Are secrets best left hidden?
SURPRISE ME by Sophie Kinsella (Bantam £18.99)
KINSELLA’S protagonists are typically normal people dealing with extraordinary circumstances.
Here, Sylvie and Dan have been together for ten years.
They love their small twin daughters, their home in South London, their jobs and each other — so much so that they seamlessly finish each other’s sentences and confidently predict what the other is thinking.
However, during a medical, they freak out when the doctor jokes that they are so healthy, they could be together for another 68 years. Happy as they are today, this news sends them into a spin of projection and fear.
They decide the solution to keeping their relationship fresh is with surprises — but when a truly off-piste shock arrives in the form of a secret scandal from the past, Sylvie wonders whether she ever knew Dan at all.
STILL ME by Jojo Moyes (Michael Joseph £20)
MOYES’S fans will be beyond thrilled by this third novel in the Louisa Clark series, following Me Before You (2012) and After You (2015).
Louisa arrives in New York keen for adventure. Much as Lou wants a new life, she also wants to keep things sweet with her beloved boyfriend, Ambulance Sam, who is staying in London.
Working as an assistant to super- rich Leonard’s much younger second wife, Agnes, Louisa is thrust into a world of limousines, charity benefits, crazy expensive dresses and cruel bitching from the first wives.
All that glitters is not gold, and our honest, kind, likeable heroine soon discovers having huge amounts of money doesn’t equate to high moral standards. Plus, her long-distance relationship seems to be falling apart.
Louisa is a dream character, and this is going to be huge — deservedly so.
THIS COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING by Jill Mansell (Headline Review £12.99)
MANSELL is another writer whose easy, breezy and uncomplicated books have won her tons of fans. Essie is horrified when a private letter she wrote as a joke is emailed to everyone she knows and she loses her boyfriend, home and job as a consequence.
As she rebuilds her life, however, she is forced to acknowledge the prankster internet publisher actually did her a favour, because things are much better now.
Well, they are until she falls in love with her new boss. Unfortunately, he already has a gorgeous girlfriend . . .
There aren’t any surprises here, but it’s certainly feelgood escapism.