Land of My Neighbours

Barry Pilton (Bloomsbury, £11.99)

Humorous writing is hard to do, but Pilton somehow pulls it off in this surreal story set in the Nant valley in mid-Wales. To outsiders, it seems madly romantic, but is seen by most of its inhabitants as a rain-swept hell on earth. The local estate agent unsuccessfully tries to repel incomers with tales of damp rot, while local hill farmers hang themselves, one by one. Meanwhile, young business graduate Rhys has set up a wilderness course for executives, and Russian businessman Stefan has moved into the local manor house, once the ancestral home of his resentful handyman, Eryl. The local police station is undermanned because several key personnel have gone out for doughnuts, so the way looks clear for a gratuitous act of vandalism by a sheep farmer disappointed in love.

The Flying Troutmans Miriam Toews (Faber, £7.99)

If not laugh-out-loud funny, this does at least bring a light touch to an apparently miserable situation. Hattie gets a call from her 11-year-old niece, Thebes, asking her to come to Canada and look after her mother Min, who appears to be having a nervous breakdown. It’s not her first, but the latest in a lifelong series of dark episodes. With Min admitted to a psychiatric hospital, Hattie is unsure what to do with Thebes and her younger brother, so sets off on a trip across America to find their missing father. Along the journey, in classic US road trip style, Hattie and the children work out a way to cope with life’s ups and downs.