Love hurts. These two novels twist the knife

Both Lillian Telford’s Lovesick and Laura McPhee-Browne’sWorry Doll explore not just the heady rush of love, but its accompanying less salubrious sidekicks: limerence, addiction, jealousy, self-destruction and heartbreak.Telford’s debut novel treads familiar ground, covering, as it does, the milieu of Gen Z angst not dissimilar to the works of Sally Rooney, Diana Reid and Madeleine Gray.Gabby and Gordon are in their early 20s; they met on the dance floor in Brisbane’s West End on a glittering night of pill-popping decadence. There’s an instant pull together as their bodies move to the beat, enough spark and heat to kickstart a tentative relationship, but not long after, we’re made aware that their connection has broken.They love me, they love me not.Getty ImagesThere was already a sense of foreboding in this deviation from the usual meet-cute that picks away at the glossiness of typical romcom dramatics. On their first night together, Gabby asked him if he’d ever wondered how abrupt love is, while Gordon worried that she was “a shadow he might not be able to catch”. The narrative slowly unspools to reveal the circumstances of their rupture.Telford shifts between the perspectives of both protagonists, but the chapters are not in chronological order, so reading Lovesick can feel a bit discombobulating. Sometimes the pair are together, and other times they are apart, with many factors that influence or contribute to their estrangement. Both are shaped by trauma. Gordon has never recovered from the loss of his mother, who left his family when he was young. Gabby’s own emotional attachment to her parents is shallow compared to her fierce but sometimes misguided loyalty to her best friend, Róisín. Photo: Gordon and Gabby’s personality flaws are brought to the fore once they fall and struggle to remain in love. They may be desperate for connection, but both suffer from crippling anxiety and a low sense of self-worth, which mitigates against a mutually satisfying relationship. A happy ending is not assured.Telford writes convincingly about the messiness of desire in contemporary times and the historical fractures that need to be healed before one can even start to think about blending one’s life with another equally flawed individual. Despite their privileged middle-class backgrounds (Gordon’s a manager for a theatre space; Gabby works part-time in a bookshop when she’s not studying literature at university), there are tropes in Lovesick reminiscent of those in the ’90s grunge literary movement. Within its “spit and alcohol” pages, there is plenty of casual sex, lust, drug use, alienation, loneliness, and disaffection.Laura McPhee Browne’s third novel, Worry Doll, also surveys the bumpy terrain of romantic and sexual obsession.Even though Heloise and Ernie have been a couple for eight years, and while their relationship is mostly fulfilling, Heloise is wilfully prepared to sabotage it by daydreaming about her recent fling with a university student, Lacey, who at 24, is 12 years younger than her. Since their random encounter on a train, the older woman has been infatuated. Though Heloise is self-aware and admits to herself that she is “duplicitous, weak”, she can’t control her desire for Lacey. Each time the phone pings with messages from her beloved, “the words light her quickly, like a match”. Meanwhile, Ernie is described as a towel, “absorbent and reliable. He is always there to make sure those around him are comfortable”. Ernie may be a safe space, but Heloise is thrumming with boredom in their long-term routines and is desperate for novelty and excitement. Photo: Worry Doll’s narrative is split into two: the first, “Lost”, is set in inner Melbourne in summer, and is seen from Heloise’s perspective; the second, “Found”, takes place 18 months later in Wellington’s winter, and admits us into Lacey’s headspace. The wildness inside Heloise’s overheated mind as she pines for the unobtainable, and the restless confusion of Lacey as she navigates young adulthood, are presented in intimate and visceral scenes.That both women have very different ideas about the strength and viability of their connections to one another is made clear. Heloise is the one who is lovesick and lust-fuelled, while Lacey approaches their interactions with a non-committal nonchalance. It’s only later that we see how vulnerable she can be, how an ex-girlfriend can make her “lavish, and open like a sore”.The author has surveyed queer friendships and the agonies of unrequited love in her debut book, Cherry Beach, and she brings the same level of sensitivity and complexities to Worry Doll. Her sensory detail of place – from the gentrified suburbs of Melbourne to the tumultuous weather of New Zealand – is beautifully evoked.Like Telford’s novel, Worry Doll explores how passion can make you delusional and how eros can be all-consuming. McPhee-Browne inhabits both her characters’ worlds and adeptly contrasts and compares the different life stages and heart capacities of Heloise and Lacey. Love in both books is seen to be both cloying and freeing.Lovesick by Lillian Telford is published by HarperCollins ($33). Worry Doll by Laura McPhee-Browne is published by Scribe ($30).What else is happening in the book world?This novel has plenty of sex - but it’s far more than a racy read.Can’t get published by the Big Five? Win a major prize instead!Here are five thrilling and chilling new novels to keep you up at night.Our critic shares 10 of the best audiobooks of 2026 (so far)From our partners