Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver (Faber &Faber, £7.99 in UK)

Kingsolver's narrative is as lush as the Appalachian mountainside location of her latest book. The American writer intertwines three separate stories of characters who all share the experience of living in the remote and poor part of the country where lives are close to nature and lived in a rhythm that has been unchanged for generations. Donna Wolfe, a wildlife biologist lives alone high above the valley until her solitary life is changed by a young lover half her age; on a farm further down the valley Lusa Malurf Landowski, an entomology graduate, feels isolated among the clannish sisters of her dead husband as she tries to find a way to live off the family farm; and down in what passes for a town in Zebulon Valley, a pair of elderly neighbours bicker and row over pesticides, farm practice and anything else that keeps the spark of their curmudgeonly relationship going for decades. It's an earthy book written in a spirited style.

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