Open, Heaven, Seán Hewitt

James – a sheltered, shy 16-year-old – is alone in his newly discovered sexuality, full of an unruly desire but entirely inexperienced. As he is beginning to understand himself and his longings, he also realises how his feelings threaten to separate him from his family and the rural community he has grown up in. He dreams of another life, fantasising about what lies beyond the village’s leaf-ribboned boundaries, beyond his reach: autonomy, tenderness, sex. Then, in the autumn of 2002, he meets Luke, a slightly older boy, handsome, unkempt, who comes with a reputation for danger.

Abandoned by his parents – his father imprisoned, and his mother having moved to France for another man – Luke has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle on their farm just outside the village. James is immediately drawn to him “like the pull a fire makes on the air, dragging things into it and blazing them into its hot, white centre,” drawn to this boy who is beautiful and impulsive, charismatic, troubled. But underneath Luke’s bravado is a deep wound – a longing for the love of his father and for the stability of family life.

Tilt, Emma Pattee

Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, there’s nothing to do but walk.

Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie experiences human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unlikely friendship with a young mother. As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. If she can just make it home, she’s determined to change her life.

Great Big Beautiful Life, Emily Henry

When Margaret Ives, the famously reclusive heiress, invites eternal optimist Alice Scott to the balmy Little Crescent Island, Alice knows this is it: her big break. And even more rare: a chance to impress her family with a Serious Publication.

The catch? Pulitzer-winning human thundercloud, Hayden Anderson, is sure of the same thing.

The proposal? A one-month trial period to unearth the truth behind one of the most scandalous families of the 20th Century, after which she’ll choose who’ll tell her story.

The problem? Margaret is only giving each of them tantalising pieces. Pieces they can’t put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story – just like the tale Margaret’s spinning – could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad … depending on who’s telling it.

Gatsby, Jane Crowther

Nic Carraway doesn’t belong amongst the super-rich, but when she scores a cheap summer lease in Long Island, it-girl Jay Gatsby becomes her neighbour.

Gatsby welcomes Nic to her opulent parties attended by the world’s A-list. And in return, Nic helps Gatsby reconnect with an old flame: Nic’s cousin, the ever-charming but now-married Danny Buchanan.

But no one can be careless like the rich. As the summer heats up, Nic finds herself tangled in a web of longing and ambition, betrayal and deceit. In a world where everyone is lying – about and to themselves – can Nic finally tell the truth?

A Room Above a Shop, Anthony Shapland

When two quiet men form a tentative connection, neither knows where it might lead. M has inherited his family's ironmongery business and B is younger by eleven years and can see no future in the place where he has grown up, but when M offers him a job and lodgings, he accepts. As the two men work side by side in the shop, they also begin a life together in their one shared room above – the kind of life they never imagined possible and that risks everything if their public performance were to slip.

Days of Light, Megan Hunter

Easter Sunday, 1938. Ivy is nineteen and ready for her life to finally begin. In the idyllic Sussex countryside, her sprawling, bohemian family and their friends gather for lunch, awaiting the arrival of a longed-for guest.

It is a single, enchanted afternoon that ends in tragedy.

Days later, at a funeral, Ivy is kissed by the man she will marry, and grieves with the woman who will become the love of her life. And this is only the beginning…

All information sourced from publishers.