HISTORICAL

THE GOOD PEOPLE by Hannah Kent (Picador £14.99)

HANNAH KENT’S powerful second novel evokes the narrow, superstitious, rural society of County Kerry in the 1820s. Impoverished and isolated, the villagers live in terror of angering the fairies, ‘the good people’, and they have devised elaborate rituals to keep them sweet.

Nora’s husband has died unexpectedly, leaving her to care for her damaged and ailing four-yearold grandson Micheal alone. The local priest can offer only fatalism and the community is fearful of the child’s illness, suspecting he is a changeling.

Driven to extremes by Micheal’s suffering, Nora hires Mary to help to care for him and consults Nance Roche, a herb woman who is said to understand the fairies’ demands.

Under Nance’s tutelage, Nora and a reluctant Mary embark on increasingly desperate measures to get the real Micheal back. A first-class harrowing, haunting narrative of love and superstition.

IN THE NAME OF THE FAMILY by Sarah Dunant (Virago £16.99)

THE Borgia family can’t be matched for colour and ambition, and the myths that have grown up around Rodrigo and his children, Cesare and the beautiful Lucrezia, are legion. What a trio they were: attractive, ruthless and politically adept. This is the second volume in Dunant’s trilogy and she has done a superb job dramatising their heyday.

It’s 1502, Rodrigo has become pope and Cesare is heading up an army to ensure Borgia dominance. Meanwhile, Lucrezia has been dispatched to marry into the ducal family of Ferrara, cementing the web of alliances spun by her father.

It is a cracking story, stuffed with violence, danger and passion, and it will keep you pinned to your pool chair long after the sun has gone down.