PICK OF THE WEEK

A LADY’S GUIDE TO FORTUNE-HUNTING

by Sophie Irwin, Harpercollins, hardback £14.99 (ebook £7.99)

The diamond of the season, A Lady’s Guide To Fortune-hunting is a Regency-style romcom with all the classic character tropes, plenty of scandals, and more than a dash of sass.

Sophie Irwin’s well-timed debut is the perfect salve for Bridgerton fans on the lookout for a new heroine. Enter Kitty Talbot, a cross

THE PHARMACIST

by Rachelle Atalla is published in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £16.99 (ebook £6.99)

Rachelle Atalla’s debut is a thought-provoking addition to the post-apocalyptic genre.

The world has shrunk down to the confines of an underground bunker, and Atalla cleverly draws intricate details about this new way of life – without between Vanity Fair’s Becky Sharp and Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Darcy, in ruthless pursuit of marrying rich to save her three sisters from ruin.

She soon meets her match in Lord Radcliffe – the Mr Darcy of this story – and thus ensues a riotous tale of faking it till you make it.

Parodying the high society pecking order with its endless trifling rules, Irwin’s modern take on Austen is pure entertaining escapism. revealing much about the events that caused it. Through Wolfe, the bunker’s pharmacist, we live a dismal ‘new normal’, questioning individual morality and the indomitable need to survive, all while sanity unravels in a desperate, claustrophobic environment.

Oppressive and uncomfortable yet compulsive, you’ll have to remember to periodically come up for air.