From the shores of Cornwall to the ancient Greece these are the best paperbacks to read
The Search Party by Hannah Richell (Simon & Schuster £9.99, 416pp)
When a group of old university friends gets together for a glamping weekend in Cornwall, it feels like a wonderful opportunity to relax and reconnect.
The hosts, Annie and Max, have moved out of London in search of a calmer environment for their troubled 12-year-old adopted son, Kip.
Reality TV judge Dominic faces strong resistance from his glamorous second wife, Tanya, and his teenage daughter, Scarlet, while GP Kira is looking forward to introducing her new partner and baby daughter to the group.
But as a storm rolls in, old tensions resurface, secrets are revealed and tragedy strikes when a child goes missing. The tension builds remorselessly in a brilliantly atmospheric thriller.
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (Penguin £9.99, 288pp)
In 412BC, the citizens of the Sicilian city of Syracuse are celebrating their victory over an invading Athenian army.
The surviving Athenians have been thrown into a quarry, where they are starving to death.
But a couple of local likely lads have plans for the emaciated prisoners. Having lost his wife and young son, Gelon is obsessed with the tragedies of the great Athenian playwright, Euripides.
The ravaged Athenian prisoners can recite lines from the plays, so Gelon, with the help of his cheerfully illiterate friend Lampo, decides to stage a performance of Medea in the quarry.
Narrated by Lampo, with a wisecracking Irish turn of phrase standing in for Syracusan street talk, Lennon’s debut is a brilliantly original exploration of the transformative power of art and love.
The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes (Oneworld £9.99, 352pp)
Olwen Flattery’s geology students at the University of Galway find her unorthodox approach to teaching an inspiration. Her home life is rich and contented.
Yet one night she gets on her bike and cycles out of her life. This disappearance unites her three younger sisters in the search for her. The sisters were orphaned in their teens when their parents died in a tragic accident and Olwen, then 17, held the family together.
Since then they have gone their separate ways: Rhona and Nell followed Olwen into academia, while Maeve is a celebrity chef. But Olwen’s flight forces the sisters to revisit old wounds and new uncertainties.
Hughes’s warm and engaging novel takes a searching look at our deepest connections, with family and nature.