THE LIBRARIAN

(Viking £16.99) SALLEY VICKERS’S excellent new novel opens in 1958, when its 24-year-old heroine, Sylvia, swaps one sleepy Wiltshire town for another to take a job as a children’s librarian — and promptly falls for a married doctor, Hugh.

Mirroring their risky flirtation is the chemistry between 11-year-old Sam — an electrician’s son who is Sylvia’s new neighbour — and Hugh’s precocious daughter Marigold, under whose sway Sam filches a racy title from the library’s adult section.

Deceptively modest in style, the drama stems chiefly from the agony of virginal Sylvia, unsure how far she’s being exploited by Hugh, ever-ready with smooth talk of his ailing marriage.

But when Sylvia finds herself facing the chop at work, you sense the story shifting into a wider- angled portrait of a hypocritically buttoned- up society operating under double standards around gender and social status.

A period tale of sentimental education, it’s deliciously readable, with a clever epilogue zooming into the present day for a last-gasp surprise.