We Pretty Pieces of Flesh follows three childhood friends (Rach, Kel and Shaz) from their first days at secondary school in Doncaster, through their teenage years together and later years apart, culminating in a reunion night out when potentially explosive secrets simmer under the surface. It’s written in impressively well-rendered local dialect, and is at heart a coming of age story, depicting the ups and downs of the teenage trio, and reflecting on where those years have led them - examining the bonds of friendship and as well as the forces that can tear them apart.

Oiur Evenings has a lot about it that will be familiar to Hollinghurst fans. Its protagonist, David Win, is a mixed-race child of a single parent, from the lower middle classes (his mother runs a small dressmaking business) in rural Southern England. He is a scholar at a prestigious fee-paying boys’ school, the recipient of an exhibition awarded by the arts benefactor Mark Harlow. The novel’s early chapters detail events during David’s time at that school, including a weekend at the Harlows’ country home, and an adventurous school ‘challenge’ in which he is paired with the Harlows’ son Giles (who we know from the book’s flash-forward introduction is to become a notorious right-wing politician and Brexit architect). David makes his way in life, developing an interest in acting and generally doing reasonably (if unspectacularly) well, all the while contending with his points of difference.

Pity is a short novel that trains its eyes on the former mining town of Barnsley, near to Sheffield in northern England. It focuses on three generations of the same family, covering the late twentieth century up to the present day (or thereabouts), and almost exclusively focusing on the men of the family.