Living Myths, Drowned Futures

‘Here’s the thing,’ declared The Shock of the Fall’s Nathan Filer. ‘It’s perfect.’

Britain is suddenly consumed by a vast flood; at the outset of the chaos, a woman gives birth to her child. Rendered in brilliant, staccato prose, mother and infant son are forced forever north as the country collapses around them. Motherhood’s agonising, intimate bond attains a primal edge in Megan Hunter’s incredibly accomplished debut.

There’s a mutual code of silence that keeps help from those who need it most.

Adam Kay’s brutally honest, often funny, sometimes shocking account of his days as a junior doctor, This is Going to Hurt, charts his descent from youthful enthusiasm to overwhelmed defeat. Kay’s ability to find humour in even the most desperate of moments salves the sadness and fatigue, but the message of a system that is fundamentally broken still rings clear.

Echoing the slow-pull tension of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, If We Were Villains teases out a story of a close-knit coterie poisoned by a seed of passionate rivalry. As play spills over into something much more sinister, the scene is set for unspeakable acts. As darkly compelling and tautly plotted as any Shakespearian tragedy, M. L. Rio delivers a haunting debut of blood-sworn friendship, dangerous obsession and murderous intent.

Inspired by the Slavic folk tales passed down by her Prussian grandmother, Sophie Anderson’s luminous debut spins a fabulous reimagining of storytelling’s oldest legends. Marinka longs for an ordinary life but as the granddaughter of Baba Yaga she is bound to a life of spirits and a house that never stays still for long. Beautifully illustrated throughout and steeped in myth and magic, The House with Chicken Legs is a heart-filled tale that beckons curious minds to explore what lies on the furthest horizon.

Roaming from his home in Borderland to the edge of the Grampians, Alistair Moffat goes in search of Scotland’s history by walking in the footsteps of those who forged its forgotten pathways. Traversing the routes of medieval pilgrims, Roman roads and the channels forged by Jacobite marchers, Moffat illuminates a history shaped by changing landscape. Lyrical, illuminating and packed with information, it’s a powerful and surprisingly moving portrait of Scotland and its past.