When the author was assured by a taxi driver that "there was no wildlife in Britain", she took up the challenge and this charming and informative book is the result. Isla Hodgson sweeps the reader along with her enthusiasm for the rich diversity of the natural world, describing not only moments of high excitement but also the humdrum waiting in the cold and wet. Hodgson shows us that wildlife can be found in our back garden and the local park, and that we can make exciting discoveries on a shoestring budget. Coastal, freshwater, inland and urban habitats are her four categories, and gorgeous photography accompanies them all. The stacks and arches of our varied coastline are home to some of the largest colonies of seabirds in Europe, while inter-tidal rock pools harbour rubbery beadlet anemones and nippy little hermit crabs. The Ythan estuary north of Aberdeen has an enormous seal colony, and a feature page gives the reader some facts about "Seals and where to find them", while an inset box on Seal Etiquette tells you what to do if you find an injured seal. Freshwater habitats such as the Montrose Basin are home to herons, kingfishers, and warblers, and it is here that after 24 years of effort Isla finally sees brown hares in their famous "boxing" ritual. Lochs are natural habitats for swallows and martins, while an osprey is spotted as far south as Rutland Water. The Scottish Highlands welcome not only grouse and stags but also birds ranging from cuckoos to hen harriers, while urban spaces have foxes in gardens and lichens in graveyards and millipedes in allotments. 192pp, softback, numerous colour illustrations.

Cunningham's novels are said to fuse political material with psychological realism and a lyrical sensitivity to place. This novel is a wonderful brew of politics, family, violence, love and betrayal and it is intricately structured, taking us on a devastating tour past the landmark events of the Troubles, through Bloody Sunday and centres around one man's conflicted self and his search for his father. Paris, May 1969. Irish diplomat Marty Ransom has been asked by Minister of Finance Charles Haughey to become a go-between with the new IRA faction in the North where Marty's cousin Ignatius is a key player. But Marty is secretly reporting to MI5 in Dublin, playing a deadly game that will force him to choose between the past and all he holds dear. A wonderful novel about an Irishman who spies for the British in the modern era and a moving portrait of human nature tucked into a thriller. 275pp, paperback.

An enthralling tale of bravery and naval warfare this is book two of a series featuring Jack Stannard for all fans of Hornblower but may be read alone. Captain Jack Stannard showed his worth in the Battle of the Solent. Little did he know how his actions there would change his life forever. He is drawn to Elizabeth I's spymaster Francis Walsingham who sets Stannard on an extraordinary mission to Africa and the Caribbean in company with two unscrupulous sea captains, John Hawkins and Francis Drake. Stannard may be a man of the sea at heart, but for the former Dunwich lad, this adventure is on a new and unprecedented scale, from the force of a hurricane to the might of the Spanish fleet. 303pp, paperback.

Phoebe is many things, but she is not in control. As she stands on Pulteney Bridge, trying to cover her face with her hair so she won't be recognised, her tights are ripped from toe to thigh, and she has lost a shoe. It is five or ten minutes later that she hears the commotion. She runs down the road until she sees mangled metal and blood running down the walls. Phoebe believes this is of her making - murder she thought. Now she must not let her thoughts unravel because of they do there is no telling who might be caught in the crossfire and Phoebe will have to live with the consequences. Kate Hamer skilfully recasts Shakespeare's witches as her three teenage leads in a novel that is as much about family dysfunction, burgeoning sexuality and abuse of power as it is about teenage mysticism. Phoebe believes herself to be as powerful as one of the witches in Macbeth as she entices her friends into ever more dangerous territory. The novel makes good use of its Bath setting. 395pp in large softback with fairly large print.

Peru's foremost author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 lives in London. Here is a thrilling tale of desire and Peruvian corruption swirling around a scandalous exposé that leads to murder. The Nobel Laureate has written a politically charged detective novel weaving through the underbelly of Peruvian privilege. During Alberto Fujimori's turbulent presidency in 1990s Lima, two wealthy couples find themselves embroiled in a disturbing vortex of political sabotage and erotic betrayals. One day Enrique, a high-profile businessman, receives a visit from Rolando Garro, the editor of a notorious magazine that specializes in salacious exposés. Garro presents Enrique with lewd pictures from an old business trip and demands that he invest in the magazine. Enrique refuses, and the next day the pictures are on the front page. While fielding the explosive scandal, his wife suddenly begins a passionate, secret affair with his lawyer and best friend. When Garro shows up murdered, the two couples are thrown into a whirlwind of navigating Peru's unspoken laws and customs, while the staff of the magazine embark on their greatest revelation yet. Ironic and sensual, provocative and redemptive, the novel swirls into the kind of restless realism that has Vargas Llosa's signature style. The novel is a scathing indictment of Fujimori's regime that evokes the vulgarity of freedom in a corrupt system. A twisting and unpredictable tale mixing pulpy dialogue and even pulpier characters and seedy tabloid journalists. 244pp, paperback.

Set primarily in America during the McCarthy era during the making of a film, the book looks at deception, hiding in plain sight, denying who you are, creating a mask within the film industry. The title of the book Night for Day is common parlance in film language to shoot scenes in the day and light them to give the illusion that they are taking place at night. Desmond Frank, an elderly American ex-pat living in Italy, is reflecting on the life he gave up more than half a century ago. Back then he was a successful Hollywood screenwriter, working on a major studio script for a gritty piece of underworld noir and conducting a secret relationship with the film's leading man. But when Desmond's friend and collaborator leftist director John Marsh learned that his wife was about to expose them both to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the two men were chaotically thrown into making impossible choices - between complicity or defiance, the compulsion to live a lie, or the freedom to leave everything behind. Set in Los Angeles 1950 over the course of a single day while the two friends grapple with the escalating Communist witch-hunt in Hollywood. Beautifully written, expansive in scope, tenderly intimate writing from the American writer who is Professor of Creative Writing at Queen Mary University of London. 661pp in sturdy softback.

With overtones of The Handmaid's Tale, the novel takes the unlikely but true history of a religious cult awaiting the Second Coming in the suburbs of 1920s Bedford and fashions from it a poignant tale of misplaced faith and an unexpected love affair. In peering into the claustrophobic world of The Panacea Society, we are forced to consider the relationship between dreams and reality, love and obsession, and blind faith and madness. Dilys is a devoted member of which is almost entirely populated by virtuous single ladies. When she strikes up a friendship with Grace, a new recruit, God finally seems to be smiling upon her. The friends become closer as they wait for the Lord to return to their very own Garden of Eden, and Dilys feels she has found the right path at last. She is wary of their leader's zealotry and suspicious of those who would seem to influence her for their own ends. As her feelings for Grace bud and bloom, the Society around her begins to crumble. Faith is supplanted by doubt as both women come to question what is true and to fear what is real. Based on a true story. 352pp.

A meticulously researched historical novel of the ancient world. 21BC. After the turbulence of civil war, Augustus Caesar now rules Rome. Yet his authority is fragile, holding only so long as the people believe Rome's gods support him, particularly the beloved goddess of home and hearth, Vesta. Pomponia, now chief Vestal Virgin, continues to devote her life to the goddess. She has risen to a position of esteem in Rome and is a valued member of Caesar's inner circle, but when a contagion starts to ravage the city, tensions rise among the city's inhabitants. Meanwhile, a malevolent nobleman called Soren starts plotting against her, threatening not just her friendship with Caesar but everything she loves. With four illustrations at the end including an ancient terracotta votive offering as used in the book, coins and statuettes and an engraving showing a Vestal Virgin being condemned for bringing the plague, Pomponia's recurring nightmare. Useful glossary, 340pp in paperback.

A magical yet oppressive Moscow is evoked with a young heroine who is foolish, inquisitive and achingly lonely. 'I hear the howling at night. It wakes me sometimes.' Escaping failure as an undergraduate and a daughter, not to mention bleak 1970s England, Martha marries Kit - who is gay. Having a wife could keep him safe in Moscow in his diplomatic post. As Martha tries to understand her new life and makes the wrong friends, she walks straight into an underground world of counter-espionage. Out of her depth, Martha no longer knows who can be trusted. A terrific novel of love and loyalty showing how a place can get inside you and challenge everything you thought you knew about yourself. 294pp.

'Tales and Poems of the Gothic' is the sub-title of this uncanny, mysterious and eerie collection. It draws us in with its air of mystery and repels us with its violence and darkness, but who were the first practitioners of the now-prevalent Gothic genre? This curated book collects the work of such masters as Edgar Allan Poe, Christina Rossetti and Mary Shelley, who with flickering candles, mysterious castles and chilling ravens first frightened and delighted readers. In 1764, an astonishing and disturbing manuscript was brought to life, first printed in Naples in 1529. It had been translated into English and published under the enticing title The Castle of Otranto. Revelling indecently in fear and transgression, it opened with a young prince crushed to death by an immense helmet on the morning of his wedding. It was an instant sensation across Europe but it was not however an ancient document, but rather a novel by the MP for King's Lynn, Horace Walpole, who feared causing a scandal but observing its popularity, hastily claimed ownership. We can enjoy the feeling of delicious unease which gives off the Gothic sensation like a faint mist rising from the pages, a cold hand reaching out and grasping your hand and tugging you in. This curious volume holds the key to a cabinet of gothic curiosities and begins with The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, Porphyria's Lover by Robert Browning, The Song of Wandering Aengus by W. B. Yeats, The Wedding-Knell by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy, The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell. There are extracts from The Castle of Otranto, Northanger Abbey, Frankenstein plus The Dream Woman by Wilkie Collins and The Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti among the 17 curious volumes of lore. 266pp.