Here Is The Beehive by Sarah Crossan is published by Bloomsbury Circus in hardback, priced £12.99 (ebook £9.09). Available now

Until now, Sarah Crossan has used her sparse, electrifying free verse to galvanise, soothe and intrigue YA readers.

Here Is The Beehive is her first foray into adult fiction, and while it’s as powerful as you’d expect from the Carnegie medal-winner, it’s also rather bleak.

Three years into an affair with Connor, a client, lawyer Ana is hit by devastating, confounding news that sends her spinning, and sets secrets roiling.

As she grasps for reason and comfort, she inserts herself into Connor’s wife’s life, dragging with her tendrils of obsession, and her own private agony.

Crossan is typically incisive and direct, not shying from Ana’s compulsions, or Connor’s casual cruelties, cataloguing the brief moments of joy, and the stark, repetitive mundanity of their affair.

Strange Flowers by Donal Ryan is published by Doubleday in hardback, priced £12.99 (ebook £7.99). Available now

The peaceful lives of Paddy and Kit Gladney are shattered when their daughter Moll suddenly disappears.

Her unexpected return five years later brings secrets and surprises that change her family and their Tipperary community for years to come.

Donal Ryan’s multi-generational novel is a moving exploration of how people are bonded through love and loss.

Characters’ inner complexities, as they struggle to balance desires, fears, regrets and grief, are at times beautifully portrayed.