MUST READS

Will

by Will Smith

(Penguin £10.99, 432pp)

Growing up in West Philadelphia, Will Smith saw his father, Daddio, punch his mother so hard she collapsed. One of Daddio’s bizarre acts of control — making young Will and his brother, Harry, build a 20ft wall — proved to be a useful life lesson.

Will built his stellar career brick by brick. Stardom came young, when he chose hip-hop (or ‘hippity-hopping’, as his mother disapprovingly called it) over college. And however wild his success, it never felt enough.

But his best-selling memoir, co-written with self-help guru Mark Manson, showcases his hard-won self-knowledge, ending with a spectacular demonstration of facing the fear and doing it anyway, as he celebrates his 50th birthday with a bungee jump from a helicopter over the Grand Canyon.

The Bequest

by Joanna Margaret

(Head of Zeus £9.99, 416pp)

American historian Isabel Henley is looking forward to beginning her PhD studies at St Stephen’s University in Scotland, where she will join her glamorous friend, Rose Brewster.

But she arrives to find that her supervisor, renowned feminist scholar Madeleine Granger, has died in mysterious circumstances. And as Isabel begins her research into the women of Catherine de Medici’s court, Rose goes missing. She has been kidnapped and her captors are demanding a priceless emerald, once owned by Catherine, as ransom.

The race to find the jewel leads Isabel and her handsome university colleague, William, from a princely palazzo in Genoa to dusty corners of archives in Florence and Paris. This debut novel is a high-tension tale of academic skulduggery and murky aristocratic intrigue.

One Enchanted Evening

by Katie Fforde

(Penguin £8.99, 400pp)

In 1966, with British restaurant food a byword for soggy mediocrity, 22-year-old Meg has ambitions to be a chef.

So when a kitchen crisis occurs at Nightingale Woods, a beautiful but run-down Dorset hotel where her mother, Louise, is the manager, Meg doesn’t hesitate to help.

A gala lunch is coming up and the chef has walked out, but with the help of a formidable long-term resident, Ambrosine, Meg rises to the occasion.

If she expected gratitude from Justin, the arrogant son of the hotel’s owner, she is disappointed. Yet Meg has fallen in love with the faded charm of Nightingale Woods, and she has a vision for transforming it —if only she can persuade Justin to agree.

Fforde’s novel is a delicious confection of patisserie and passion.