There’s plenty more books that we couldn’t quite fit in. MANIA (out now, The Borough Press) is the latest by Lionel Shriver, author of We Need To Talk About Kevin. In this satirical alternate-world tale, the rise of the Mental Parity Movement has made it taboo to call someone “stupid” (that’d take all the fun out of Twitter...), and discrimination based on intelligence is viewed as a civil rights issue. One for fans of anime (and “achingly slow burn romance”), June CL Tan’s YA urban fantasy DARKER BY FOUR (out now, Hodderscape) is set in a world of revenants, exorcists and death gods. It centres on an exorcistin-training whose magic powers are accidentally transferred to the black sheep of an illustrious family. In Sarah Langan’s near-future thriller A BETTER WORLD (out now, Atria), a family relocates to a walled-off company town which looks like the perfect haven from a world that’s falling apart. But what exactly is “Hollow”, the set of beliefs the residents follow? And what does the forthcoming Winter Festival involve? Shona Kinsella’s fantasy THE HEART OF WINTER (16 April, Flame Tree Press) concerns a young woman called Brigit; faced with a forced marriage to Aengus, god of Summer, she flees into the Highlands in search of the Cailleach, the Queen of Winter. Finally, REBEL MOON: WOLF:
EX NIHILO –
COSMOLOGY &