CHARLOTTEHEATHCOTE

The master storyteller and author of One Day returns with the bittersweet story of teenager Charlie who, in the summer of 1997, has just messed up his A-levels, distracted by his parents’ divorce. His mother and sister have moved out, leaving him alone with his depressed father.

Charlie’s life stretches drearily ahead and he longs for an escape. Which arrives in the form of Fran Fisher, a local girl playing Juliet in an amateur production of Romeo And Juliet. Charlie very reluctantly joins the theatre group to ensure he sees Fran again and what follows is a touching and resonant depiction of first love.

Piercingly observant, gloriously funny and achingly sad, this is David Nicholls’ best book yet. In the 12th Harry Hole thriller, Jo

Nesbo surpasses his own dark standards with repulsive villain Svein Finne. Harry is so obsessed with Finne that his marriage has broken down and he is back on the bottle. Then he wakes feeling hazy after a bender to find himself under suspicion of a terrible crime. Nesbo indulges his unique, deliciously horrible vision of the world once again.

Harvill Secker, £20 As elderly particle physicist James Wentworth grows more decrepit, his new carer Mandy seems like a godsend to his middle-aged children. But the more comfortable Mandy gets, the more they question whether she’s the blessing she seems. Moggach’s latest is full of warmth and humour as well as blistering truths about the sorrowful threads that bind families.