Alec, the intrepid South African journalist with his mind-blowing stories, is unnerving and enticing from start to finish.

Georgie, with all her privilege, scars and pills, makes the heart bleed. You may not particularly like Lorna, with her kooky clothes and captivating ways, but you won’t forget her. Most of her characters are beautifully drawn, too. Until at last it is shattered, we absorb the gang’s heady carefree vibe – of sunshine, beer and fun – as though it were our own. Jess’s childhood home springs from the page like a painting. In just a couple of sentences, we are right there with Lorna on her wild island. She evokes moods and places with grace and skill. It manages to be at once a fresh and modern coming-of-age tale and, because of the eerie questions that hang in the air, an old-fashioned mystery novel. There are certainly shades of both in The Truants, even if Weinberg hasn’t quite reached the dizzy heights of those authors yet. The book has drawn comparisons with those of Donna Tartt and Agatha Christie. (Weinberg says she has always been interested in “people doing vanishing acts in their own lives”.) Throughout the story, which trips along with pleasing speed, secrets abound and disappearance is a key and recurrent theme.

The person who will take me out of this small, airless world before the banality chokes me.”īonds are forged, hearts are broken, tragedy strikes. When Jess lays eyes on her first, she thinks: “Here she is at last. Uniting the little gang from a distance is their enchanting, enigmatic English professor, Dr Lorna Clay. She sloughs off her old suburban skin and begins to figure out who she wants to be. This debut novel is an easy read about friendship, love and loyalty.ĭesperate to escape her large family and small-town roots, Jess Walker arrives at university and falls in with an electrifying group of friends who instantly “trail sunshine into her life”. Fancy a book with a pacey plot, razor-sharp writing and characters you’ll think about long after you’ve finished? The Truants by Kate Weinberg is the one for you.

The truants kate weinberg