LATEST TITLES

THE TRUTHS AND TRIUMPHS OF GRACE ATHERTON

by Anstey Harris, Simon & Schuster, £12.99 (ebook £4.99)

★★★★★

THIS is certainly in the same 'up lit' camp as Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. But The Truths And Triumphs... deserves to be reviewed on its own merit because it's a spectacular read.

Almost every chapter ends with a cliff hanger that makes you gasp. Grace and her world are as delicate and complex as the cellos she makes. There's drama, emotion, and learning – not least for the reader on how cellos are made.

The plot revolves around Grace and her lover, who is revealed – after saving a woman who falls on the tracks of the Paris underground – a liar and cheat.

Grace is broken, and her anger leads to some dark actions, but can she mend herself and the things around her, including a very unlikely but life-affirming friendship with her young shop assistant and an octogenarian customer?

ONCE UPON A RIVER

by Diane Setterfield, Doubleday, £12.99 (ebook £7.99)

★★★★★

SETTERFIELD pays beautiful homage to the art of storytelling in this dark but ultimately heart-warming mystery set on the misty banks of the Thames in 19th century Oxfordshire.

When the body of a dead girl is brought to a rural pub by a stranger, only to dramatically recover, locals are divided over whether science or an old-fashioned miracle is behind it as the tale spreads and takes on a life of its own.

As efforts are made to work out her identity, she draws them into a web of intrigue involving murder, extortion, domestic brutality and other occupiers of the darkest part of the human mind.

Setterfield, the bestselling author of The Thirteenth Tale, brilliantly captures a time and place on the cusp of modernity, but with the tendrils of the old ways still maintaining a strong grip. She effortlessly plays bleakness and warmth off against each other to create a life-affirming tale of what it means to be human.