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Rebecca K Reilly (born 1991) is a New Zealand author. Her debut novel Greta & Valdin (2021) received the 2019 Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing. At the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, it was shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction and received the Hubert Church prize for the best first book of fiction. Early life and education Reilly grew up in Waitākere City, West Auckland. She is of Ngāti Hine and Ngāti Wai descent. Reilly completed a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, where she was the 2019 recipient of the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing for her debut novel, then titled Vines. It was subsequently renamed Greta & Valdin. The novel took her a year and a half to write, although she had been collecting material for 14 years. Career Greta & Valdin was published by Victoria University Press in 2021. It is a novel about the family and romantic relationships of two siblings, both queer and of mixed Russian and Māori descent, and set in Auckland. Reviewer Hannah Tunnicliffe for Stuff said Reilly "fuses socio-political commentary with humour, making Greta & Valdin both smart and funny." Ash Davida Jane called it "the best novel of the year". Becky Manawatu praised "the tenderness Reilly achieves through her love for these characters, which translates page by page, word by word, to a love of people". Rachel O'Connor for Landfall noted a level of "information overload" but concluded "there is much to enjoy in Greta & Valdin, and hopefully much more to come from its author, whose youthful, funny voice delivers a fresh and entertaining tour of life and love in Auckland's CBD". Steve Braunias, in his list of the ten best New Zealand novels of 2021, ranked it as number one, calling it "the funniest and also the most original, enjoyable and best novel published in New Zealand in 2021". Greta & Valdin was shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and was awarded the Hubert Church prize for the best first book of fiction. Reilly was one of two Māori authors shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott award. At the time of the shortlisting announcement it was the top book on the Nielsen best-seller books chart, and The Spinoff books editor Catherine Woulfe noted that the novel "will win by miles if the judges are of a mind to nod to the national mood". The book won the Aotearoa Booksellers' Choice Award at the 2022 Aotearoa Book Trade Industry Awards. It was third on the list of New Zealand fiction bestsellers of 2022. In September 2022 Reilly was a judge, together with Harry Ricketts, of the Nine to Noon short story competition on Radio New Zealand. In early 2023 it was reported that Greta & Valdin would be published by Hutchinson Heinemann in the UK in early 2024 and that US rights to the novel had also been sold. Greta & Valdin is due to be published in the UK and USA on 6 February 2024. In January 2024 it was listed by The New York Times as one of 17 new books due to be published in February 2024, and described as following "two queer, charmingly messy 20-something siblings in New Zealand as they tentatively step into adulthood in an ever-shifting and increasingly chaotic contemporary age". It was also listed as one of the best upcoming new books of 2024 by British magazines Dazed and Marie Claire, with the latter noting that the book had been a "huge hit" in New Zealand and that "such success very much deserves repeating". References External links Interview with Reilly, 2019, by the International Institute of Modern Letters Interview with Reilly, 2021, by Kete Books Interview with Reilly, 2021, on Radio New Zealand Interview with Reilly, 2022, by Stuff "Videotapes", short fiction by Reilly in Scum magazine "The Hill", an early extract from Greta & Valdin, in the journal Turbine | Kapohau. Discover the Hannah Tunnicliffe popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Hannah Tunnicliffe books.