Our favourite debut writers out this month: Veronika Dapunt, Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin, Claire Gleeson

This original story gripped me from the start and kept me hooked to the end. Death is the star, depicted here not as a terrifying skeleton clutching a scythe but rather as a flawed, relatable woman, simply trying to do her job in difficult circumstances.

Not only does this Death look nothing like humans have imagined her for millennia, she’s also very funny. Death finds her job hard and decides to ask the Boss (also playing against type with no white beard or cloud) for a sabbatical.

She tells him she’s near burnout and that spending serious time in the human world will improve her performance when she comes back to work.

This clinches it and Death’s sister Life helps facilitate the break, setting Death up with a new name, a place to live and a job as a paralegal.

But it’s not long into her much-needed holiday before Death realises there’s a murderer on the loose and she must catch him. Different and compelling.

Protagonist Jay is a teenager when she kisses a girl for the first time. Caught up in the moment, she ignores the messages from her parents asking her to call them.

It’s the next day when she finds out that her brother, Ferdia, who was living in Rome and training to be a priest, has been killed in a terrible accident.

Years later, Jay sees a similar message from her father and spirals into instant anxiety, imagining her mother dead.

Jay’s dread isn’t helped by the fact that she can’t remember how long ago it was that she spoke to her devout Catholic family.

Jay’s dad tells her the church is starting the long process of canonising Ferdia as a saint and that she needs to attend a celebratory Mass at home in Ireland.

Living in London now as an out-lesbian, Jay thought the religious stuff was long behind her. It’s beautifully written and brilliant on grief, love and family expectations. Wonderful.

Rachel’s husband Tom is driving her and their two children home from visiting his parents when, in one instant and with no warning, he destroys their family.

After this shock opening, we see Rachel experiencing the heartbreaking aftermath of what happened and also go back in time to meet the family pre-tragedy.

Before, on the surface at least, life seemed good. Their relationship was full of love and tenderness, but there was a sense of darkness at the edges.

The after is all dark, containing barely any light, but Rachel still cannot find it in herself to hate the husband she so adored.

I don’t want to spoil the plot by giving away too much, but I was gripped by this emotionally intelligent, thought-provoking exploration of the worst thing possible and what led to it.

There are no easy answers, however, and the deeper into it we get, the more complicated it becomes. Devastating and important.