Not With a Bang by Temi Oh (Solstice, £20)
The four daughters of a doomsday prepper were trained what to do in an emergency: grab their bags and head for the well-stocked bunker he had built in the garden of their London home. But when a world-shattering event occurs, the family are dispersed, individually forced to weigh their best options for survival as they shelter in place or struggle through devastated, chaotic streets. The story could suit a disaster movie (the author also writes screenplays), but it’s the complex characterisations and conflicted relationships that make for a powerfully compelling read. The characters are shown from different perspectives, and are flawed, human and real. Perfectly paced, this is a suspenseful depiction of survival amid civilisational collapse.
Tillinghast by Clare Cavenagh (Borough, £16.99)
Stutley Tillinghast has lived alone for a long time. Formerly a minister in a rural Rhode Island parish, he is now caretaker of an empty church. He avoids contact with others – except when his peculiar need drives him to find someone he can kill without attracting attention, take what he requires, and then bury the body in the cellar with all the others. His life is upended by the arrival of a visitor from England, a young woman called Sarah who has come looking for her mother. There’s no possibility that Sarah could be his daughter, yet he recognises the symptoms of her illness: it is the same as his. She has become too weak to do what she must to save her own life, and he will not let her die. This debut novel, inspired by the 19th-century New England vampire panic, is a haunting, original modern gothic, a welcome departure from the usual tropes.
