OUR NEW GODS

Thomas Vowles has written something sui generis a heaving, sinister, sweaty vision of contemporary queer Melbourne. Our New Gods is a gay Bildungsroman with a knife's twist: I was hooked and couldn't look away, even when the seediness of obsession and unfounded desire made me desperately want to. Reading this is like watching a car crash in slow motion but you're the driver and you meant to do it.

Thomas Vowles' debut is a propulsive and gripping psychological thriller that unfurls at first painfully slowly, then begins to quickly unravel, taking readers into truly deranged places ... A spectacular car crash of a novel that is as compelling as it is challenging, as sickening as it is seductive. Vowles has announced himself with a bang (or many bangs, in every sense of the word) as an audacious new voice in Australian literature a rare writer who dares to wade deep into the muck to explore the grimy underbelly of modern desire. In his transgression of social and moral niceties, Vowles reveals the ugliness of human nature, with a few flashes of tormented beauty, too. Read more...

The publication of Our New Gods is cause for celebration, for it signals the emergence of a gripping, unique and unexpected voice in Australian literature. Thomas Vowles is the real deal.

Whether Thomas Vowles becomes a new god of literature remains to be seen, but judging by his debut novel set in the queer world of Melbourne he can certainly write gripping fiction.

A clever page-turner set in Melbourne's queer scene, which morphs from a gay coming-of-age story to a narrative that trades in paranoia, jealousy and obsession ... Vowles skilfully plays with our sympathies and plants seeds of discontent and disconnect which pushes the reader to the tragic end. A compelling Australian debut. Read more...

Right from the first page, Our New Gods draws the reader in. It pulses with the rhythm of dread, twisting and turning in this addictive psychological thriller. Screenwriter Thomas Vowles knows how to hook the reader and drag them into the heart of the story. As the outsider, the innocent, Ash is the perfect narrator of a story that has him and the reader questioning every step of the way. Our New Gods is a highly accomplished and startlingly fresh debut. Read more...

Twisty and menacing, the new psychological literary thriller Our New Gods set in Melbourne's queer scene is unsettling and memorable. Debut author Thomas Vowles hooks the reader early, showcasing his screenwriting past with a strong sense of place, masterfully paced plot, believable characters, and impressively authentic dialogue ... The plot pulses with paranoia and uneasy undercurrents that leave you questioning everything. Vowles' writing and perspective are deeply human. Read more...

Like missing a step on a dark staircase, Vowles' taut narrative voice snatches you from the precipice of certainty and pulls you into the fervour of Ash's compulsive search for answers. It's little wonder as Vowles comes from a screenwriting background and Our New Gods flows with cinematic effortlessness, as it presents a wholly original perspective on the literary thriller genre. Beneath his page-turning prose, what Vowles quietly excels at is evoking the incessant loneliness at the heart of Ash's character, and how it refracts into other pockets of isolation, bubbling to the surface around him ... Our New Gods takes a scalpel to the protective skins we've sheathed ourselves in, opening us to the porous lines of intimacy and violence. Read more...

The twenty-first-century bright young things in Thomas Vowles's very impressive debut novel are aloofly beautiful and nonchalantly evil. It's a rush of a read, pleasurable and disturbing in equal measure.

Enthralling, dark, elegant, sexy, electrifying. This taut debut has it all. Thomas Vowles is a thrilling new voice in Australian fiction.