Running Before Daybreak by Terri Prone (Marino, £9.99)

The signposts are all there in the first chapter that this is a schlock-buster. The main characters, for example, are Polo Cadogan and Cassandra Browne - monikers worthy of any sizzling bodice-ripper. However, in the space of a few breathless chapters, Cassandra becomes a liberal-minded international cartoonist and Polo a controlling right-winger who, together with a cabal of golf-playing buddies, orchestrates to put the pro-life issue high on the Irish political agenda. An accident combined with brain damage sustained in a car accident, together with Polo's increasingly overbearing personality, tip Cassandra over the edge, and she fakes her own suicide. In the end, she is found - in a plot twist that is so incredible and downright weird that this reviewer had to re-read the last chapter twice to make sure it wasn't a hallucination. The style is humourless and breathless without being pacey, shooting out in too many directions as it tries to be all things to all readers.