Writers & Lovers by Lily King (Picador £8.99, 336 pp
Casey Peabody is still waiting for her life to begin aged 31.
An aspiring writer whose decisions have repeatedly led her down roads that looked glamorous (Paris! Spain! Oregon!), she now finds herself back where she started, in Boston, Massachusetts.
She can t afford to rent a flat and, instead, lives in a potting shed. There she tries to complete her first novel, between waitressing shifts.
But she is still shattered by grief for her mother s sudden death, and the end of a relationship with a man she thought was the one.
Into this fragile existence come two men, each fascinating in his own way; each offering the promise of a brighter future.