The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Little Brown £8.99
By the author of the acclaimed Underground Railroad about the secret escape route from the slave plantations in 19th century USA, comes another riveting novel set in the 1960’s in a fictionalized version of the Dozier School for Boys in Florida, a reform school dubbed Nickel Academy which ran from 1900 to 2011. Hard-hitting, tense and dramatic this is an important book with an interesting twist at the end. Not a sunny summer read but well worth reading.

The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey
Atlantic Books £8.99
Published last February, this beautifully written novel recently won the Walter Scott Historical Novel Prize. An Irish writer who will now deservedly receive more attention, Dwyer Hickey has brought to life an intriguing period in the life of Edward Hopper and his wife. Told from the perspective of a young boy, orphaned during the war and visiting relations in Cape Cod who are neighbours of the Hoppers.
The novel is, in the words of a bookshop book group member 'an engaging, touching and utterly convincing fictional story about very real people. Small scale and quite a slow read in its way, but this worked absolutely in its favour. Very impressed at the subtlety of the whole thing. A brilliant portrait...'
'With a beguiling grace and a deceptive simplicity, Christine Dwyer Hickey reminds us that the past is never far away - rather, it constantly surrounds us, suspends us, haunts us.' Colum McCann.

The Teeny Weeny Genie by Julia Donaldson
Pan Macmillan £12.99
So many stories from the pen of Julia Donaldson, and all delight us. Now we have a rollicking new tale full of animal fun, based on a traditional playground song. Cleaning out his farmhouse kitchen, Old McDonald finds an old teapot and to his surprise a wish-granting genie pops out. Old McDonald wishes for a wife who wishes for a baby who wishes for a dog who wishes for a cat and so on, and, as one might predict, chaos ensues. The beautiful, warm and classic-looking pictures are by Anna Currie who was the illustrator for Rosie’s Hat and One Ted Falls Out of Bed. Another absolute gem.

The Great Godden by Meg Rosoff
Bloomsbury £12.99
Meg Rosoff has always been a popular author amongst our staff. Her last novel, the amusing Jonathan Unleashed, has been one of our recommended reads for adults for some time. Now she has returned to fiction for teenagers and to territory first explored in her marvellous novel How I Live Now, turned into a film in 2013 starring Saoirse Ronan. That novel, an intriguing mix of speculative fiction and teen romance was a brilliant study of a young girl catapulted from New York to a family in the British countryside under the shadow of an emerging third world war.
Here Meg Rossof once again deftly creates a brilliant coming of age tale, charting the effect of interlopers on a big chaotic family one summer in a seaside holiday house. The two cool and attractive Godden brothers appear as wedding is being planned and nothing is the same again.
'Sophisticated, seductive and smoothly readable, this is a summer story par excellence, and a coming-of-age tale for all times.' Joanne Owen.