An Observer Best Debut Novelist 2026
‘An electric portrait of teenage friendship and fandom, bubbling with rage and yearning . . . empathetic, addictive and feverish as a Nirvana gig’
Guardian
‘I loved this book . . . raw, grungy and frenetic’
Alice Slater, author of Let the Bad Times Roll
‘Part Virgin Suicides, part Veronica Mars’
Louise Hegarty, author of Fair Play
‘Effervescently paced and outrageously funny . . . jaw-dropping’
Luke Kennard, author of The Transition
‘I was totally absorbed . . . amazing and unlike anything else’
Saraid de Silva, author of Amma
In the town of St Vincent, everyone knows everyone else’s business. So when Lily Lucid accuses the beloved high school music teacher Mr P of sexual assault, rumours swirl and lines are drawn. On one side: Lily’s former friends – the fiercely loyal girls who immediately set out to prove their teacher’s innocence. On the other: all the adults who have already written them off as a lost cause.
The girls will stop at nothing to hold onto their dream of escaping their small, run-down town, their desperate mothers and absent fathers – and Lily’s accusation threatens it all.
But how far out of control can they spin before there’s no turning back?
‘An electric portrait of teenage friendship and fandom, bubbling with rage and yearning . . . empathetic, addictive and feverish as a Nirvana gig’
Guardian
‘I loved this book . . . raw, grungy and frenetic’
Alice Slater, author of Let the Bad Times Roll
‘Part Virgin Suicides, part Veronica Mars’
Louise Hegarty, author of Fair Play
‘Effervescently paced and outrageously funny . . . jaw-dropping’
Luke Kennard, author of The Transition
‘I was totally absorbed . . . amazing and unlike anything else’
Saraid de Silva, author of Amma
In the town of St Vincent, everyone knows everyone else’s business. So when Lily Lucid accuses the beloved high school music teacher Mr P of sexual assault, rumours swirl and lines are drawn. On one side: Lily’s former friends – the fiercely loyal girls who immediately set out to prove their teacher’s innocence. On the other: all the adults who have already written them off as a lost cause.
The girls will stop at nothing to hold onto their dream of escaping their small, run-down town, their desperate mothers and absent fathers – and Lily’s accusation threatens it all.
But how far out of control can they spin before there’s no turning back?
Reviews
I loved this book: as raw, grungy and frenetic as Nirvana's Nevermind, In Bloom smells like disillusioned teen spirit
What a novel! In Bloom is effervescently paced and outrageously funny, but as deep as the hope and angst that drives its protagonists. A perfectly detailed encapsulation of an era we've collectively not quite gotten over. It's also a jaw-dropping exercise in perspective with one of the most brilliantly conceived denouements I've encountered.
Liz Allan's powerful debut novel smells unmistakably like teen spirit . . . Allan evokes Vincent in all its tawdry menace: shark-infested waters, creaking carnival rides, violent men lurking at home. Her chapters are distilled, her prose raw and vital, repetitions imbuing an incantatory rhythm . . . this is an electric portrait of teenage friendship and fandom, bubbling with rage and yearning: an Australian answer to Eliza Clark's Penance and Dizz Tate's Brutes . . . empathetic, addictive and feverish as a Nirvana gig, In Bloom critiques societal problems without patronising those affected by according them a fierce collective voice