If it’s not Clara breaking in to rearrange the ornaments just the way Mrs Orchard liked them, it’s police officers showing up to interrogate him about his intentions or tradesmen only agreeing to fix his roof if he’ll do most of the work himself. Crow Lake was a New York Times bestseller and was chosen as a Book of the Year by The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others. So Solace, while not a real town, is true to her memory and, despite the sometimes gruff or know-it-all locals, an emotional landmark for the three central characters, all of whom are processing trauma and looking for places of comfort where they can start over.

Perhaps it is the feisty innocence, but determination of young Clara, who links each of the stories, that allows for optimism to emerge. Double Blind (Harvill Secker) by Edward St Aubyn is about nature, science, rapacious capitalism, psychoanalysis and human folly, and it is both moving and so funny I had to stop every few pages to wipe tears from my eyes. Reissued this year with impassioned praise from fellow authors such as Marlon James, Patricia Lockwood and Max Porter, Mrs Caliban (Faber) by Rachel Ingalls is a work of true verve and imagination. Was Elizabeth wrong to allow Clara in her house, without having discussed her previous mental health issues with Clara’s parents? When she goes too far, however, leading to an act that proves traumatic for all, it’s almost understandable but, it must be said, the consequences do ultimately seem a little disproportionate to the crime.This book is set in rural Toronto in 1972, and the landscape and weather affect the mood of the story. Born in southwestern Ontario, she spent her childhood in Blackwell, Ontario, and is a distant relative of L. As the novel unfolds, so does the mystery of what has transpired between Mrs Orchard and the newly arrived stranger. Even so, Clara still takes care of Moses, feeding him and spending time with him, when Liam is away from the house.

Though set 49 years ago (in “historical” 1972), the story’s ingredients are universally appealing: love and death and family and uncharted experiences leading to the godsend of eurekas. And Imperial Nostalgia (Manchester University Press) by Peter Mitchell, which explains how the delusions of the Raj continue to shape our national psychology today. History is an interpretation of the past and these three books, each one powerfully persuasive and offering new ways of seeing, are in conversation with each other.Zorrie (Riverrun; published early next year) by Laird Hunt is a tender, glowing novel that is just as beautiful as Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead or Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams. He’s desperate to be left alone but the locals are having none of it, leading to some amusing scenes detailing their meddlesome home invasions. Angry and rebellious, she had a row with her mother, stormed out of the house and simply disappeared. On the National Post 's Paperback Fiction Best-Sellers list in 2007, Lawson's second novel, The Other Side of the Bridge, took the number-one spot. The writing is superb and atmospheric, the structure is sophisticated and yet flows with ease you could read this and be completely unaware of it.