Cuddy begins with the death of its eponymous hero, St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, in 687, and thereafter takes us on a wild and eclectic ride through the centuries, giving us an alternative history of the North-East of England , over which the venerated saint’s influence looms large. Casting an equally grand shadow over the novel is Durham Cathedral, Cuddy’s burial place. The novel is split into four sections and an interlude, the first of which (‘Saint Cuddy’, taking place in 995) follows a band of monks as they carry the saint’s corpse around the North for decades (his body having been evacuated from the island of Lindisfarne in order to protect it from desecration by invading Danes).

How to Be Both tells two stories, one from the perspective of George, an intelligent 16-year-old girl living in modern-day Cambridge, and another from the perspective of a relatively minor Italian renaissance artist, Francesco del Cossa.

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is a stream-of-consciousness novel, told from the perspective of an unnamed Irish girl in highly distinctive, fractured prose.  It’s largely addressed to her brother, also unnamed and referred to as ‘you’ throughout. His life is limited by the impact of brain damage from the removal of a childhood trauma, but the love between the two siblings is evident throughout, in a novel that doesn’t offer much else in the way of solace.