Hex by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight, Bloomsbury

Spellbinding novel about Columbia PhD student Nell, a botanist continuing the studies of a graduate who died while researching an antidote to poisonous plants. Nell – born in Kansas, where “luxury was a tuna casserole” – tries to imagine what happened to Rachel’s organs as the toxins spread. Class mentor, elitist Joan, is worshipped by Nell. “For years I’ve been your smaller self,” Nell says as she floats outside her door. Instead, Joan takes up with Nell’s ex, Tom, as couples plant themselves in each other’s beds. Nell’s exotic flatmate Mishti and partner Carlo are the climbers in the novel mix – “If beauty loves beauty, they could not have avoided each other for long”. Prepare for a burningly brilliant pleasure house of obsession, ordeal, disappointment, betrayal and regret. There’s also the secret lives of plants – two priests died in 1856, after a cook grated deathly monkshood into stew, mistaking it for horseradish. Add Knight’s wry observations: when Mishti and Carlo first meet, Nell tuts, “I might as well have lifted her onto my shoulders to see him better,” and this one will get under your skin. A chilling ending and Nell’s cursed muse: “Which is fuller, the longing or the union?”