Alastair Mabbott

We’ve probably all had dreams about our teeth falling out. It’s a classic sign of anxiety or grief. Shiny, regular teeth are associated with health, attractiveness and financial security. Problem teeth are a source of intense pain, constant distraction and lowered self-esteem. And for the great many people with a phobia of dentists, getting their tooth problems fixed can be an even more daunting prospect than putting up with them. By making teeth the central metaphor of her debut novel, getting its welcome paperback release this month, Lynsey May not only gives her protagonist’s inner turmoil a physical presence but taps into a universal, relatable fear.

What more is there to be said about the allure of vampires, a subject that must surely have been wrung dry by now? In the hands of Genevieve Jagger, it turns out, quite a lot. This strikingly accomplished debut novel is a fresh, psychologically astute take, narrated by a troubled, possibly neurodivergent, young woman scarred by a strict Catholic upbringing and family trauma who befriends a charismatic older man claiming to be a creature of the night.

One of those friends has since become Tory MP for the very Durham constituency in which he grew up. On the hard right of his party, Gary Watson is a toxic, Union flag-waving populist

Esther Rutter was in Japan when it happened. At 21 years old, she had gone to teach English in a rural part of the country and found herself isolated, alienated by the complex pictograms and multiple registers of the Japanese language.

Although it opens ominously enough – its protagonist appearing from nowhere, sweating and dazed, hands outstretched in front of a police car – there’s a lot of fun to be found in Martin Stewart’s appealing and comedic detective novel.

In September 1939, Poland falls before the might of the German war machine, Warsaw being absorbed into a larger bureaucratic entity called the General Government.

Crow Moon meets the definition of “eagerly-awaited” more than most debuts. First-time author Suzy Aspley’s original idea won Pitch Perfect at the 2019 Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival in Stirling, so those who were there will no doubt be delighted to see it finally in print.

Eighteen-sixteen has been called “the year without a summer”. Following the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, sheets of rain swept across Europe and crops failed. Over this failed summer, Percy and Mary Shelley were famously ensconced in the Villa Diodati on the shores of Lake Geneva with Lord Byron and his friend John Polidori, their extended stay resulting in Mary Shelley’s landmark Gothic novel Frankenstein and Polidori’s The Vampyre. One crucial member of their party, however, has been more or less written out of the story: Mary Shelley’s step-sister, Claire Clairmont.

To say that John Martyn has got the biography he deserved may sound like a backhanded compliment. But Graeme Thomson’s 2020 book, finally available in paperback, does justice to a complex, mercurial and visionary musician, dealing unflinchingly with his tempestuous nature without ever losing sight of the sublime brilliance of his best work.

Despite hailing from Edinburgh, Skelton’s compelling anti-hero Jonas Flynt seems perfectly adapted for life in the pungent, perilous streets of London in the early 18th Century, where a man must always have his wits about him.