Seeds of Doubt by James Ryan (Phoenix, £6.99 in UK)

All families have secrets that sometimes set the course of entire lives. And so it is in Seeds of Doubt, James Ryan's sensitive and compelling novel that follows the Macken girls from idyllic country childhood to old age. The protected lives of Flossie, Nora, Margaret, Ber and Girlie in their beloved home, Templeard, is fractured forever when Nora is raped in her convent boarding school and gives birth to a child she never sees. Ryan is superb on the complex bonds that connect sisters and the undercurrents of denial and duty that sap the hope and promise out of young lives. His tightly crafted prose creates vivid images, from Nora's bleak exile in London to Margaret's suburban bitterness. In a dialogue-driven book there isn't a dud conversation or a jarring note.