, and how it doesn’t end with childhood.