8 best quick reads for 2022: From crime and historical fiction to romance and memoir

Best: Overall

Rating: 10/10

Abridged for Quick Reads from his 2019 memoir of the same name (£9.99, Waterstones.com), Lemn Sissay writes about growing up in care and fighting to succeed despite the cruelty and failures of the care system and it’s not to be missed. At 17, after a childhood spent in foster care and six years in children’s homes, Norman Greenwood discovered that his real name was Lemn Sissay. He learned that he was British and Ethiopian and that his mother had been pleading for him to be returned to her since his birth. Sissay is now one of the nation’s best-loved poets and this heartrendingly honest and lyrical account of his early life made us want to read the full-length version.

Best: For a sense of place

Rating: 9/10

Best-known for his TV work, Graham Norton is fast becoming one of our most successful authors. After receiving huge acclaim for novels like Home Stretch (£3, Amazon.co.uk) and Holding (£8.99, Waterstones.com) – which was recently turned into an ITV drama – he’s now written The Swimmer, a novella about Helen, a retired primary school teacher living with her tricky sister on the beautiful Irish coast.

When Helen spots a red-haired man struggling in the sea she immediately senses that something isn’t quite right and resolves to investigate further. Norton’s descriptions of a close-knit Irish community and its characters are evocative and compelling.

Best: Historical novel

Rating: 9/10

Kate Mosse writes epic tales set in centuries gone by, including best-selling series like The Burning Chambers (£8.99, Waterstones.com) and The Languedoc Trilogy (£22.99, Amazon.co.uk). For her Quick Reads novella, she’s chosen 18th century Tenerife as her backdrop and it gripped us right from the very first page.

Sixteen-year-old Ana lives with her family in the shadow of the volcanic Black Mountain, which according to legend has the devil living inside it. The volcano hasn’t erupted for thousands of years but one day Ana notices that the air feels heavy, the birds have stopped singing and there’s a strange tremor in the earth. Will locals listen to her warnings?

Best: Romantic read

Rating: 9/10

Robert, a successful TV producer in his sixties, is stunned when he receives a letter out of the blue from the daughter he has never met. Madison is the result of a brief fling he had 18 years ago and she wants to meet him. The only problem is that Robert has never told his wife or their three grown-up sons about her existence. Will they ever be able to forgive him and accept Madison as one of their own?

Santa Montefiore is the author of more than 20 novels, many of them set in exotic locations. This Quick Read, set in London and Tuscany, is a wonderfully romantic story that kept us guessing to the very end.

Best: Romantic comedy

Rating: 8/10

The eponymous Sofia Khan has been hailed as the Muslim Bridget Jones. She first appeared in Sofia Khan is Not Obliged, Ayisha Malik’s heartwarming 2015 novel, and now she’s back in this Quick Read.

Life has got very complicated for Sofia. Twice-divorced, she’s living with her mum and is going through the process of fostering an adorable baby girl. But in the midst of the drama, someone appears from the past – and they could well break Sofia’s heart in the process. A smart rom-com that made us laugh out loud in some chapters and hold back the tears in others.

Best: Crime novel

Rating: 9/10

The author of the mega-selling The Girl on the Train (£8.99, Waterstones.com) can do no wrong in our eyes – and Blind Spot captured our attention straight away. Edie, Jake and Ryan have been best friends since they were kids and thought that nothing would ever come between them. But when screenwriter Jake, now Edie’s husband, is brutally murdered and Ryan is accused of the crime Edie’s world falls apart. Alone in a remote clifftop house, the past she’s tried desperately to put behind her is about to catch up with her once and for all. Our only quibble is that Hawkins’s plot could easily have been expanded into a full-length novel.

Best: For urban realism

Rating: 9/10

Witness may be shorter than some of this year’s other Quick Reads but with its gritty urban setting, absorbing characters and pacy plot this story is a winner. Fifteen-year-old Cornell is a student at a pupil referral unit in a tough neighbourhood. When fellow pupil, Ryan, orders Cornell to help him teach a rival teenager some respect, it leads to tragic consequences. Torn between protecting his family and telling the truth, Cornell has a challenging decision to make. Alex Wheatle’s first novel, Brixton Rock (£9.99, Waterstones.com), was published to huge acclaim in 1999 and this novella is the perfect introduction to his work.

Best: Police procedural

Rating: 8/10

This thrilling police novel pits an eccentric detective against a feared contract killer. Seemingly unfazed by anything and refusing to play by the rules, Detective Sergeant Washington Poe sets out to discover why a charity fundraiser in his fifties has been brutally murdered. With some gruesome scenes and gory details, it isn’t for the faint-hearted but Poe is one of the most memorable police officers we’ve encountered in a long time.

A former probation officer, MW Craven has drawn on his own experiences to create his darkly comic Washington Poe books. The Puppet Show (£5.22, Amazon.co.uk), was the first in the series and won the Crime Writers’ Association coveted Gold Dagger award. And Dead Ground (£7.99, Waterstones.com), the fourth tale, was published last year (2021).