Winchelsea Alex Preston

Canongate £14.99

It is the 1740s and while Bonnie Prince Charlie awaits his moment, smugglers control England’s Cinque Ports. After 16-year-old Goody Brown’s adopted father is murdered, she is bent on revenge and drawn into their world. Channelling Robert Louis Stevenson, Preston delivers an adventure story full of thrills, spills and surprises. The pace slackens in the last third but it’s otherwise engrossing and entertaining.

Rufus Flynn