We've noticed that the buzz is really building around Paul Shannon's debut novel, Davey Darling. After seeing it mentioned in a thread on our forum, we dug around and realised that something big's happening here.

Reviews are starting to pop up everywhere and they're overwhelmingly positive - remarkably so for a first novel.

Shannon is an Auckland web consultant - but the book draws upon his previous life, growing up in the South Island in the 1970s. In the Listener, David Hill says

It’s a wide-open, sensuous, emotional wallow – heart rather than art. It’s always entertaining, often absorbing, regularly irritating. It may well be a great success, and I wouldn’t mind that at all.

Philip Matthews, also writing in the Listener, is similarly taken:

Antecedents might be Ronald Hugh Morrieson’s The Scarecrow, Ian Cross’s The God Boy and Noel Virtue’s The Redemption of Elsdon Bird.

Even cynical students seem to like it too. Amy Brown, writing for Salient, the student magazine of Victoria University, says

I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if one-day high school teachers are including it on their curriculum.

It was a long haul for Shannon to get this book published, and he did the hard yards without the aid of a writing course or tuition. On publicaddress, Russell Brown tips his hat:

I'm always amazed at the way fiction writers can, as Paul did, spend years writing stuff that won't be published before they get the voice right and get to meet the public at last. I'm really thrilled for Paul that now it's finally out there the reception for the book has been so strong - I don't think Geoff Walker was kidding when he said it heralded a major new talent.

At this rate, Davey Darling has got to be the front runner for the Best First Book fiction award at the next Montanas. And we wouldn't be surprised if it has an even bigger impact on the bestseller lists and becomes a landmark on the New Zealand literary scene. Watch this space for a review.