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Author: Franklin, Mariel

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 12 June 2025 by PAN MACMILLAN (Picador) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 352 pages
196 x 130 x 22 | 242g

‘I absolutely loved it. Anyone interested in the relationship between tech, our bodies and our minds should bump it to the top of their queue immediately’ – Zadie Smith, author of The Fraud’This bold and highly impressive debut novel has its thumb right over the sore spots of modern life’ – GuardianMary is single, jobless, and on her way to Ibiza.

There, at a party, she meets Tom, a brilliant chemist on the verge of launching a new drug that claims to cure the anxieties of modern life.

Back in London after a heady trip, Mary begins going out with Tom and working for her sort-of-ex Lara, who has created innovative dating app designed to revolutionize the industry. As tech and pharma collide, she is forced to question what love and success mean in a world that is hurtling out of control.

Electrifying, urgent, and darkly funny, Mariel Franklin’s debut Bonding is a uniquely modern story of sex, tech and freedom in the messy tangle of our digital age.

‘Audacious, hot, deeply uncomfortable and genuinely thrilling’ – Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes