New fiction: The Sunlit Night

Rebecca Dinerstein’s whipsmart, oddball romance has a magnificent backdrop – a small island 95 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where the sun never sets.

Yasha, accompanied by his estranged mother, is there to bury his father; Frances is escaping a family melt-down, and hoping to take up an art apprenticeship with a painter who favours the colour yellow. Funny, sad and sharply observed it’s a tale of an unlikely relationship played out in a Viking museum, with a supporting cast of intriguing characters.

The Sunlit Night by Rebecca Dinerstein (Bloomsbury, £12.99)