Paperback fiction to get stuck into now the cold is setting in: The Smoke in Our Eyes by

The Smoke in Our Eyes by James Grady (No Exit Press £9.99, 400pp)

On Easter Sunday in 1959, the residents of Vernon, Montana, wake to news of a tragedy.

Local radio is reporting a car crash in the early hours: a teenager is dead and a second is in a coma.

As the Ross family eat breakfast, Cora Ross asks her daughter, Laura, if she knew the boys. Laura denies it, but her ten-year-old brother, Lucas, knows she is lying. For the family and their community, the accident will have ominous consequences.

Narrated by Lucas, this coming-of age story by the bestselling author of Six Days Of The Condor is a haunting depiction of lost innocence, as the end of Lucas’s childhood collides with a new era that will challenge the comforting certainties of life in small-town America.

Why Mummy Drinks At Christmas by Gill Sims (Harper Collins £9.99, 320pp)

Why Mummy Drinks At Christmas is available now from the Mail Bookshop

It is December 1 and Ellen is planning a perfect Christmas. It will be a cosy affair – just Ellen, her husband, Simon, and their grown-up children, Jane and Peter.

The disappointments of past Christmases will be forgotten (the one where Ellen’s sister banned alcohol; the one in a yurt with Simon’s hippy sister).

This year the halls will be tastefully decked, the bells will ding dong merrily, and Simon will kiss her under the mistletoe.

The trouble is that no one else in the family shares Ellen’s vision: the children are doing their own thing, and Simon can’t see the problem – it’s time for Ellen’s annual Christmas meltdown.

Gill Sims’s hilarious tale of fractured festivities will resonate with anyone whose vision of comfort and joy has ever gone horribly wrong.

Return to the Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee  (Wildfire £14.99, 272pp)

Return to the Dallergut Dream Department Store is available now 

Miye Lee’s bestselling debut novel, DallerGut Dream Department Store, told the story of Penny, a new recruit at the unique DallerGut dream emporium.

A year on, she is celebrating her first anniversary there. Her new responsibilities take her to the Company District, where the raw materials of dreams undergo stringent testing.

But her post in the Civil Complaint Center offers an enlightening new perspective on dream-making.

There are the complicated ingredients of nostalgic dreams, fortune cookies made with a sprinkling of guilt to prompt self-reflection, nightmares for the greedy – and a pyjama festival of healing dreams.

Whimsical and warm-hearted, this return to the dream department store is an enchanting journey into the colourful world of reverie.