Sara Marsala is miserable. Her restaurant has gone under; she’s been forced to file for bankruptcy; her husband is divorcing her; and Sara has no idea how she’ll provide for their four-year-old daughter. To make matters worse, Sara’s great aunt Rosie – a woman who helped raise Sara - has just died. At the funeral, Sara is given a letter from Rosie – written before she passed – with Rosie’s last wish. Would Sara investigate a one-hundred year old murder: the murder of Rosie’s mother, and Sara’s great-grandmother?

Dogs in fiction often play a companion character role. Sometimes they are the protagonist’s chief protector. Sometimes, their role is to play a source of goodness in a dark world.

I think all these roles are valid. I’m going to add another one.

Yoodles is the name of the dog in my debut novel, How the Invisible Woman Learned to Fly. I’d call him a major character: he lives with my protagonist Marcie and her son Ip. Yoodles is a source of goodness, a companion for Marcie, and a protector.

But Yoodles plays another important role in the narrative as well. He refills Marcie’s tank.

Let me explain.

For me, the most terrifying takeaway from Nuclear War: A Scenario is the misplaced faith we have in leaders, safeguards and protocols. Leaders make mistakes, or simply can’t think fast enough to keep up with events. Safeguards fail, or never worked in the first place. And negotiated protocols are forgotten or ignored, (even simple ones such as – if the hotline rings, answer it!).

Throw in a mad despot, a few missed opportunities in the early, crucial moments of a nuclear missile launch, then compound that with hubris and alpha male chest-beating, and, in Jacobsen’s extensively researched scenario, within 72 minutes most of humanity is dead or dying.

The stories of three women living in three different centuries – one on trial for witchcraft, one caged in her home during World War II and one trying to escape the bonds of an abusive relationship in the present day – form the narrative backbone of Weyward, Emilia Hart’s stunning debut novel. Altha Weyward, Violet Ayre and Kate Ayre are related by blood: they are all Weyward women. And Weyward women have magic powers.

Once I started this novel I could not put it down. It’s not just the beautiful tapestry of the narrative; it’s Emilia’s lyrical writing. Every sentence crackles with life.