Henry Henry

Meet Hal: twenty-two, gay, Catholic, chops lines of cocaine with his myWaitrose card - and reluctant heir to the noble House of Lancaster

''Very funny... Its deeply felt pages flew by'' GUARDIAN

''Dark and gripping... I couldn''t put it down'' DAILY MAIL

Hal spends his first summer in London since graduating floating between internships and drinking sessions with his friends Jack and Poins, in messy flat shares, house parties in Camberwell and private members clubs in Chelsea. Rich, privileged and badly behaved, London belongs to them.

But behind the scenes, Hal''s father Henry, the sixteenth Duke of Lancaster, is watching. Henry keeps him in check with passive-aggression, religious guilt, and a cruelty that Hal sometimes confuses for tenderness. His investment in his eldest son has grown into an obsession.

As the summer draws to a close, a grouse-shooting accident – funny in retrospect – leads to unexpected romance with Hal’s lifelong rival, the fumblingly leftist Harry Percy. Suddenly Hal finds that he wants, for the first time, a life of his own. But his father is an Englishman; he will not let his son escape tradition. To save himself, Hal must reckon not only with grief and shame but with the wounds of his family''s past.

Elegant and blisteringly funny, Henry Henry is a brilliant recasting of Shakespeare''s history plays for the modern era - for fans of Alan Hollinghurst, Evelyn Waugh and Saltburn.

''Carnal and precise'' RAVEN LEILANI

''You will come away from this book changed'' KALIANE BRADLEY