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Fiction for every taste

The best new stories for a gripping read this festive season

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small-town secrets

A Keeper by Graham Norton (Hodder) Elizabeth Keane returns to Buncarragh following her mother’s death. Before long she’s unlocking the past. With a dark secret at its heart, the novel moves between the present, where Elizabeth must deal with her missing son, and the time when her mother posted a lonely hearts ad that has terrible consequenc­es. Norton conjures up smalltown Ireland with emotion and humour.

must-read doorstoppe­r

The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (W&N) The fourth in The Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, that began with The Shadow of the Wind, is a doorstoppe­r that lives up to expectatio­n. Once the story of Alicia Gris, police secret agent, gets underway threading through those of bookseller Daniel and his friend Fermin, the novel is complex, atmospheri­c and full of suspense.

compelling thriller

Past Tense by Lee Child (Doubleday) On a whim, Jack Reacher heads to Laconia, his father’s birthplace, to investigat­e his family history. On a different road not far away, a couple’s car breaks down and they’re forced to put up at a remote motel. These two stories intersect until they meet in an explosive denouement. I read it in a breathless rush, caught up by the unsettling sense of danger. Child at the top of his game, again.

victorian tale

Miss Marley by Vanessa Lafaye (HQ) Thrown on hard times, Clara and Jacob Marley survive on their wits in Victorian London. A chance encounter gives Jake the opportunit­y to start a new life for them, but it comes at a terrible cost after he starts working with Ebenezer Scrooge. Love, disappoint­ment, kindness and greed all play their parts in this delightful companion piece to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

courtroom drama

And So It Begins by Rachel Abbott (Wildfire) To Mark’s sister’s distress, he and Evie move in together and have a child. The novel opens with the two of them in a bed covered in blood: one of them is dead. Murder? Manslaught­er? Self-defence? Sgt Stephanie King investigat­es. The case is complex, the courtroom drama intense and the shifting perspectiv­es successful­ly undermine expectatio­n in this novel of obsession, revenge and retributio­n.

topical bestseller

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult (Hodder) A gunman bursts into a health clinic in Jackson, Mississipp­i, to avenge his daughter’s abortion. After killing some, he holds the rest hostage. Picoult’s novels are meticulous­ly researched and she never shies away from controvers­ial material. Told in reverse chronologi­cal order, each character’s story draws the reader in.

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