Four new novels for spring

Lena Schätte tells in her novel "The Black on My Father's Hands" about a childhood in the shadow of alcoholism. In clear, concise sentences, her first-person narrator describes how much addiction determines her family's life – and how naturally alcohol is part of everyday life: after work, at the shooting festival, during family celebrations. The father drinks, plays, works – and affectionately calls his daughter "Moth." But the child grows up with constant worry: Will the father come home safely? In what state will he be? Despite the crashes and outbursts, there are still moments of closeness: "Under the table, my father and I hook our little fingers. We pretend as if all this never happened." Schätte depicts a childhood full of contradictions – of fear, responsibility, and solidarity, of tenderness and pain. And she shows how addiction can continue to be written into families: The narrator will also later struggle with alcohol problems. "The Black on My Father's Hands" is a touching book that captivates readers from the first page – intense, relatable, and authentic. Not least because the author from Lüdenscheid, as a trained psychiatric nurse, continues to accompany people with addiction issues to this day.

The author Fiona Sironic, born in Neuss, creates a suffocating vision of the future in her debut novel — a world where species extinction, wildfires, and climate disasters are already part of everyday life. At the center: 15-year-old Era, who documents the disappearance of birds with her camera. While she tries to preserve memories, her friend Maja's gaze goes in a different direction: as the daughter of two mom influencers, she has spent her childhood online — and now wants to erase everything that remains of it. Together, the two girls navigate a threateningly glowing summer, seeking stability in the chaos. Fiona Sironic tells a story of friendship, first love, and the fear of losing everything. "On Saturday, the girls go into the forest and hunt things into the air" is an intense, dense story that continues to escalate. An exciting debut about growing up in a world between content managers and ecological disaster.

At the center of Willi Achten's novel "The Uniqueness of Life" are Simon and Vinzenz, two brothers from a village in the Rhineland. Right from the first pages, it becomes clear: Vinzenz is seriously ill. While Simon accompanies his brother during this difficult time and tries to be there for him, the novel recounts in flashbacks their shared youth in the 1980s. A time when it was the other way around: it was Vinzenz who protected Simon in many situations. These are memories of orchards, cycling tours, and little pranks — of a youth where the biggest problem was often the nonsense one had done. Against the backdrop of a village threatened by brown coal mining, Willi Achten unfolds a dense picture of growing up in the countryside. Of family, loss, and the great changes that slowly inscribe themselves into life. Thirty years later, the brothers face a different challenge. Hospital corridors, doctor conversations — a world they stumble into unprepared, while outside, everyday life simply continues. "The Uniqueness of Life" is a novel about the love for a person who was always there. A novel that makes palpable how hard it is to let go — and how precious the memories are that remain.

"I was nine years old when the time of security, for whatever reason, came to a definitive end and I began to freeze." In her debut novel, Sarah Lorenz tells of a youth where home is not a place, but something that is sought, lost, and sometimes found for a short time. Narrator Elisa looks back on her youth in Cologne. Her memories are directed towards Mascha Kaléko — whose poems are her companions and whose language gives her comfort in a life that goes off track early. Elisa wanders through the city, temporarily lives on the cathedral square, and immerses herself in the world of occupied houses and autonomous centers. She meets men who stay, and many who do not. It’s about drugs, about abortion, about attempts to escape — from loneliness, from losses. And again and again about the question of where a home can be when there is no longer a fixed place for it. "With you, I would like to drink coffee in heaven" is a poetic and unflinching novel about growing up on the fringes of society. And about a young woman who remembers through writing.