POPULAR FICTION

THE VANISHING OF AUDREY WILDE by Eve Chase (Michael Joseph £12.99)

Jessie is fed up with London, so a ramshackle Cotswolds mansion seems a romantic new project. But Applecote has its secrets — the atmosphere in the attic, the broken pair of glasses in the grounds.

The story flits back and forth between Jessie’s struggles with country living, an absent husband and a scowling stepdaughter, and the dramatic summer, half a century earlier, when teenage Margot fell in love with the local lord and finally found out where her long-lost cousin, Audrey, had gone.

in her gorgeous, dreamy, poetic style, Chase spins us a sensual, atmospheric mystery. Mitford sisters meet Hideous Kinky by way of Kate Morton. Just wonderful.

OUR SUMMER TOGETHER by Fanny Blake

(Orion £7.99) ArTisT Caro has forged a new life after the break-up of her marriage. she’s busy with her drawing classes and the demands of her two grown-up daughters.

sex isn’t on her mind much these days, unlike that of her randy friend, Fran. so when a new lodger moves in — a hunky Bosnian builder with a tragic past — Caro isn’t expecting a steamy affair.

Happily for the reader — and our heroine — what happens is of the steamiest, but there are complications. Caro and Damir’s differences go a long way beyond the age gap; can their love survive?

Fanny Blake writes brilliantly about women of a certain age, and this latest is her best yet. it’s richly emotional, sharply perceptive and full of fabulous lifestyle detail.

THE MUSIC SHOP by Rachel Joyce

(Doubleday £14.99) so MAny recent novels have people retracing their life through retro pop tracks that Vinyl Lit is now a publishing genre of its own.

rachel Joyce, famous for The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, is the latest to leap on the bandwagon (as it were). she writes about social misfits in a magical-realism sort of way, and record dealer Frank is the latest to get the treatment.

He’s a sort of musical doctor, dispensing to the troubled the right LP for their needs. (Let down in love? Try oh no not My Baby by Aretha.)

But when a mysterious, beautiful German faints outside his shop, Frank’s world is turned upside down. He’s helped so many, but can he master his own issues and let love in?

i especially adored the music bits; fascinating snippets about everyone from Liszt to Led Zep.