All That We See Or Seem by Ken Liu (Head of Zeus, £20)
In this thriller from award-winning author Liu, Julia Z wants to leave behind the notoriety she gained as a teenage hacker. But she’s drawn into danger when she agrees to help a man whose wife, an artist skilled in the new art of “vivid dreaming” – using AI and virtual reality to allow her live audience into her stories – has disappeared. He has seen a video from someone claiming to have kidnapped her and hopes Julia can tell him who sent it. The near-future setting is convincing, and the story is rich in interesting ideas about potential developments in the use of AI and social media. Julia is a strong, complex character, and there’s a suggestion there could be a series of novels about her. Action-packed as well as thought-provoking, this is one of the best science-fiction books of the year.

When There Are Wolves Again by EJ Swift (Arcadia, £20)
Like Swift’s previous novel, The Coral Bones, this book is powered by a passionate love of nature and deep concern for the planet’s future. Beginning with the character-forming effects of major events during the childhoods of the two main characters – Covid lockdowns for Lucy, the Chornobyl disaster for Hester – the novel tracks their separate journeys in climate activism and documentary film-making as both make their own contribution towards a better world, until 2070, when they meet at last. Evocative and beautifully written, this character-driven novel also inspires as an argument for rewilding in Britain.

The White Octopus Hotel by Alexandra Bell (Del Rey, £18.99)
Eve has grown up feeling responsible for the death of her little sister, and her only escape is through art and music, especially tunes composed in the 1930s by Max Everly, a mysterious figure who vanished from history. In 2015 an elderly gentleman gives Eve a small ornament – a white octopus with a black tip on one tentacle. How does he know it’s her birthday, or that she’s obsessed with octopuses? Eve’s quest for answers leads her to the legendary White Octopus Hotel in the Swiss Alps, fallen into ruin since it closed in 1935, but still hiding objects with magical powers, including a key that lets Eve travel in time. This is an absorbing magical mystery, the story of two wounded people given the chance to save one another.

Darker Days by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Bantam, £18.99)
The latest from the author of Hex takes place in a small town in Washington state, on Bird Street, where all the residents are fantastically successful, healthy and happy – except in November, when the “Darker Days” arrive. Then the adults must pay the fee and sacrifice one human life. They seek out elderly, terminally ill people who are ready to die, but one year their best-laid plans fail, and for the Lewis-da Silva family, the darker days turn especially dark and gruesome. This masterly work of horror, gripping and terrifying on more than one level, is probably Heuvelt’s best novel yet.

Remain by Nicholas Sparks with M Night Shyamalan (Sphere, £22)
Author Sparks and film-maker Shyamalan jointly developed the premise and characters for this romantic supernatural mystery. Tate is an emotionally repressed architect recovering from a nervous breakdown when he wakes up to find a strange woman, Wren, living in the house he’s rented for himself alone. Unsurprisingly, she’s a ghost who doesn’t know she’s dead, unable to “move on” until a mystery connected to her death is resolved. Realising that some things he had never believed in are real – and he’s in love with one – Tate determines to set Wren free by finding out how she died. There’s nothing very original about this formulaic story, but it’s smoothly done: a warm-hearted, sentimental tale of the expected.