REISSUES

ick of the paperbacks this month: Peng Shepherd’s debut ( 13 June, HarperVoyager). This post-apocalyptic tale is set in a future where people are ( 6 June, Dialogue Books), scientists develop a method to create new life from two egg cells… but every resulting “XX” baby is a girl. Naturally, not everyone is happy with this state of affairs, with politicians railing against fatherless families and newspapers running anti-XX pieces, We said: “A sensitive book with a beautiful feel for human potential, filled with real, breathing characters muddling their way through new, yet universal, situations.” Finally, Mats Strandberg’s pungent, pulpy shocker ( 13 June, Jo Fletcher Books) sees chaos breaking out on a cruise ship en route to Finland, after a vampiric child starts a wave of infection. We said: “The sort of old-school horror novel that got furtively passed around the playground. Some of the characters are wellsketched… but you can’t help thinking that it could’ve sailed into port in two-thirds the time.”