THE BEST NEW FICTION

Booth

Karen Joy

Fowler

Serpent’s Tail €26

The Booth family will forever be associated with the assassination of President Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington in 1865 by John Wilkes Booth. Few, though, will know that the assassin was part of a colourful thespian dynasty that dominated the American stage for more than 40 years. Set against a tumultuous backdrop of abolitionism and civil war, Booth is an epic tale of a divided country, seen through the prism of an extraordinary family and with uncanny parallels to the present moment. Stunning.

Simon Humphreys

The Swimmers Julie Otsuka

Figtree €18

Otsuka’s slender, stylistically ambitious third novel is a marvel, capturing the hypnotic rhythm of laneswimming and the devastating decline of memory and connection as dementia takes hold. For 35 years, Alice has belonged to a group who’ve swum daily at the local community pool. But when it closes, her already faltering mind fails, and she begins to forget everything and everyone, including her daughter, who must bear witness to her mother’s illness. Heartbreakingly powerful. Eithne Farry

The Flames Sophie Haydock Doubleday €23

Fin de siècle Vienna is a city pulsing with music and art and bohemian extravagance in this exhilarating first novel. Enter enfant terrible Egon Schiele, a protégé of Gustav Klimt. He’ll paint scandalous nudes but it’s the four women who were his muses who take centre stage here: each has her own desires and ambitions, and betrayal and destruction wait in the wings. It’s a dynamic, vivid debut pulled off with considerable élan. Hephzibah Anderson

Where Blood Runs Cold Giles Kristian

Bantam Press

€21

Kristian’s riveting thriller debut is set in the inhospitable landscape of Norway’s far north. Carpenter Erik Amdahl is pushed to the end of his endurance and beyond as he and his 12-year-old daughter flee on skis after witnessing a murder. They’re lost in the wilderness and beset by a blizzard, equally at risk from frostbite and the implacable killers on their trail. Kristian gives this extended chase a nightmarish intensity. John Williams