LATEST TITLES

AN ABSOLUTELY REMARKABLE THING by Hank Green, Trapeze, hardback £14.99, ebook £7.99

★★★★★

YOUTUBER Hank

Green’s debut novel is part millennial social commentary, part sci-fi novel. The protagonist is 23-year-old April May, who is the first to discover one of 64, 10-ft-tall sculptures (named Carl) that suddenly appear on Earth. The novel follows April as she shoots to internet, and then worldwide fame, and has to deal with everything that comes with that – not to mention what the Carls are and what they’re doing here.

I INVITED HER IN

by Adele Parks, HQ, paperback £7.99, ebook £5.99.

★★★★★

MELANIE is delighted when old university friend Abigail gets back in touch after 17 years. Childless Abigail is a glamorous, successful TV presenter, while working mum Melanie feels dowdy and boring, although she’s happy with her suburban life, three children and a handsome husband. The title of Parks’ latest novel makes it clear from the start that devious Abigail is not the long lost friend Melanie hopes for and her life is about to be turned upside down.

FRENCH EXIT by Patrick deWitt, Bloomsbury Publishing, hardback £16.99, ebook £14.99.

★★★★★

‘BLACK Widow’ Frances

Price and her feckless son Malcolm are super-rich New Yorkers fallen on hard times. Instead of finding jobs, the noxious pair sail for France on a luxury liner. DeWitt’s argument is that when the rich become poor, their poverty isn’t like the destitution experienced by the migrants he depicts. Instead of a plausible narrative we are given random-seeming encounters with bizarre minor characters. They are all lassoed into deWitt’s Wes Anderson-style plot eventually, using increasingly surreal devices including a spirit-infested cat...