Love Lane by Patrick Gale (Tinder Press, 296pp, £20)Returning to the character of Harry Cane from 2015’s A Place Called Winter, Patrick Gale explores what it means to return home after decades of emotional exile. Harry’s arrival in postwar England unsettles generations of family life as buried histories and hidden desires resurface. Gale writes with enormous sympathy toward human frailty, allowing his characters dignity even in their failures and evasions. Rich in period atmosphere and domestic detail, Love Lane becomes a moving meditation on belonging, loneliness and the quiet compromises people make in order to survive emotionally. Although it occasionally leans too heavily on exposition, there is something expansive and companionable in the storytelling. As Harry remarks, “People without secrets ... are like people with very tidy houses: usually not worth knowing.” – Adam WyethOn Memoir: An A-Z of Life Writing by Blake Morrison (Borough Press, £20)This compendium of thoughtful reflection will interest anyone writing within the wide parameters of creative nonfiction. A prize-winning poet, novelist and acclaimed memoirist, Morrison shares valuable details on life writing. For example, under the entry for Plain style, he insists “Too much artifice – flashy metaphors and decorative flourishes – the reader loses trust”. The best nuggets of declarative advice include: “add emotional resonance”, “be surprising”, “vary momentum”, “use energetic prose” (“don’t be beige”) and “imagine your remembering”. Morrison does not like descriptions of happy, healthy contented lives “There is no duller content than contentment”, and “Imagination isn’t the ability to invent but the ability to disclose what already exists”. Extracts from Joan Didion, Martin Amis, John McGahern, Annie Ernaux and many others illuminate the topic. – Paul ClementsGhost-Eye by Amitav Ghosh (John Murray, 336pp, £22)Amitav Ghosh’s 10th novel is an expansive work involving multiple themes, locations, generations and storylines. Set primarily in 1960s Calcutta and Lockdown Brooklyn, the author cross-stitches a complex tale involving reincarnation, the benefits of traditional wisdom as opposed to science and the threat of world development over ecological survival. Concrete historical detail is played off against frequent touches of magical realism. Characters Shoma, a respected psychologist, and her sceptical nephew, Dinu, encompass the clash of faith versus rationality. Then Tipu, a Gen Z activist, reveals a threat that may speed the demise of the treasured Sundarbans (mangrove forests) of Bengal. This is a striking book from one of India’s finest authors, but its convoluted plot, yet rambling structure take away from its potential impact. – Helena Mulkerns