THE BEST NEW FICTION

Absolutely & Forever Rose Tremain Chatto & Windus £16.99 Marianne Clifford is just 15 when she falls for clever Simon Hurst. A glorious future seems assured, but Simon flunks his Oxford entrance exam and vanishes to Paris, leaving her bereft. Outwardly, she moves on, even experiencing the King’s Road in the Swinging Sixties, but it will take the revelation of long-held secrets to truly liberate her. Don’t be misled by its brevity and Marianne’s initial naivety as a narrator – this is a complex tale of becoming that’s moving, evocative and mesmerising in its acuity.