(by Ian Rankin)

Just the ticket for long, lazy summer days when you want to be entertained without making the commitment to engaging your brain in a blockbusting whodunnit. This is the ever-grumpy, always endearing Rebus in little gritty bites of his Edinburgh beat and includes a couple of new stories and more than a few oldie but goodies.

(by Philip Kerr)

This might be just the thing for the Grinchy bloke in your life, for Christmas, beginning as it does like this: “I hate Christmas”. Also, it is set in a London football club, so it is pretty blokey and full of intrigue, scandal, corruption and lads doing daft things and the big-wigs making big bucks. The club’s manager has been found dead at the stadium and things are about to get even shadier.

(by Robert Stone)

An intriguing and sometimes irritating novel set on the campus of a New England college where a professor is having an affair with an intriguing and sometimes irritating student, Maud Stack. He ends the affair the moment she has a diatribe against God and for abortion published in the student newspaper. There is a tragic outcome to the ending of the affair, which may or may not be linked to Maud’s death.

(by Walter Kirn)

A very good non-fiction account of how a young novelist (Kirn) got taken in by a man who claimed to be a fabulously wealthy member of the Rockefeller family.

He was an eccentric who turned out to also be a fantasist, a liar and a murderer. It involves a paralysed dog, dinners in ritzy members-only New York gentlemen’s clubs and crummy diners, and a cast of characters you couldn’t make up. It reads like a thriller, is really a strange memoir, and all true.

(by Sabine Durrant)

Lizzie, a librarian, meets Zach, an artist, and they get married and live happily together until he dies in a car crash. On the first anniversary of his death, Lizzie takes flowers to the crash site to find that somebody else has already left flowers.

But who? And why? She sets out to discover exactly who Zach was. There are lies and self-deception and there may be madness. Neither Lizzie or Zach turn out to be the people they were thought to be once their lives are dissected, which they are, by Durrant, quite brilliantly and deftly.

(by Sheila Hancock)

The saddest thing about this fantastic debut novel by 81-year-old award-winning actor Sheila Hancock is that she didn’t begin her writing career decades earlier. In Mrs Carter’s War, Hancock gets to champion the crucial role education plays in society — one of her major regrets, she says, is not going to university and becoming a teacher. Hancock’s central character is Marguerite Carter, a half-French, half-English survivor of World War I who becomes one of the first women to graduate with a degree from Cambridge.

She throws herself into teaching the broken post-war generation, often overstepping her limits but always with the best intentions. The book follows her through the tumultuous years that Britain battled to put itself back together, romping through topics including the ban the bomb protests, drugs, homosexuality and feminism, with only small hints at Miss Carter’s traumatic past. Highly recommended.

(by Sarah-Kate Lynch)

Kiwi writer Sarah-Kate Lynch turns her attention to India in her latest book and, boy, does she do a good job of selling it as a travel destination. Main character Annie Jordan is persuaded to visit Mumbai rather against her will by husband Hugh, who travels there often for work. In a bit of a rut following the death of her mother, the disappearance of her dog, and the lack of interest of her grown-up children, Annie struggles to relax in the city until one of the lovely staff talks her into trying laughing yoga on a Mumbai beach under the tutelage of Heavenly Hirani.

And so unfolds a gentle, often joyous, sometimes furious journey of enlightenment for Annie, who realises that somewhere along the way, she has become invisible. Warning: This book will make you want to pack your bags for India.

(by Fiona Higgins)

The internet and its intrusive reach has burned Paula McInnes and her family one too many times — not only has her husband Hamish been having a cyber-affair with someone who turns out to be a teenager, but her 14-year-old daughter is the victim of Facebook bullying. Paula decides to unplug and regroup, packing up the kids and her elderly father and heading off on an extended road trip of Australia.

Meanwhile, the hapless Hamo decides to finally get his act together and heads off on his own road trip to find them. Of course, both end up on a figurative journey as well as a literal one, as their break from the daily grind gives them space to find themselves again. Higgins tells a good yarn with a moralistic heart, featuring likeable characters who find themselves in often amusing predicaments.

(by David Nicholls)

You might not know David Nicholls but you’ll definitely know the movies he’s adapted from his books — Starter For 10 and One Day — and his new novel, Us, is likely to end up taking the same route. Douglas Petersen is blindsided when Connie, his wife of 21 years, announces she plans to leave him as soon as their teenage son Albie heads off to college. First though, the couple have to present a united front on the family’s Grand Tour of Europe, which soon spirals out of control as Douglas tries desperately hard to change Connie’s mind and find some common ground with Albie, who he finds difficult to relate to.

The story, told from Douglas’ point of view, zips seamlessly back and forwards in time as he contemplates his relationships with his wife and son and tries to make sense of where it all went wrong. Bittersweet, infuriating, amusing, and another novel that will give you a serious case of wanderlust. Certain to be coming to a screen near you soon.

(by Marian Keyes)

This epic read from Irish chick lit queen Marian Keyes tells the extraordinary tale of Irish beautician Stella who notices a tingling in her fingers one night and finds herself confined to a hospital bed, unable to move any part of her body but her eyelids. Her misfortune leads to a chain of events which turns her ordinary, boring life completely on its head as the “karma machine” swings into action.

Switching between past and present, between New York and Dublin, her off-the-wall story is at times laugh out loud funny but has plenty of heartbreaking moments too.