New books to read this week

All The Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman is tipped for great things and debut Mere by Danielle Giles wows our reviewer…

Fiction

Mere by Danielle Giles is published in hardback by Mantle

Danielle Giles’ debut novel Mere very quickly pulls you, unflinchingly, into the captivating and claustrophobic world of the crumbling convent in which it’s set. In 990AD, somewhere deep in the Norfolk fens, a boy disappears as he travels with a group to the convent, setting off a series of events that slowly crescendos towards a powerful and satisfying ending. With lyrical prose that simmers with imagery, Giles blurs the boundaries between the natural world and the unnatural. She draws you into the depths of her characters’ fears, faith and lusts as they navigate their isolated community and the growing forces that threaten them from both outside and within their own boundaries – arcane folklore, stifling scripture and curses that rise from the marsh, as well as the very real dangers of starvation, disease and war. A meticulously told story, Mere is a brilliant read.

All The Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman is published in hardback by Harper Collins

Florence Grimes is forced to shake herself out of her sad, lonely life when her son Dylan becomes a suspect in the disappearance of a 10-year-old spoiled brat bully on a school trip. The ex-girlband singer decides to launch her own investigation in a desperate bid to clear her son’s name – without realising the dangers ahead. When she finds the missing boy’s rucksack hidden under her son’s bed, she’s torn between doubting Dylan’s innocence, and embarking on a reckless, unlawful adventure. She enlists the help of the one mum who doesn’t hate her, placing them both in danger as their amateur detective exploits start to unearth the shocking truth of the boy’s mysterious disappearance. Sarah Harman has spent over a decade reporting news events around the world, and she uses her writing skills to great effect in her first novel. She may have just created a new detective hero.

Fair Play by Louise Hegarty is published in hardback by Picador

After proving her mettle as a talented short story writer, Louise Hegarty tackles raw grief in her first novel. It is New Year’s Eve and Abigail has arranged a murder mystery weekend partly to bring in the New Year and partly to celebrate her brother Benjamin’s birthday. The party is just the beginning of a tangled web though, as the next morning, everyone rises at the cottage, apart from Benjamin. Hegarty lays out a fantastical locked room mystery that follows all the rules of the gentleman detective genre, interspersed with the sorrow and raw grief of surviving sister Abigail. She strives to understand what happened to her brother and what her place in the world is now. There are twists at every turn in this immensely easy, yet dark read.

Non-fiction

Children of Radium by Joe Dunthorne is published in hardback by Hamish Hamilton

Memory and reality can create conflicting narratives, especially when passed down over generations. In his first work of non-fiction, Joe Dunthorne dives into his family’s perplexing history. As the only living family member to read his great-grandfather Siegfried’s rambling 2,000-page memoir, he carefully outlines Siegfried’s complicated legacy: the German-Jewish chemist who invented radioactive toothpaste also developed chemical weapons and gas mask filters for the Nazis. Memory proves to be selective in both the memoir and Dunthorne’s recalling of his grandmother’s oral history. In unearthing facts through sources based in Germany, Turkey, the UK, and the US, and translating documents from the family archive, Dunthorne is able to present a more holistic view of his great-grandfather’s complexities and connect with his German roots.

Children’s book of the week

Your Farm, Your Island, Your Forest (Your Places series) by Jon Klassen is published as boardbooks by Walker Books

Jon Klassen’s children’s books, from the darkly funny I Want My Hat Back, to the moving Shape trilogy, tend to be witty, clever and different from the average, completed by his delightful illustrations. The Canadian’s new Your Places trilogy – including Your Farm, Your Island and Your Forest – are again, beautifully illustrated, but the humour is somewhat lacking, except in the eyes painted on inanimate objects. In fact, the tone is oddly didactic. The narrator speaks directly to the reader, telling them that here is their tree, truck, boat, plants, and where they can put them. A scene is built up, on the page, and the aim seems to be that it happens in the reader’s imagination too, with the child realising they can create whole forests, islands and farms in their mind, but it all feels a bit flat. They’re crying out for a different format, with lift-the flap elements. An intriguing premise that doesn’t quite land.