NEW FICTION

Schroder by Amity Gaige is published in hardback by Faber and Faber, priced £14.99 (ebook £7.55). Available now.

Erik Schroder is about as far from a responsible adult as you can get. He narrates this novel as he awaits trial, having kidnapped his six-year-old daughter Meadow during a custody visit and taken her on an impromptu road trip.

For most of his adult life, soon after leaving Germany with his father, he has also gone under a different name - Eric Kennedy - and identity.

Now, in a kind of love letter to ex-wife Laura, focusing on parental love, he attempts to explain his reasons, setting them out with footnotes in a desperate bid to explain the context of his rash act.

He would be, in any other circumstance, a likeable character with morals and strong emotions.

But for all the touching moments of bonding with Meadow while they are effectively on the run, the crime at the heart of their journey niggles, as does the fact he was woefully unprepared.

There are many times that their roles are reversed, with the tough, confident Meadow appearing older than her tender years and her father struggling to keep his head above water.

Schroder is a book unlike any other, with characters that will be in your head for days to come. A compelling read.

6/10

(Review by Lauren Turner)

 

Secrecy by Rupert Thomson is published in hardback by Granta, priced £14.99 (ebook £9.11). Available now.

Secrets can turn out to be the exact opposite of what you expect.

Take Zummo, a sculptor in wax in 17th century Florence, who weaves an intricate web of forbidden knowledge in a vain bid to protect those he holds dearest.

Working for the Grand Duke, he panders to the morbid fascination of his employer at the same time as dodging the sword of over-zealous authorities in a time when to have privilege is to be able to get away with murder.

Winding its way through the sordid back streets of the beautiful city of Florence, Secrets transports the reader to a time when religion ruled with a rod of iron.

Rupert Thomson has been shortlisted for his graphic novels and with Secrets has hit the spot.

Taking the reader back to an age when artists were the pop idols of the day, Thomson has drawn a colourful picture of life in the 1600s.

7/10

(Review by Roddy Brooks)

 

Doughnut by Tom Holt is published in paperback by Orbit, priced £7.99 (ebook £4.99). Available now.

Having blown up the Very Very Large Hadron Collider, life looks bleak for Theo as he struggles to continue his career as a physicist.

Things begin to turn around, however, when he is handed the key to a safety deposit box left by a recently deceased colleague, containing a multiverse of possibilities.

Cringingly unfunny, this absurd 'comedy' bounces awkwardly through several uncomfortable scenarios, making little sense of a thin and familiar concept. By using scientific words, Holt manages to fumble together a sci-fi story with more plot holes than plot, which he then tries to fill with ludicrous and laborious similes.

It builds towards a somewhat predictable ending, where the uninteresting Theo questions the start/end/reboot of the universe and if he had a hand in it.

A queer adventure with an uncertain audience, Doughnut seems slapdash and confused, often leaving many basic points unexplained or glossed over or forgotten. Thoroughly disappointing.

3/10

(Review by Wayne Walls)

 

The Loveliest Chocolate Shop In Paris by Jenny Colgan is published in paperback by Sphere, priced £7.99 (ebook £4.49). Available March 14.

Having been on the chic-lit scene since 2000, Jenny Colgan's last few releases have stuck to themes of all things tasty and sweet. Indeed, her website is just as focused on her recipes, as it is on her novels.

Her latest work follows Anna, 30, who after an accident and a reunion with her old teacher, finds herself moving to Paris to work in a chocolate shop. Through a split narrative it is revealed that her teacher went on a very similar adventure to Paris when she was young, and that their experiences there are closely linked.

As Colgan lives in France, she writes about what it is like to move to the country with first-hand experience and in a style that is chatty, friendly and highly absorbing.

The chocolate descriptions are so powerful you feel you can close your eyes and taste it with her. Like Joanne Harris's Chocolat, it should be avoided if you have given up chocolate for Lent!

The main romance in the novel is with Paris and the idea that everyone should experience the world while they are young, which is far more interesting than a simple love affair.

Colgan portrays Paris as such an exciting and exotic playground, you'll be booking the Eurostar before you know it.

6/10

(Review by Harriet Shephard)

 

The Quickening by Julie Myerson is published in hardback by Hammer, priced £9.99 (ebook £7.59). Available March 28.

Julie Myerson has written novels before, but nowadays she is best known for Living With Teenagers, the initially anonymous Guardian column in which she dramatised her own failings as a parent, and her subsequent memoir of her son's cannabis "addiction".

Hammer, sponsoring this imprint, is a byword for a very British brand of horror. The two intersect with a very domestic ghost story.

Ben and Rachel, an insufferable couple with divisions of the most cliched kind (she likes Love Actually, he doesn't) are honeymooning in Antigua, where Rachel becomes convinced that malign forces threaten her unborn child.

They meet fellow tourists even more dreadful than themselves, who say insensitive things when the portentous locals start getting killed off.

Ghastly protagonists are fine if they are intriguingly awful, but once you have overheard Ben and Rachel bickering on their mobiles a hundred times, the plot unfolds with even greater inevitability than their fate. This is one book to avoid.

3/10

(Review by Alex Sarll)