10 best new books of 2020: Latest fiction releases to read now

Donal Ryan is a wonderful writer. His first novel, The Spinning Heart, won The Guardian First Book Award in 2013 and he’s been longlisted twice for the Booker Prize. Strange Flowers (out on August 20) is his fifth novel – a tender and beautifully written story about three generations of a family living in rural Ireland. It starts in 1973, when 20-year-old Moll Gladney catches an early morning bus from her home and completely disappears. Her parents search for their daughter without success and fear they’ll never see her again. But five years later Moll returns home, followed by a man who transforms her family’s life forever. We read this outstanding book in one sitting and will definitely return to it again.

Mike Gayle is on fine form in this moving novel about a lonely widower who arrived in the UK from Jamaica in 1958. Hubert Bird, at 84-years-old, has experienced grief, pain and racism but has never lost his belief in the power of the human spirit. In his weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia Hubert tells her all about his supportive group of friends and his busy social life. But the truth is very different. He’s lost touch with his old pals and rarely talks to anyone at all. Mike Gayle is a skilled storyteller and this novel made us smile, made us cry and made us think. It’s a great summer read.

Kevin Kwan made his name with the mega-selling Crazy Rich Asians, which was later turned into a Hollywood blockbuster. His latest is a clever homage to EM Forster’s A Room with a View but instead of being set in Edwardian England and Italy, the action takes place on the island of Capri, the Hamptons, and New York. Lucie Churchill takes an instant dislike to George Zao when they meet at a society wedding in Capri, even though he gives up his hotel room so she can have a prized view of the sea. This is a delightful reworking of a much-loved classic, complete with designer outfits, glamorous parties, and exotic locations.

Former journalist Charlotte Philby is the granddaughter of notorious communist double agent Kim Philby so perhaps it isn’t surprising that when she turned her hand to fiction, she chose to write spy novels. A Double Life is her second novel and focuses on two women – Gabriela, a senior negotiator in the counter-terrorism unit of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Isobel, a journalist who works for a local paper in north London. The pair don’t know each other but as Gabriella’s life begins to unravel in an alarming – and at times implausible – way their lives converge. The ending is slightly rushed and leaves scope for a follow-up, but this is a pacy, gripping read that kept us on the edge of our seats.