How To Be Both by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton £16.99, ebook £5.69) 4/5 stars 

THE author of acclaimed novels The Accidental and Hotel World, Ali Smith loves to use unconventional forms.

The Booker Prize short-listed How To Be Both begins as a poem, changes to standard paragraphs, then goes back again to a poem. It is anything but an ordinary read.

The book is split into two sections; one following the spirit of the Renaissance painter Francesco del Cossa as he explores the modern world, and the other focusing on troubled teenager George. Smith insists that either can be read first.

Nicknamed the “heir to Virginia Woolf ” Smith explores the idea that gender isn’t fixed. Del Cossa is born a girl but decides to become a boy to further her career, and when we first meet the somewhat androgynous looking George, she is presumed to be a boy.

This looks set to become her most talked-about novel yet; book clubs, literary academics and indeed every keen reader, will have a field day analysing it.

Harriet Shephard

The Taxidermist’s Daughter by Kate Mosse (Orion £16.99, ebook £8.99) 4/5 stars 

TWO years after Kate Mosse completed her Languedoc Trilogy, a love letter to Carcassonne, she returns with a love letter to her home village of Fishbourne, near Chichester, on the Sussex coast. It is 1912 and 22-year-old Connie Gifford lives with her father in Blackthorn House with her widowed, alcoholic father.

Ten years previously, Connie had fallen down the stairs and lost her memory. One day she finds a young woman floating in the stream at the bottom of her garden.

While discovering that the woman has been murdered, Connie also has to deal with her father who has gone missing, a Chichester man called Harry who is looking for his father, Dr Woolston, a man and woman secretly watching her house and a storm that threatens to flood the village. This is a delicious, gothic page-turner with an engaging heroine that will delight her fans.

Laura Wurzal

Head Of State by Andrew Marr (Fourth Estate £18.99, ebook £6.99) 3/5 stars 

THE TV host’s attempt at a ‘”political thriller” is political, undoubtedly; thriller, not so much. Instead, it reads as a funny, satirical and rather fun-poking House Of Cards-esque account of the state of affairs in British politics in 2017. Opening just days before a referendum on the continued membership of the EU, the “old Queen” dead and replaced by a King, the Conservative Prime Minister is hard at work at Number 10 in a last-minute attempt to get the yes vote across the line. Behind the scenes, a dastardly cover-up by the PM’s team – ruthless, deadly and determined politicians – is at once utterly unbelievable and rather comical.

Emma Herdman

Tyrant: Force of Kings by Christian Cameron (Orion £19.99) 3/5 stars 

AFTER the death of Alexander the Great his generals became embroiled in a battle for world mastery and anyone and anything is up for grabs. Twin monarchs Satyrus and Melitta must make a final and possibly fateful choice on which contender to support. Dark intrigue and treachery mix with blistering action to make a bloodstained and riveting historical thriller.

Dexter’s Final Cut by Jeff Lindsay (Orion £7.99). 3/5 stars 

MIAMI Police Department’s blood spatter analyst Dexter Morgan (a serial killer on the side) feels his own blood run cold when a Hollywood film crew descends on the city and he is put right in the brightest spotlight by mega-star Robert Chase. This time it is Dexter who feels the chill of fear as he fights to keep his more nefarious activities under cover.

Art of Deception by A J Cross (Orion £7.99) 3/5 stars

FORENSIC psychologist Dr Kate Hanson is a master at understanding the criminal mind but she also has to be something of a time traveller when the mummified body of art student Nathan Troy is discovered. But the situation becomes even more disconcerting when the killer from the past strikes again and Hanson’s team face their stiffest and creepiest test yet.

Steve Craggs