LATEST TITLES

RED CLOCKS by Leni Zumas The Borough Press, £16.99, ebook £1.99

WOMEN leading lives of quiet, and not-so-quiet, desperation are at the heart of Leni Zumas’ dystopian novel.

The book is set in a United States in which abortion is banned and IVF has been made illegal. Four women try to make sense of these new rules and the effects they have on their lives: One sets out on a dangerous journey in the hope of making it across the Canadian border, where abortions are still available, while another longs to have a baby but can’t. And in between, we follow a fifth woman who has her own battles to fight.

Together, the five stories form a deeply touching exploration of women’s lives past and future.

THE IMMORTALISTS

by Chloe Benjamin Tinder Press, £16.99, ebook £6.99 IN her second novel, Chloe Benjamin weaves an ambitious family saga that spans several decades.

The premise is intriguing: How would you live your life if you knew the day you were going to die? This is the problem troubling the four Gold children, after a mysterious gypsy reads their fortunes in a New York apartment in 1969. Although you may take away a lesson on how to live life to the full, it’s hard not to finish the book hoping you’re never given advance warning of your death. SAL by Mick Kitson Canongate, £12.99, ebook £7.49 THE eponymous teenage heroine of this novel, who is on the run from the drab, chaotic lives of her alcoholic mother and her drug-dealing partner, steps into another world in Scotland’s last wilderness.

Kitson’s ability to combine the mundane and harrowing with an uplifting, giddy traipse through the great outdoors and characters who take you with them, belies the fact this is his first venture into fiction. An inventive, memorable and soul-stirring read.