IMAGINARY FRIEND by Stephen Chbosky

IMAGINARY FRIEND Stephen Chbosky Orion Books (www.orionbooks.co.uk) £20.00 Kate Reese’s life has been a series of bad decisions since her husband took his own life in the bath several years before. When her latest boyfriend hits her, Kate packs up her few possessions, and her seven-year-old son, and flees eastward in the middle of the […]

THE INSTITUTE by Stephen King

THE INSTITUTE Stephen King (stephenking.com) Hodder & Stoughton (hodder.co.uk) £20 Luke Ellis is twelve years old when he is abducted from his bed while his parents are murdered in theirs. When he awakes, he finds himself in a room that is almost exactly like his bedroom at home, but it doesn’t take Luke long to […]

THE FIRE STARTERS by Jan Carson

THE FIRE STARTERS Jan Carson (jancarsonwrites.wordpress.com) Doubleday Ireland £14.99 It’s a hot summer in East Belfast and, as the Twelfth of July looms, tensions begin to rise as high as the bonfires dotted around this part of the city. When Stormont imposed a thirty feet height limit on the Eleventh Night bonfires, it […]

THE CAPITAL by Robert Menasse

THE CAPITAL Robert Menasse Translated by Jamie Bulloch MacLehose Press (www.maclehosepress.com) £15 There’s a pig on the loose! And so begins one of the strangest, most enjoyable books you’ll come across this year. Part crime story, part examination of the different bodies that make up the European Union, all satire that totters, at times, […]

THE TAKING OF ANNIE THORNE by C.J. Tudor

THE TAKING OF ANNIE THORNE C.J. Tudor (CJTudorOfficial) Michael Joseph (www.penguin.co.uk) £12.99 After almost thirty years, Joseph Thorne returns to the Nottinghamshire town of Arnhill to take up a teaching position at the local academy. There’s more than the promise of employment that brings Joe back home: when he was a teenager, his eight-year-old […]

he by John Connolly

he John Connolly (www.johnconnollybooks.com) Hodder & Stoughton (www.hodder.co.uk) £16.99 In Santa Monica’s iconic Oceana Apartments, an old man lives out the last days of his life, reminiscing on the many years that brought him to this point. Furthermost in his mind is his best friend, a man he knew as Babe, and whom he loved […]

BROKEN BRANCHES by M. Jonathan Lee

BROKEN BRANCHES M. Jonathan Lee (jonathanleeauthor.com) Hideaway Fall (www.hideawayfall.com) £8.99 Ian Perkins is the latest in a long family line to inhabit the remote Cobweb Cottage, which sits in the shade of a sycamore tree that has reputedly cursed his family for generations. Tragedy – the suicide of his elder brother – was the catalyst […]

YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT by Daniel Kehlmann

YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT Daniel Kehlmann (www.kehlmann.com) Translated by Ross Benjamin (www.rossmbenjamin.com) Riverrun (www.quercusbooks.co.uk) £10.00 A writer heads to the hills, retreating to a snow-bound chalet, with his wife and four-year-old daughter to try and write a sequel to his breakthrough film. While the solitude should allow them to enjoy each other as family, the […]

LEOPARD AT THE DOOR by Jennifer McVeigh

LEOPARD AT THE DOOR Jennifer McVeigh (www.jennifermcveigh.com) Viking (www.penguinrandomhouse.co.uk) £7.99 Eighteen-year-old Rachel Fullsmith has returned to Kenya after a six-year exile following the death of her mother. But the colony to which Rachel is returning is significantly changed from when she was twelve. Her father is now living with another woman and her son; her […]

ALL THE GOOD THINGS by Clare Fisher

ALL THE GOOD THINGS Clare Fisher (clarefisherwriter.com)Viking (www.penguinrandomhouse.co.uk) £12.99 Beth is 21 and in prison, her life ruined by a bad thing that she feels there is no atonement for. Her counsellor, Erika, gives Beth a notebook and asks her to write down all the good things in her life. “But what if…I can’t […]