DEBUTS
THE PARENTATIONS by Kate Mayfield (Point Blank £14.99)
HigH in the mountains of Norway lies a lake that confers ‘extended mortality’ on those who drink from it. Among them are a couple forced to hide from those hunting them and their secret.
They send their baby son to his aunt, Clovis Fowler, in 18th-century London for safe-keeping. Clovis, a malign force of nature and a woman without principle, presses the child on to her ex-neighbours, reclusive sisters Constance and Verity Fitzgerald.
Precious phials of Norwegian liquid are passed on to ensure their long lives. When Clovis snatches the boy back, the devastated sisters devote the many years ahead to finding him.
As London changes around them, the lives in the Fowler and Fitzgerald households remain interlinked thanks to their immortality and secrecy. Spanning centuries, this is an exuberant, vividly imagined and structurally triumphant novel with a strong Dickensian undertow.
ALL RIVERS RUN FREE by Natasha Carthew
(Riverrun £14.99) iN A dystopian future, pillpopping, gin-swilling ia Pendilly lives with her abusive second cousin and lover, Branner, in a caravan on the north Cornish coast. She’s a loner who’s grown ‘good at enduring’, as an orphan who longs for a family of her own, but has suffered a series of miscarriages.
Branner is increasingly absent and, while he’s away, she finds a young girl washed up on the beach, revives her and takes her in. Emboldened, they embark on a journey together that will take them out into the lawless country outside.
The idiosyncratic writing style needs adjusting to, as the rhythm of the language is hypnotic and the powerful imagery takes over. The raw energy and beauty of the landscape are particularly well-evoked as the characters strike out in their search for freedom and home.
THE GIRLS’ BOOK OF PRIESTHOOD by Louise Rowland
(Muswell Press £10.99) HourS after her first sermon to her congregation, new curate Margot goodwin’s flat is blown up and she is forced into a difficult homeshare with a father and his three children, who are reeling after their mother’s recent departure.
Margot has one year to prove herself worthy of the priesthood but obstacles come at her thick and fast in the shape of hostile parishioners and clergy; her best friend’s determination to find her a soulmate; her own dysfunctional family; a rebellious teenager; a mysterious blogger; and the delightfully dishy deputy head of the local school.
A definite whiff of The Vicar of Dibley hangs over some stock characters, but there are very funny moments as Margot struggles to come to terms with the demands of her vocation and herself.