Damn, she is good. In her seventh novel, the Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of First Love and My Phantoms reaffirms her remarkable ear for dialogue and for capturing the heartbreaking nuances of English ordinariness. It is a cliché to say that a writer can make any subject fascinating, but Riley really does seem supercharged by mundanity: in her hands the everyday rhythms of work, family and friendship are acutely painful and droll. It is her merciless eye for absurdity and pathos, her unflinching laser focus and her bone-clean prose that make her books so exhilarating. The Palm House explores the evolving landscape of work and its impact on our personal lives through Laura, a freelance writer and editor who recounts her friendship with Putnam, an editor at a highbrow magazine. When a bombastic new editor is hired to sex up Sequence, Putnam quits, but soon finds his sense of self dissolving, unanchored by work. Through their friendship and vignettes from Laura’s childhood and young adulthood, Riley weaves a portrait of what it means to come of age as a woman; how we define ourselves in relation to our work and families; and how we make and break connections with others. She is funny, melancholic, a modern-day Muriel Spark.