Books of the month for February

General Fiction:  Jem Lester – Shtum

Ben Jewell has hit breaking point. His ten-year-old son, Jonah, has never spoken.So when Ben and Jonah are forced to move in with Ben's elderly father, three generations of men - one who can't talk; two who won't – are thrown together. As Ben battles single fatherhood, a string of well-meaning social workers and his own demons, he learns some difficult home truths. Jonah, blissful in his ignorance, becomes the prism through which all the complicated strands of personal identity, family history and misunderstanding are finally untangled.

Funny and heart-breaking in equal measure, Shtum is a story about families, forgiveness and finding a light in the darkest days.

British Crime: Jackie Kabler – The Dead Dog Day (Cora Baxter #1)

When your Monday morning begins with a dead dog and ends with a dead boss, you know it's going to be one of those days. And breakfast TV reporter Cora Baxter has already had the weekend from hell, after the man she'd planned a fabulous future with unceremoniously dumped her. Now Cora's much-hated boss has been murdered - the list of suspects isn't exactly short, but as the enquiry continues the trail leads frighteningly close to home.

Why is Cora's rival, glamorous, bitchy newsreader Alice Lomas, so devastated by their boss's death? What dark secrets are Cora's camera crew hiding? And why has her now ex-boyfriend vanished? The race to stop the killer striking again is on...

Tough Crime: Bill Beverly – Dodgers

Dodgers is a dark, unforgettable coming-of-age journey that recalls the very best of Richard Price, Denis Johnson, and J.D. Salinger. It is the story of a young LA gang member named East, who is sent by his uncle along with some other teenage boys—including East's hothead younger brother—to kill a key witness hiding out in Wisconsin. The journey takes East out of a city he's never left and into an America that is entirely alien to him, ultimately forcing him to grapple with his place in the world and decide what kind of man he wants to become.

Written in stark and unforgettable prose and featuring an array of surprising and memorable characters rendered with empathy and wit, Dodgers heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.

Fantasy: Kirsty Logan – The Gracekeepers

The magical story of a floating circus and two young women in search of a home.

The sea has flooded the earth. North lives on a circus boat, floating between the scattered islands that remain. She dances with her beloved bear, while the rest of the crew trade dazzling and death-defying feats for food from the islanders.However, North has a secret that could capsize her life with the circus.

Science Fiction: Lavie Tidhar – Central Station

A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked.Life is cheap, and data is cheaper. When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris's ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger.His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik – a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return.

Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful alien entities who, through the Conversation – a shifting, flowing stream of consciousness – are just the beginning of irrevocable change. At Central Station, humans and machines continue to adapt, thrive... and even evolve.

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy: Peter McLean – Drake (Burned Man #1)

Meet Don Drake. He's a demon-summoning hit man who s badly in debt. He doesn't like his job. He'd rather have a drink and stay away from murder and the supernatural, but he'll have no peace before he's cleared his debt. So Drake takes on one last kill job and things only get worse for him when he discovers his victim was just a kid. Suddenly, Drake's on everyone's bad list. His only friends are an arch-demon trapped inside an ancient artefact, and Trixie, who smokes too much and happens to be as close to a fallen angel as you can get before you're Lucifer himself. And unfortunately for Drake, Lucifer's around too. And he's mad as hell. If Drake's going to find redemption, he's going to have to fight.

Teen: Kate Scelsa – Fans of the Impossible Life

Fans of the Impossible Life is the story of love, loss, growing up and the magic - and terror - of finding friends who truly see the person you are and the person you're trying to become. It's a story about rituals and love, and of those transformative friendships that burn hot and change you, but might not last.

Classic: Elizabeth Smart – By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

Elizabeth Smart’s passionate fictional account of her intense love-affair with the poet George Barker, described by Angela Carter as ‘Like MADAME BOVARY blasted by lightning … A masterpiece’.

One day, while browsing in a London bookshop, Elizabeth Smart chanced upon a slim volume of poetry by George Barker and fell passionately in love with him through the printed word. Eventually they communicated directly and, as a result of Barker’s impecunious circumstances, Elizabeth Smart flew both him and his wife from Japan, where he was teaching, to join her in the United States. Thus began one of the most extraordinary, intense and ultimately tragic love affairs of our time. They never married but Elizabeth bore George Barker four children and their relationship provided the impassioned inspiration for one of the most moving and immediate chronicles of a love affair ever written By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept’.

Originally published in 1945, this remarkable book is now widely identified as a classic work of poetic prose which, seven decades later, has retained all of its searing poignancy, beauty and power of impact.

Non-Fiction: Margo Jefferson – Negroland: a Memoir

The daughter of a successful paediatrician and a fashionable socialite, Margo Jefferson spent her childhood among Chicago's black elite. She calls this society 'Negroland': 'a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty'. With privilege came expectation.Reckoning with the strictures and demands of Negroland at crucial historical moments – the civil rights movement, the dawn of feminism, the fallacy of post-racial America – Jefferson brilliantly charts the twists and turns of a life informed by psychological and moral contradictions.

Short Story Collection:  Charles Baxter – There's Something I Want You To Do: Stories

There's something I want you to do.

This request sometimes simple, sometimes not forms the basis for the ten interrelated stories that comprise this latest penetrating and prophetic collection from an author who has been repeatedly praised as a master of the form. As we follow a diverse group of Minnesota citizens, each grappling with their own heightened fears, responsibilities, and obsessions, Baxter unveils the remarkable in what might otherwise be the seemingly inconsequential moments of everyday life.