Does it matter that, year after year, the discussion of the Orange Prize – sorry, the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction – gets lost in accusations of sexism? Maybe not, since no one can do anything about that until someone puts his money where his mouth is and launches a lads-only prize. In the meantime the best we can do is try, at least, to talk a bit about the books.

Who will win this year? The bookies say Rose Tremain – but the author of Restoration and many other fine novels has the greatest name recognition on this list, so it’s hardly surprising that she’s out front. Certainly The Road Home, which follows an Eastern European immigrant as he makes his way through the maze of modern Britain, shows that Tremain is writing as powerfully as ever. But another compelling portrait of Britain can be found in Sadie Jones’s debut The Outcast. Her depiction of the lives lived in the grey aftermath of the Second World War have marked her out as one to watch.

Nancy Huston’s Fault Lines is an unusual contender in that it was originally published in French. The Canadian-born author translated the book herself, making it eligible for the Orange. A sweeping novel, it takes on cross-cultural conflicts as they affect generations of an American family. Charlotte Mendelson’s When We Were Bad is also the story of a family, the rabbinical Rubins as they move through tribal adventures and misadventures. Mendelson has a rare gift when it comes to bringing her characters alive.

This is a good year for debut novels, for there’s also Patricia Wood’s Lottery, the winsome tale of Perry L. Crandall. Having an IQ of 76 doesn’t stop him from winning $12 million, and the novel follows him as he tries to manage in an unkind world. Finally, there’s Heather O’Neill’s Lullabies for Little Criminals, a strong, disturbing tale of a damaged adolescence, pleasingly another success for the independent publisher Quercus.

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