The family holiday from hell

THE ‘ADULTS’ (Orion £14.99, 416 pp)

GENUINELY unputdownable books are rare in my experience. This is one.

It went with me all round the Scottish Highlands recently, but I hardly saw the scenery. I was too busy wondering what was going to happen next with the ill-matched couples in the holiday lodge.

Laid-back Matt used to be married to control-freak Claire, but is now with shy scientist Alex. Claire has a new partner, too, uptight barrister Patrick, who does triathlons.

They are spending Christmas together in a sort of Center Parcs for the benefit of Scarlett, Matt and Claire’s daughter. She, too, has a companion — imaginary friend Posey, a big, purple, troublemaking rabbit.

Unsurprisingly, it’s all a complete disaster; tensions run high and someone even gets shot. But who? And why?

A brilliant, original comedy of contemporary manners. THE NECESSARY MARRIAGE by Elisa Lodato (W&N £16.99, 384 pp)

TEENAGE Jane wants sex and freedom and has a crush on her history teacher. He’s a bit square and lives with his mother, but is honourable and decent. They marry and only then, young and pregnant, does Jane realise what she might have given up.

Into their quiet existence bursts rackety neighbour Marion, a mouthy Irishwoman with a thuggish husband. They’ve inherited a posh Surrey house from his father and move in with their two strangely subdued boys.

Time passes and the families grow closer in ways both good and bad (mostly the latter). Then Marion disappears. This is a novel which closely examines hidden lives and secret motives, mining the dramas and dangers and ending with disasters and deaths.

I would call it Surrey Gothic: a superbly written suburban saga with an agreeable sense of creeping dread.

THE MEMORY COLLECTOR by Fiona Harper (HQ £7.99, 384 pp)

PRETTY twentysomething Heather is not all she seems. She’s a hoarder with a room full of stuff. Some she has stolen, and some she has inherited from her dreadful mother, who’s also a hoarder.

The stash fills an entire room of her flat and makes it difficult to move on — in any sense — still less to form a relationship with hunky, understanding neighbour Jason.

We flash back and forth in time from the traumas of Heather’s sad childhood to her struggles with the present. There are secrets — an abduction, a lost baby — to be overcome and explained.

Perhaps the going’s a bit slow occasionally, but this is a book full of heart and written with winning sincerity.