Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on or the music we’re loving.

Tye Cattanach is reading The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

I picked up this slim little volume after reading Winterson’s The Daylight Gate and finding myself ruined for reading anyone else for the time being. It seemed only sensible to work my way through the extensive backlist I had yet to read.

The Passion is set during the Napoleonic Wars and alternates between the story of a soldier selected by Napoleon himself to work in his kitchen, and a young woman working in a street casino in Venice. What I love most about Winterson’s work is her ability to weave near mythical love stories through a superbly researched narrative. I find myself aching for the often star-crossed lovers while being simultaneously fascinated by the historical facts I learn while reading a perfectly rendered work of fiction. The Passion is only 160 pages long and yet I feel as though I am reading a far bigger novel. Perhaps it is this ability that makes Winterson’s work so magical.

Dani Solomon is reading Highfire by Eoin Colfer (available February 2020)

Highfire is set in the Louisiana swamps and follows Vern (an ancient reclusive, alcoholic, foul mouthed, flash-dance-loving dragon and last of his kind), Squib (a nine-fingered boy with a good heart but a penchant for trouble), and Hooke (an ex-soldier, part-time constable, part-time criminal and full-time creep). Through a series of events, Squib finds himself indentured to Vern and tasked with keeping him secret and ferrying him crates of vodka through the swamps, not knowing he has the nefarious Hooke on his figurative tail. Much like the Pearl River of the story, Highfire starts with a relaxed slow meander as we get to know the protagonists via generous glimpses into their lives. Then, once everyone meets, the pace builds up and by the climax I was nearly giving myself eye strain trying to keep up with the action!

As a longtime fan of Eoin’s kids books I had very high expectations for his first foray into fantasy for adults and every single one of them was met. The writing is as good as any of his previous books (better, even!) and there were several moments of Highfire that had me snorting out loud and sending quotes to friends who I know will love the book – a specific fact of dragon anatomy in particular had me laughing for a good minute.

Highfire is due out in late January and I can’t wait to have it in our stores.

Georgia Brough is reading Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

I’m reading Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney. I read Normal People last year in a heady rush of about 24 hours, promptly had an existential crisis that nothing I write would ever be as good, stared at a wall for about a week and then decided I couldn’t look Conversations with Friends in the eye, it being the remarkable debut with which this Irish author was launched into the stratosphere. But, now, it’s time.

In Conversations with Friends, budding poet Frances and her writerly companion and best friend Bobbi are interviewed and then befriended by Melissa, an older journalist, and her handsome actor husband Nick. The young poets are then swept into an affluent world of elegant dinner parties and beach holidays in Brittany. As Bobbi seems drawn to Melissa, Frances and Nick begin a clandestine affair. Rooney, as proven in Normal People, is extremely talented at exposing and examining the delicate lines of connection between people, and the relationship dynamics she explores between the four in this bizarre ménage à quatre are subtle and poignant. The affair between Frances and Nick is both erotic and a little sad – they’re two lonely people increasingly isolated – but it’s the fraught playoff and tension between Frances and Bobbi that has me hooked. Rooney’s a master of her craft and I can’t wait to see what she produces next.