New Skin

A powerful debut about first love and second chances from a stunning new voice in Australian fiction


Alex and Leah meet at medical school and form an immediate and intense connection. Over the course of four years, they are caught in the push-pull of passion and betrayal, longing and reunion. Neither can quite give up the relationship, even as they question whether they are good for each other.


Years later, when Alex and Leah are drawn together once more, will they make the right choice?


New Skin evokes a coming of age in the 1990s and charts the course of first love and its power to shape who we become. Spare and compelling, this powerful debut introduces a dazzling new voice in Australian fiction.


'A testament to the transformative power of love, New Skin delivers a brutally passionate and profoundly heartfelt love story with characters that will stay with you long after the final pages.' - Amy Taylor, author of Search History and Ruins


'For anyone who has ever been young, this book is a time machine. If you have ever been complicatedly in love, it's a ballad. If you are like me and you were young and in love and at uni in Melbourne and it was the 1990s, it's a bloody documentary. Capturing each surge, halt, spin and derangement of youthful romance, Miranda Nation's beautifully attentive nouveau grunge novel offers us two people, their innocence and instinct, and all the ways they can pull each other apart - and together.' - Kate Holden, author of In My Skin