The Barbecue at No 9 by Jennie Godfrey (Hutchinson Heinemann, £16.99)
Most of the action in Godfrey’s second novel takes place during the Live Aid concert on 13 July 1985, at a barbecue hosted by the Gordon family in a new-build cul-de-sac in an unspecified part of England. As neighbours arrive and music plays, we gradually learn the backstories of the main characters, from teenage Hanna, who is planning to run away from her pale, preoccupied father and house-proud, socially ambitious mother, to mysterious Rita, newly arrived from Australia to begin a new life, and shell-shocked ex-soldier Steve, whose paranoia is exacerbated by the shadowy figure watching the street. Like Godfrey’s debut, The List of Suspicious Things, this is not so much a whodunnit as a wonderful slow-burn story about friendship, community, and secrets within families, the choices we make and the lies we tell to protect ourselves and others, with the bonus of a terrific built-in soundtrack and a nostalgic vibe.
A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage by MK Oliver (Hemlock, £16.99)
Former headteacher Oliver’s first novel centres on yummy mummy Lalla Rook, who lives with her banker husband Stephen and their young children Nelly and Nathan in the leafy north London suburb of Muswell Hill. It’s a privileged existence, but Lalla, who is not only admirably resourceful but also manipulative and utterly lacking in empathy, has her eye on a larger house in considerably pricier Hampstead as well as a place at an exclusive school for Nelly, who is already demonstrating that the antisocial apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Murder, body disposal, blackmail – Lalla will stop at nothing to achieve her ends, but things get complicated when it begins to looks as if the intruder she dispatched with a kitchen knife minutes before the start of four-year-old Nathan’s birthday party was trying to uncover her murky past. Told with gusto, plus wonderfully twisty plotting and lashings of lifestyle porn, this satirical thriller is the perfect antidote to the winter blues.
