Human Traces - Sebastian Faulks

I was totally absorbed in this ambitious and thoughtful saga about two men who bring very different backgrounds and beliefs to their shared passion for unravelling the mysteries of the human mind. As their careers develop and their professional and personal relationships grow more complex, their experiences serve to illustrate different aspects of our psychological makeup. I was particularly interested in the theory (attributed to one of the central characters based on his readings of historic and religious texts, but acknowledged by the author as based on Julian Jaynes' concept of bicameralism) that hearing voices used to be a near-universal experience, only fading with the evolution of a self-aware consciousness. I found this an engrossing and satisfying read, with the only false note being a rather incongruous hint of the supernatural at the end, which seemed a rather heavy-handed way of making the point that "there were things that could not be explained".

One Day - David Nicholls

I felt compelled to read this one to find out what all the fuss was about. I was pleasantly surprised - underlying the romcom-style will-they-won't-they plot was a genuinely moving love story, and it was refreshing to have someone so self-destructive (and even at times unlikable) as one of the central characters. The structure of describing one day in each year worked well for me, allowing for some effective and often amusing period detail, and managing to conceal a thought-provoking twist despite the nature of the ending having been widely signalled as part of the hype surrounding the film of the book.

Bitter Greens - Kate Forsyth

Reading this book was a very mixed experience. After the first couple of chapters I seriously considered putting it aside - very unusual for me - as it struck me as a clumsily written historical novel in which the believability of the narrator's voice was constantly undermined by the intrusion of informative asides describing this or that amusing period detail. However, once the fable of "Petrosinella" (Rapunzel) began to be told, the flaws in the outer story (which did improve significantly, although it then strayed into bodice ripper territory on occasion) were made forgivable by the captivating simplicity of this wonderfully human fairy tale, which I loved because of its engaging and likeable characters (yes, even the witch!) and the psychologically plausible nature of (most of) the magic. I also enjoyed the use of other author's Rapunzel poems to illuminate different perspectives on the story.

Dominion - C J Sansom

I was totally hooked on this huge counterfactual thriller set in a version of 1950s Britain where the Nazis are in power in all but name, and Churchill is a resistance hero. I enjoyed the plausible details, such as the growing tensions between family members with opposing political sympathies and the complex personal histories drawing people into resistance work, and also found the final Historical Note, in which the author warns of his fears about the threat of the SNP, fascinating and eye-opening. The most memorable section of the novel for me was the description of the reactions of passers-by who must choose whether to risk their own safety by protesting when they see Jews being marched away - a scene that's been described so many times, but to my shame I found it had added personal impact when transposed to the familiar streets of London... The only thing I found to dislike in this book was a slightly unpalatable attitude to infidelity: although their motives were presented in a convincing way, I felt that we were invited to celebrate the decency of the lovers' eventual farewell rather than focus on any damage their liaison had done.

Tigers in Red Weather - Liza Klaussman

This family saga was well-written and gripping, but I found it very disturbing, as beneath the sultry summer fun and games, the violence and cruelty that gradually emerges presented a horribly plausible account of how the mistakes and crimes of one generation can affect the next.

The Last Runaway - Tracy Chevalier

This book seemed initially as though it was specifically designed to appeal to me, being a historical novel about a Quaker woman, with themes including entering a new culture as an immigrant, and the difficulty of balancing family loyalties, personal desires, and the demands of conscience. Despite all this promising material, I found the novel unsatisfying, although the depiction of a 19th century Quaker community and their attitudes to slavery was indeed fascinating. The main problem was that the central character never quite came alive for me, seeming to veer oddly between impulsive actions and coldly calculated ones, and I never quite managed to see her choices through her eyes.

The Rabbit Back Literature Society - Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen

This Finnish novel about a mysterious group of authors and the society that shaped them was a "wild-card" present and I'm extremely glad to have received it - it is both brilliantly insane, and insanely brilliant. As the story develops, we are presented with an increasingly disturbing set of answers to the perennial question of where writers get their ideas from, as well as being reminded that nothing is ever as it seems. Although this book contains several elements that I would usually find irritating - a blurred line between fantasy and reality, and overt reminders that we are reading a work of fiction - I was drawn in by the viewpoint of the central character, who is both likeable and strongly grounded in reality, and totally won over by the originality of the ideas explored.

The Crane Wife - Patrick Ness

An elegant and touching fable about the transformative effect of a mysterious woman - and her art - on one man and his daughter. I enjoyed reading it, but for me it was ultimately too much of a parable, and told with too much detachment, even including an unusual section when a crucial event is described five times, as having happened for as many different reasons.

The Ice Queen - Alice Hoffman

A modern adult fairy tale about fire and ice, this worked brilliantly on its own terms and was utterly captivating, but the magic and drama were too strong to really let it get under my skin, apart from in the very human beginning and ending sections. I was also strangely unsettled by the ability of the central characters to take decisive and bold actions to bring about seemingly impossible events. The parts I was most intrigued by were those about the more mysterious effects of lightning strikes, but in this kind of book it's hard to tell how realistic these accounts were...

How It All Began - Penelope Lively

I was drawn to this because I liked the idea that the first book I started after the birth of my son should be by the author of 'Consequences', which I had thoroughly enjoyed when my daughter was a newborn. It didn't quite live up to expectations though; I found the narrator's observations about the far-reaching effects of the initial chance encounter (a mugging in which an elderly woman's hip is broken) jarringly heavy-handed, and I must confess to being sentimental enough to find the ending, particularly to the storyline about her daughter's growing friendship with an Eastern European immigrant, a little unsatisfying.

The Memory of Love - Aminatta Forna

Like so many novels about recent conflicts, I found this tale of the aftermath of civil war in Sierra Leone to be a powerful, moving, and memorable book with important things to say about human potential for both violence and healing, but am unable to honestly say that I loved it - it was ultimately too unsettling to be one I'd return to for an enjoyable re-read. The story line that stuck with me most was that of the psychiatric patient whose fugue states are an escape from the awful knowledge that the soldier who her daughter survived by marrying was the same man who had murdered her husband.

Sarah Thornhill - Kate Grenville

I was excited to be given this for Christmas, having loved 'The Secret River', and it did not disappoint. It centres on the aftermath of the events of the first book, from the point of view of the daughter of its main characters, who gradually comes to understand what lies beneath her comfortable lifestyle. It also introduces new themes, as later settlers and children with mixed backgrounds further complicate the dynamics of race and class, raising questions of identity and belonging. Although it's an easy read, it is gripping and thought-provoking, and the central characters are likeable and convincing.