Orange - Curtis Garner
A review of Curtis Garner’s novel tracing first gay love and adolescence across Cornwall and London, marked by control rather than emotional pull.
288 pages · Kindle edition · VERVE Books, February 2026
Present, Not Compelling
The novel moves between Cornwall and London, and the book moves with Daniel, the protagonist. Back and forth in time, circling first gay love, family influence and the long residue of adolescence. It is attentive, controlled and often careful. I followed it to the end, but I never felt fully inside it.
The Cornwall sections are the strongest on the page. The setting presses in on the characters, and the early relationship at the centre of the book is drawn through proximity rather than drama. Shared beds, walks along the coast - these scenes are convincing in isolation, and the novel allows imbalance to exist without trying to correct it. Place carries weight here, shaping behaviour rather than standing in as mood.
The London chapters lose that hold. Daniel’s interior voice becomes dominant, and the narration starts doing the work the scenes could manage on their own. Reflections on therapy, labels and dating culture recur with diminishing effect. At its weakest, the book drifts into over-articulation and repetition, mistaking earnestness for depth. By this point, I found myself observing Daniel rather than engaging with him. His self-awareness did not translate into momentum or pull.
The later chapters tighten structurally, and withheld context does alter how earlier patterns read. Even so, the shift arrived too late to change my distance from the protagonist. I understood what the novel was doing. I simply did not care enough about Daniel to feel invested in where it landed.
This is a considered novel, serious in intent, with moments that work on the sentence level. For me, it remained emotionally remote i.e. present on the page, but not compelling.
Advance reading copy provided by NetGalley and Verve Books.