American novelist Dan Mallory (a.k.a. A. J. Finn) (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/15/unreliable-narrators-questions-the-truth-leo-benedictus) has a complex relationship with the truth according to recent reports. This notoriety has not prevented his 2018 thriller ‘The Woman in the Window’ becoming a bestseller. Thrillers have the capacity to absorb our attention, allowing us to forget, temporarily, the grim details of everyday life.

Nell Freudenberger (https://nellfreudenberger.net/about/) is a young novelist from New York, living in Brooklyn. Her fiction has been receiving much praise recently. You may wish to see if the Lanark cognoscenti think it’s justified.   Her 2019 novel Lost and Wanted is a thoughtful and entertaining tale about friendship, and the forces which both bind and

Josephine Cox (http://www.josephinecox.com/) has a lot to smile about. Having sold over 15 million copies of her heartwarming fiction, this saga author has made a fortune and brought joy to countless readers.(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/fameandfortune/5131523/Josephine-Cox-fameand-fortune.html)   Many believe the acme of her artistic achievement to have been Jessica’s Girl (1993), a novel of such staggeringly formulaic conformity as

Familiar genres of fiction such as historical, adventure, romance, and crime are being supplemented by new categories. This is presumably because there is no escape from the marketing drive towards ‘product development’, nor an end to the ceaseless human desire for novelty. Recent examples have been ‘chick lit’ to satisfy young female interest, and ‘misery