Academy for pushy parents

THE GIFTED SCHOOL by Bruce Holsinger (Headline £18.99, 464 pp)

THIS compelling page-turner features four families living in a wealthy, small town in Colorado, and it focuses on the tight friendship between four mothers who met when their children were babies.

Divorce, illness and widowhood have only made them closer and more supportive.

But when a new school for gifted children opens, it quickly becomes apparent that fierce competition for a limited number of places means these previously upstanding members of the community will do anything to get their kids ahead.

Issues of privilege, race and class abound and, as the parents’ obsession with the exclusive school grows, they start cheating, lying and bribing in an attempt to give their children a leg up.

I couldn’t put it down.

THE WOMAN WITH WINGS by James MacManus (Endeavour Quill £7.99, 320 pp)

ALISON has always felt small and insignificant. Quiet and thoughtful, she’s happy to remain in the background at the IT department of the advertising agency where she works.

She finds joy in her weekend birdwatching trips, but the rest of her group of twitchers don’t know much about her.

One day she falls, viewing eagles on a Scottish mountain, and the others are sure she’s dead. When they return, traumatised, to their hostel, they’re shocked to find Alison alive and unhurt.

None of them, least of all Alison, can work out how she survived. However, this is only the first in a series of inexplicable situations, and as the unanswerable questions mount, Alison begins to feel she is losing control — physically, mentally and emotionally. The more she questions what’s real, the more lost she becomes.

I loved it.

13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A FAT GIRL by Mona Awad (Head of Zeus £14.99, 256 pp)

LIZZIE is overweight in a world obsessed with image. But no one is more obsessed with image than she is.

She’s unhappy with her size yet can’t stop eating. She is so socially awkward that she misses endless days of school, and she endures dreadful relationships with horrible men because she doesn’t believe she deserves more.

Eventually she marries a good guy, but because she cannot see that he loves her for herself, she starts losing weight.

Blind to the fact that her punishing new diet and exercise regime is the same old self-harming, she pushes her husband away with each pound she loses.

It becomes clear that these struggles are merely a physical manifestation of the black hole where her selfesteem should be.

Shocking, sad, important and tender, this is a powerful rollercoaster of a read.