Fiction for every taste
The best new stories for a gripping read this festive season
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.