Feet up, mince pie... and a 広大な／多数の／重要な 調書をとる／予約する: Our critics select the best of the year’s novels to slip under the tree
LITERARY FICTION by Anthony Cummins
A HUNGER?
by Ross Raisin (Cape £18.99, 464pp)
This beautifully 観察するd heart-wringer is narrated by a fifty-something chef whose dream of 開始 her own restaurant runs 座礁して when her philandering husband gets 早期に dementia. The Booker prize 裁判官s didn’t agree ― it wasn’t even on their longlist ― but for me there was no better novel published in 2022.?
TRESPASSES?
by Louise Kennedy (Bloomsbury £14.99, 320pp)?
始める，決める in 1970s Belfast, this engrossing Irish debut turns on the deadly fallout from a cross-class romance between an overworked young カトリック教徒 schoolteacher and a married Protestant barrister twice her age. Kennedy’s storytelling is marvellously direct yet doesn’t 簡単にする her nuanced portrait of the period’s political and emotional tumult.?
Our critics select the best of the year's novels to slip under the tree from literary fiction and sci-fi to 同時代の and thrillers
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OLGA DIES DREAMING?
by Xochitl Gonzalez ((n)艦隊／(a)素早い £16.99, 384pp)?
I had a 爆破 with this big-hearted comedy about a New York wedding planner 内密に 搾取するing her ritzy （弁護士の）依頼人s. の中で the laughs, there’s high 演劇 伴う／関わるing the ヘロイン’s brother (a closeted 下院議員) and their runaway mother, who abandoned them as children to lead a ゲリラ兵 movement in Puerto Rico.?
LITERARY FICTION by Stephanie Cross?
TRESPASSES?
by Louise Kennedy (Bloomsbury £14.99, 320pp)?
いつかs you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. This is an unashamedly 従来の realist novel, but such an exceptional one that it’s bound to 再燃する even the most 冷笑的な reader’s 評価 of the form. It’s Belfast in the 1970s, and a young teacher 落ちるs for an older married man. What happens next may not be surprising, but it is spellbindingly, heartbreakingly unforgettable.?
The Daily Mail's 調書をとる／予約するs critics have selected some of the best 調書をとる／予約するs that will please everyone this Christmas
NIGHTCRAWLING
by Leila Mottley (Bloomsbury £16.99, 288pp)?
Published when former Californian 青年 poet laureate Mottley was just 19, this debut fully deserved its Booker longlist nod.?
At the centre is Kiara, a young 黒人／ボイコット woman who stands up to sickening police 汚職.?
Based on a true story, it is uncompromising yet exhilaratingly 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金d by Mottley’s 深い feeling and stylistic flair.?
FREE LOVE?
by Tessa Hadley (Cape £16.99, 336pp)?
Long あられ／賞賛するd as one of our 真っ先の short story writers, Tessa Hadley’s novels continue to get better and better ― and this is her finest, most pleasurable yet.?
始める，決める in 1967, it sees 郊外の housewife Phyllis swept up by the tide of change and 落ちるing for a much younger man. ?Sparkling, funny, plotty, wise and with an ending that will move you to 涙／ほころびs, it’s 近づく enough the perfect 現在の in 調書をとる／予約する form.
LITERARY FICTION by? Claire Allfree?
THE EXHIBITIONIST?
by Charlotte Mendelson (Mantle £16.99, 336pp)?
Mendelson made a 勝利を得た 企て，努力，提案 for the virtues of the much-maligned ‘Hampstead novel’ with this ひどく uncompromising 結婚の／夫婦の 黒人／ボイコット comedy about a middle-class 女性（の） artist struggling to 現れる from the 影をつくる／尾行するs of her egotistically 有毒な, self-deluded husband. Almost every whip-smart line draws 血.?
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JOSEF MENGELE
by Olivier Guez (Vers o £11.99, 224pp)?
The long 追跡（する） to 跡をつける 負かす／撃墜する the Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele is told ― riskily ― from Mengele’s point of 見解（をとる） in this perfectly 遂行する／発効させるd piece of docu-fiction, which 明らかにする／漏らすs the pitifully ordinary man behind the monster without once humanising him. Not やめる Christmas Day reading, perhaps, but an all-too-resonant novel as 2022 draws to a の近くに.?
ACT OF OBLIVION?
by Robert Harris (Hutchinson £22, 480pp)?
Robert Harris spins the known facts of the two on-therun Puritan regicides William Goffe and his father-in-法律 Edward Whalley into fictional gold, as the two duck and dive across New England に引き続いて their 役割 in the 死刑執行 of Charles I. It’s a 調書をとる／予約する about England’s bitter 17th-century civil war of ideas, of course, but in its depiction of 観念的な intolerance and fundamentalism there are shades, too, of our divided nation today.?
HISTORIAL by? Eithne Farry?
THE WHALEBONE THEATRE?
by Joanna Quinn (Fig Tree £14.99, 560pp)?
Joanna Quinn’s debut is elegantly written and 全く immersive. 舵輪／支配d by 猛烈な／残忍な, imaginative Cristabel, it follows the 運命／宿命 and fortunes of the three Seagrave siblings as they 行う／開催する／段階 a theatrical 生産／産物 in their c rumbling Dorset manor, and 対処する with the 不明瞭 of World War II and the long 影をつくる／尾行する it casts over their ramshackle, but golden, childhoods.
STONE BLIND?
by Natalie Haynes (Mantle £18.99, 384pp)?
‘What makes a monster?’ is the central question in Natalie Haynes’s wry, spry feminist take on the Medusa myth. With a cast of pernickety immortals, intemperate, rapacious gods and jealous, 不当な goddesses, it also brilliantly gives 発言する／表明する to put-upon mortals, 乱用d nymphs and long-苦しむing wives in a nifty reframing of Greek mythology.?
Critics such as Sarah Lawrence and?Christena Appleyard have analysed this year's best offerings
THE NIGHT SHIP?
by 足緒 Kidd (Canongate £16.99, 384pp)?
足緒 Kidd’s magical fourth novel is 錨，総合司会者d in 厳しい emotional realities. At its heart are two lost children ― Mayken, who’s on board the doomed Dutch ship, the Batavia, shipwrecked in 1629, and ぎこちない, anxious?Gil, who’s trying to navigate life in Australia in 1989. Perfectly pitched, there’s a wonderful immediacy to their 完全に beguiling stories.
TRUST
by Hernan Diaz (Picador £16.99, 416pp)?
Hernan Diaz’s Booker longlisted 信用 is a tricksy, tantalising delight. With four interconnected narratives and a wealth of unreliable 語り手s 含むing a 塀で囲む Street financier, his elusive wife and a sleuth ghost writer, it’s a mysterious tale of 資本／首都 is made 経済的な 大災害, marriage and mythmaking, and a playful look at subterfuge and storytelling.?
CONTEMPORARY by Sarah Lawrence?
THE FAMILY RETREAT
by Bev Thomas (Faber £14.99, 320pp)?
Written by a 臨床の psychologist, this emotionally intelligent thriller about 国内の 暴力／激しさ 麻薬中毒の me straight in.?
London GP 足緒 is spending the summer in a rented cottage by the sea and finds herself obsessed with the family next door. 足緒 jumps in to help but 行方不明になるs some 抱擁する red 旗s. Gripping.?
WHERE THE LIGHT GETS IN?
by Zoe Coyle (Ultimo £8.99, 352pp)?
A heart-breaking debut 奮起させるd by the author’s mother’s?決定／判定勝ち（する） to end her life. Protagonist Delphi 飛行機で行くs home to Australia when her terminally ill mother requests help to die. 支援する in the UK, she connects with the father she doesn’t speak to. It made me weep, but it’s 価値（がある） it. 素晴らしい.
CAT LADY
by 夜明け O’Porter (HarperCollins £18.99, 352pp)?
Mia loves her cat, Pigeon, more than her husband, stepson and career. Frosty and spiky, Mia finds it hard to build or 支える 関係s. Lonely because she has no friends, Mia joins a support group for people grieving dead pets ― even though Pigeon is very much alive. 反対する-intuitive and clever.?
THIS IS US
by Helen McGinn (Boldwood £9.99, 262p p)?
Stella thinks her 関係 with husband Simon is pretty perfect. When he disappears with barely any 警告, leaving her alone with their three young children and successful family 商売／仕事, Stella realises there are things she doesn’t know about the man she’s married to. 十分な of 知恵 and wonderful on the importance of friendship.?
PSYCHO THRILLERS by Christena Appleyard?
THE IT GIRL?
by Ruth Ware (S&S £14.99, 432pp)?
Once again Ruth Ware pulls off a gripping read packed with 乱すing insights.?
Hannah Jones is a middle-class girl whose 長，率いる was turned by the smart 始める，決める and her new friend, April Coutts-Cliveden, when she got into Oxford University. Ten years on she is 軍隊d to 直面する the true facts about the 殺人 of that glamorous friend.?
THE PRISONER?
by B. A. Paris (Hodder £16.99, 368pp)?
This has the best 開始 scene of any thriller this year. The wife of?a 最高の-rich man who, before she married into 特権, was an 孤児 and homeless, is 存在 held 身代金. Paris 招待するs the reader to decide who the real 犠牲者s in this story are. Thoughtful and surprising 令状ing.
ARE YOU AWAKE???
by Claire McGowan (Thomas & Mercer £8.99, 351pp)?
A sleep-奪うd young mother hooks up with her 隣人, a war photographer 苦しむing from PTSD. They both believe a violent 罪，犯罪 has been committed in a 隣人’s house. Their 戦う／戦い with the police and their personal demons is a moving, eloquent 解説，博覧会 of 苦しむing in silence while yearning to be heard.?
THE LINDBERGH NANNY?
by Mariah Fredericks (Headline £9.99, 320pp)?
When the son of U.S. celebrity 操縦する Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped and 殺人d in 1932, Betty Gow, the Scottish nanny, was the last person to see the child alive ― and became a prime 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う. A brilliant take on a piece of 最近の history.?
POPULAR by Wendy Holden?
THE BOOK OF THE MOST PRECIOUS SUBSTANCE?
by Sara Gran (Faber £16.99, 336pp)?
I loved this sexy moral fable with a 負かす／撃墜する-on-her-luck 調書をとる／予約する 売買業者 on the 追跡（する） for a powerful witchcraft 手動式の.?
The international 追跡する leads from a tech 億万長者’s （船に）燃料を積み込む／（軍）地下えんぺい壕 to a dominatrix’s chateau. What is the precious 実体? 力／強力にする? Money? Sex? Or something even more dangerous??
THE WILL?
by Rebecca Reid (Penguin £9.99, 352pp)?
This twisty, stylish tale of 同時代の posh types has the Mordaunts 組み立てる／集結するing at the family stately home. Granny Cecily has just died and tradition dictates that Roxborough is left not to the next in line, but to whoever the previous owner thinks best. But who is best, given that they all have 有罪の secrets??
SEPARATION FOR BEGINNERS?
by Joe Portman (Welbeck £14.99, 400pp)?
This funny slice of man-lit has 離婚d Pete 株ing his cramped Woking 地階 with his daughter and her slobby boyfriend. When said daughter moves, he’s appalled to be left with the slob. But Niall has hidden depths, not to について言及する superior cooking 技術s. Sharp and heartwarming.
DARLING?
by India Knight (Fig Tree £14.99, 288pp)?
A clever 同時代の take on Nancy Mitford’s The 追跡 Of Love. The Radletts are relocated to Norfolk, Linda is a posh model and Uncle Matthew a former 激しく揺する 星／主役にする. Merlin, Aunt Sadie, Davey, The Bolter and Fanny are all 現在の, 訂正する and updated. Like the 初めの, it’s a love letter to boho, aristo Englishness.?
