Minty Lloyd lives in a vortex of disapproval. She is Nathan’s second wife, mother of his six-year-old twins — but she has displaced his beloved first wife, Rose. Nobody lets her forget this, certainly not Nathan’s family. But before your heart is wrung too hard, it soon becomes clear that Minty is rather a “piece of work” — although she is telling the story, some of her revelations about the past make you wince. Adultery, Buchan suggests, carries its own punishment, just as nemesis comes with hubris at no extra cost. A thoughtful and entertaining morality tale.

THE GAZE
by Elif Shafak translated by Brendan Freely
Marion Boyars, £9.99

The author is the hottest young writer in Turkey, and the background of her strange novel is beautifully evoked, but her preoccupations are universal. Human beings long to look, to stare, to gaze at anything that makes them curious. Sometimes, the pitiless gazes of others can flay like knives. A fat woman and a dwarf become lovers, drawn together by their status as freaks. Their story is interwoven with the story of a freak show in 1880s Istanbul. Shafak enters the isolation of those unfortunate enough to be different.

LION’S HONEY
by David Grossman, translated by Stuart Schoffman
Canongate, £12.99

The latest in the elegant Canongate “Myths” series, in which writers retell the world’s most ancient stories — the ones from which all others unravel. The Israeli novelist David Grossman takes on the biblical tale of Samson. His approach is highly informed, yet shockingly modern. This legendary Jewish hero, he suggests, who took 3,000 Philistines with him when he killed himself, could be seen as the world’s first suicide bomber. Grossman imagines Samson as a man who feels himself an exile in the world; tortured, lonely and longing for love, rather like Frankenstein’s Monster. Original and very clever.

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