INVITE ME IN
Emma Curtis
Penguin, £7.99
Mother-of-two Eliza Curran’s marriage is not as happy as it seems on the surface. Her paraplegic husband, Martin, is domineering and manipulative, and he holds a secret from Eliza’s past over her to prevent her from leaving him. What’s more, she has a drink problem that she fears could cost her custody of the children if she left. However, the new tenant she takes in at her renovated flat, Dan Jones, is charming and sympathetic – and almost too good to be true. Unsurprisingly, his arrival sets in motion a sequence of events that unfolds disastrously, with Eliza left stuck in the middle. Quite where this psychological thriller ends up isn’t too difficult for an attentive reader to predict, but not the path it takes to get there. Curtis keeps us hooked with twists along the way, our uncertainty over Dan’s intentions and a cast of characters who are convincing, if hardly likeable.
OLDLADYVOICE
Elisa Victoria
And Other Stories, £11.99
In the post-Franco Spain of 1993, nine-year-old Marina is worried about her mother’s health and what the future holds. If she doesn’t recover, Marina will be packed off to a convent school, which, among other things, will mean having to get baptised. But for the moment, while her mother is in hospital, she is spending the long hot summer with her grandmother, watching TV and sharing freewheeling, uninhibited conversations with her, when not enthusiastically discussing the programmes. From the perspective of a childhood that’s already slipping away from her, narrator Marina expresses her intense curiosity in a sweary but disarmingly frank, articulate and perceptive voice. Obsessed with sex, violence and bodily functions, she’s wary of the dangers and ugliness in the world, and of what might be awaiting her in the future, but is fascinated by them too. Translated from the Spanish by Charlotte Whittle, it’s a distinctive and unique coming-of-age story.
KINDRED
Rebecca Wragg Sykes
Bloomsbury Sigma, £10.99
Our impressions of the Neanderthals have changed vastly in the 165 years since their bones were first discovered. Once considered brutish, they are now known to have had a richer culture, more sophisticated tools and more complex social structures than previously imagined – and that they interbred with humans, leaving Europeans with up to 2.6% of their DNA. Much of what is known about Neanderthals has been discovered comparatively recently, and in torrents hard for any single researcher to keep up with. Rebecca Wragg Sykes has spent eight years gathering all this information, which shows them to have been very much like us. It’s impossible to determine exactly how intelligent they were, or the extent of their communication skills. But modern analysis reveals a tremendous amount about their diet, hunting strategies and death rituals. All are brought to vivid life in this book, which should trash all preconceptions about Neanderthals once and for all.
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