THE THINGS WE THOUGHT WE KNEW Mahsuda Snaith Loot.co.za (R250) Doubleday

EIGHTEEN-year-old Ravine Roy has been bed-bound in a council flat in Leicester for the past 10 years, suffering from chronic pain syndrome. She has also been grieving over the disappearance of her best friend, Marianne.

In her “pain diary”, she writes to Marianne, recalling their friendship. As the novel opens, she stages a sudden recovery, but keeps it secret as she adjusts to facing the outside world. The walls of the flat are thin and she can hear her mother entertaining a mysterious man, as well as what’s being said in the nextdoor flat, in the room that was once Marianne’s.

Snaith has a delightfully fresh voice and vividly conveys the claustrophobic nature of Ravine’s situation as the mystery of what happened 10 years earlier is gradually revealed.