Here are some recommendations of slightly different novels, for when you fancy a read that is less mainstream but totally memorable.

Maud Ventura, My Husband

The story of a relationship so toxic and consuming that reads a lot like watching a car crash: you can’t help but keep reading even when you know it’s only going from bad to worse. Even though not a lot happens, it feels a bit like a thriller that keeps you guessing, with a shocking twist at the end. It offers a reminder of how the façade of perfection we choose to portray publicly is sometimes nothing more than an illusion. Yet it’s all so very French, lascivious and predictably unpredictable, a noir à la français – and a book that is almost impossible to put down.

Daniel Mason, North Woods

An intriguing piece of historical fiction centred around the story of a house in New England and its inhabitants over the span of four centuries. It reads like a collection of interconnected short stories, with different narrative voices and perspectives (some of these being written from the perspective of trees, beetles and other elements of nature), separated by fragments of poetry and criptic black-and-white images. Mason’s style of writing is lyrical and often so deliberately heavy that it makes it difficult to understand the narrative. It’s a slow burning story, but well worth sticking with it.

Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

My final weird and wonderful recommendation is by far the strangest, most unconventional and intriguing of the three novels. It’s a first person narrative of a rather strange man navigating an infinite labyrinth in a mysterious house, whose only interactions are with an even stranger character called ‘The Other’. It’s hard to place chronologically, constantly keeping you guessing when and where the story takes place, and it reads like a Greek myth yet with its own mythology. It’s a very engaging read and a refined, cryptic thriller that keeps you guessing until the very end.