Main Characters by Bobby Palmer (Headline Review £25, 416pp)

I adored this addictive love story starring Clara and Seb. The novel starts when they meet in their early 20s and follows them until their 40s.

It is told solely from the perspectives of those who encounter and observe the couple – from relatives to a barista, their dog walker and even a fellow passenger on a London bus.

The narrative progresses chronologically through their relationship and each viewpoint builds character development even though we never hear from the main protagonists themselves.

Seb and Clara make mistakes, are not always honest and sometimes treat each other badly. But their connection is magnetic and the love they feel is deep: I so wanted everything to work out for them.

Lonely Mouth by Jacqueline Maley (Vintage £16.99, 336pp)

Matilda spent her teens in foster care after her mentally ill mother abandoned her and her much younger half-sister, Lara, in the toilets of a truck stop outside Canberra in 2002.

By 30, Matilda is working at Bocca, one of Sydney’s best restaurants – while in the grip of an eating disorder.

Lara is exquisitely beautiful and modelling in Paris. She earns a lot of money and is more settled than Matilda. But the sisters’ chaotic childhood is never far from their minds.

When Lara’s estranged father – and Matilda’s stepfather, whom she has few fond memories of – contacts the girls as part of his additction rehab , Matilda is drawn back into the old trauma.

This book is brilliant on how repressing the past rather than dealing with it means it’s always there, ready to ruin the present too.

Mr Sidhu’s Post Office by Amman Brar (Juniper £16.99, 416pp)

It is 2007, the time of the Post Office Horizon scandal, and Mr Sidhu, who runs a London post office, has recently lost his wife to cancer. Before she died, she made him promise he would make sure their two children, Raju and Meena, were settled in life.

Focused on this promise, Mr Sidhu is also struggling to make sense of his growing romantic feelings for Rose, his co-worker in the shop.

Mr Sidhu wants to help Raju buy a property and Meena finally get married to her long-term fiance.

Then he notices that his accounts are showing an increasing loss. He has no idea why or how he’s going to pay it back.

I was moved by this beautiful story about grief, love, injustice and community.