Derek Owusu's novel, Borderline Fiction, tell the story of Marcus, a young man at nineteen and at twenty five, in alternating chapters. It is a novel full of sex and longing, an insight into black masculinity in the twenty-first century. Owusu is a very fine writer, and Borderline Fiction has an immediacy to it which is gripping from the outset. He draws Marcus with clarity on the page and allows the reader to become invested quickly.

I read fiction to be entertained, to be moved, and if I learn something about a group, an ethnicity or identity different from my own along the way it's a triumph to me. I'm not the target audience for Borderline Fiction and the life of it's protagonist is so far removed from my own - by age, race and location - but the sheer universality of it's themes meant it resonated and carried me through.

I read Borderline Fiction in one sitting - and if it's opening quotation from Kierkegaard suggested that there might be more dramatic philosophical heft to the novel than the lashings of sex that actual full it's pages - it is nevertheless a novel of depth, warmth and honesty. I loved it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.