HISTORICAL

ELIZABETH BUCHAN

EVERYONE BRAVE IS FORGIVEN by Chris Cleave (Sceptre £14.99)

IN LONDON, France and in blockaded Malta, four young people are subjected to the brutal scenarios and personal challenges of World War II.

They fall for the wrong people, make mistakes and are sometimes less than heroic. Will they make it through?

Chris Cleave’s superbly detailed and powerful story has at its heart a fiery and fervent love affair — and its exploration of the damage that war inflicts on the psyche hits home hard.

THE ESSEX SERPENT by Sarah Perry (Serpent’s Tale £14.99)

THE villagers of Albourne in Essex are terrified that a malign serpent has been resurrected by an earthquake, and the widowed and wealthy Cora — as stubborn and unconventional a heroine as you could wish — has fallen for the local vicar.

Sarah Perry’s richly themed and exhilaratingly executed novel dramatises the clash in late-Victorian society between rationality and superstition.

Passion, morality and science battle it out in this lusciously written and unusual meditation on an era in the grip of change.

A worthy winner of Waterstones Book of the Year.