Dominion by C J Sansom (Pan)

WHAT would have happened if the Germans had won the Second World War?

That's the premise for this cracking novel. Author C J Sansom makes May 9, 1940, the critical date. His alternate history has Britain choosing a much different course than they did.

The Uninvited by Liz Jensen (Bloomsbury)

by Patrick O'Connor

THERE is a chilling start to The Uninvited – a seven year old girl fires a nail gun into her grandmother's neck.

At first this seems an isolated incident but when more families suffer violent attacks at the hands of their own children, a pattern emerges.

Vanishing by Gerard Woodward (Picador)

by Patrick O'Connor

YOU certainly can't accuse author Gerard Woodward of producing a light-weight book.

Packed into the 500 pages of Vanishing are several different tales from several different eras.

It's a first person narration by Kenneth Brill, who when we first meet him, is in a British prison sometime in the latter stages of the Second World War.

An Ice Cream War by William Boyd (Penguin)

by Patrick O'Connor

THERE have been plenty of novels which have used the First World War as a backdrop but this offering by acclaimed British writer William Boyd takes a look at the little known East African campaign and shows how it impacted on several characters.

Before conflict erupts, American expat Temple Smith is on good terms with his German half English neighbour Erich von Bishop but then has his plantation burnt by von Bishop and becomes a penniless refugee, forced to join the British forces.

Seesaw by Deborah Moggach (Vintage)

by Patrick O'Connor

DEBORAH Moggach has quite an impressive catalogue. She received a BAFTA nomination for her screenplay Pride & Prejudice and her novel These Foolish Things was made into the hit film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

This book starts off as if it is going to be another kidnap caper but Moggach, being the talented writer that she is, serves up a much more interesting and fascinating offering.

The Lie by Helen Dunmore (Windmill Books)

by Patrick O'Connor

MANY writers have explored the horrors of the First World War, an event which had special significance in 2014, the centenary of the outbreak of the conflict.

And although Helen Dunmore's novel is set in 1920, it focusses entirely on the dreadful mark left on the soul of the survivors.