SPRING stories
Sarra Manning picks her favourite fiction of the month
The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown (Viking, £12.99)
A fictionalised account of the infamous Essex witch trials of 1645, told from the point of view of Alice Hopkins, sister of self-styled Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins. This is a chilling, creeping novel with very obvious parallels to more modern forms of witch-hunts and misogyny, but is still firmly rooted in an England torn apart by civil war and gripped by religious fervour.
The Housekeeper
by Suellen Dainty (Washington Square Press, £8.99; out 9th March)
When Anna takes a job as housekeeper to the Helmsleys – Emma, a celebrity lifestyle guru, her husband Rob, their children and dog – it’s to escape her own messy life. But beneath the Helmsleys’ perfect image are secrets and Anna finds herself dealing with more than just their dirty laundry. A smart, compelling psychological thriller. A Dangerous Crossing by Rachel Rhys (Transworld, £12.99; out 23rd March) The first novel from Rachel Rhys (author Tammy Cohen’s pseudonym), it’s 1939 and Lily boards a liner to a new life in Australia. But her travelling companions, glamorous Max and Eliza and Hitler-loving George, have hidden agendas. When the ship docks in Sydney, war has been declared and two passengers are dead. Think Highsmith on the high seas. Larchfield by Polly Clark (Riverrun, £14.99; out 23rd March) In 1930, WH
Auden became a teacher at Larchfield School in the Scottish town of Helensburgh. In the present day, Dora, married and pregnant, moves to Helensburgh and feels as if she’s lost sight of the poet she used to be. Then one day, she finds a message in a bottle from one Wystan Auden and steps into his world. A beautifully written debut about outsiders, creativity and motherhood. The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel (Hodder & Stoughton, £12.99; out
9th March) In the YA author’s first adult novel, the girls in the Roanoke family either run away or die. At 15 years old, Lane leaves her grandparents’ estate in rural Kansas, until 11 years later when her cousin Allegra disappears. Fans of
The Girls will love this sweat-soaked, sultry, small-town tale full of shadows and lurking dread.