Complex web of lust and jealousy

THE SWEET DOVE DIED by Barbara Pym

(Pan £10.99, 176pp)

IN THE dark, miserable days of January, thank God for Barbara Pym to lighten the gloom. When mysterious, independent Leonora Eyre meets antique dealer Humphrey and his handsome nephew, James, all three lives become entwined in a complex web of manipulation, unfulfilled lust and jealousy.

Leonora likes to pull the strings, but hasn’t reckoned on James being sexually enthralled by his lovers, the hedonistic, casually cruel Ned and the disorganised Phoebe.

A power battle ensues, with Leonora using her wealth as a lure to entrap her prey, even as marginalised Humphrey attempts to force his attentions on her.

This is a beautifully observed social comedy with a memorable, icy heroine. Curl up with it now.

CHLOE MARR by A.A. Milne

(Farrago £9.99, 314pp)

BEST known for his Winnie The Pooh and poems, Milne was also a talented novelist and sketch writer. This reissue of a story set in London society’s interwar years is a treat.

Twenty-eight-year-old Chloe Marr is beautiful, witty, capricious, independently wealthy and has men of all ages making fools of themselves over her. She promises all but delivers nothing, keeping each just as close as she wants them.

But what lies beneath this brittle, impenetrable surface? As the suitors gradually realise the futility of the chase, something altogether darker and sadder emerges and glimpses of her past, and kindness, appear. Milne’s prose sparkles like a diamond.

CLASSIC LOVE STORIES Edited by Becky Brown

(Macmillan Collectors Library £10.99, 368pp)

AS VALENTINE’S DAY looms, this pocket-sized hardback evokes romance and heartbreak, loyalty and betrayal, in a wide-ranging collection of stories by classic writers.

Elizabeth Taylor’s bittersweet Flesh hints at middleaged lives left behind during a holiday romance, while F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Lees Of Happiness, in which a young couple’s perfect relationship is suddenly destroyed, is quietly devastating.

On a lighter note is The Romance Of A Busy Broker by O. Henry, about a businessman so consumed by his career he forgets he is married, and in May Sinclair’s Lena Wrace, a mercenary beauty gets her comeuppance in an unforeseen way. Ask for this as a present instead of flowers.