On Beauty, unlike many of Smith’s other novels, is set predominantly in the US - though still has a healthy focus on Britain (or at least Britain as represented by - once again - North-West London).  It focuses on the intertwined lives of two families - the Belseys and the Kipps. Both have university professors at the helm, in the shape of Howard Belsey, a white English Rembrandt scholar (living with his African-American wife Kiki and three children in a fictional affluent university town near Boston, MA), and his nemesis Monty Kipps, a conservative Trinidadian initially living in London with his wife Carlene and two children. 

Glory is a satirical allegory of the circumstances surrounding the end of Robert Mugabe’s decades of rule in Zimbabwe in 2017, and his replacement by his former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa. It uses a cast of animals in place of humans, enabling it to blend direct retelling of history with fantastical satire that becomes a broader commentary on dictatorships, tyrannical rulers, and the state of the modern world in general

We Need To Talk About Kevin is told from the perspective of Eva Khatchadourian, a comfortably well-off former author and publisher of a series of travel guides.  It’s structured around a series of letters she writes to her partner, Franklin, in the years after their troubled son Kevin killed nine people in a high-school massacre, and was subsequently incarcerated for his crime. 

Small Island is mainly set in 1948, in a London still rebuilding after the war. Its main focus is on four characters who end up living in the same house. They are the house’s owner Bernard Bligh, his wife Victoria “Queenie” Bligh and two of their lodgers, both recently arrived from Jamaica, Gilbert Joseph and Hortense, his wife.  The novel jumps back and forward in time, with the “Before” sections covering the early life of all of the characters, including their wartime experiences. 

Property is told from the perspective of Manon Gaudet, the wife of a slave-owning sugar plantation owner in the Louisiana countryside in the 1820s. We initially have some sympathy for Manon, as we are introduced to her cruel and abusive unnamed husband through her eyes. Unhappy in her arranged marriage, her hatred for her husband is compounded by his frequently consummated obsession with the young slave Sarah, with whom he has two children (including a child revealed to be deaf), while Manon remains childless.

Bel Canto takes place in the initially plush surroundings of a party held at the residence of the Vice President of an unnamed South American country, in honour of the head of a Japanese corporation, Mr. Hosokawa. The powerful businessman is there to be wooed into a potential investment in the country, and has been tempted to attend a birthday party in his honour by the presence of world-famous opera singer Roxanne Coss, with whom he is (artistically) obsessed.

The Idea of Perfection takes place in Karakarook, a tiny New South Wales town in the middle of nowhere. At around the same time, two outsiders arrive in town for work-related purposes. Harley Savage is a part-time museum curator and textile artist, who has departed "the city" to help Karakarook with its "heritage"; Douglas Cheeseman is a vertigo-afflicted bridge engineer with a fascination for concrete, in town to assess (and likely demolish) the town's "Bent Bridge". Both are supremely awkward, throwing themselves into their work to try to escape the baggage of unsatisfactory lives and failed relationships.

When I Lived in Modern Times is the story of Evelyn Sert, a 20-year old hairdresser from Soho, of Latvian-Jewish heritage. After the war, she sets sail for Palestine, aiming to be part of the creation of a "new Jewish world" along with the refugees and idealists gathering there.

This is a Palestine still under the last throes of British colonial rule, and Evelyn is uncertain of her place in the embroyonic years of the creation of the Jewish nation. Unable to speak Hebrew (or in fact any languages other than English) she is initially at the whims of those around her, spending her first confusing months in a kibbutz before hitching a ride to the idealistic White City of Tel Aviv with the mysterious Johnny.

A Crime in the Neighbourhood is set in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Its events are narrated from retrospective distance by Marsha, who as a ten year old saw her life impacted by a trio of events in the early part of 1972: the departure of her father (who elopes with her aunt), the unfolding Watergate scandal (which preoccupies her mother) and most importantly, the rape and murder of a young boy in her local area.

Larry's Party covers just over twenty years in the life of Laurence "Larry" Weller, an initially "ordinary man" in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It begins in the mid-70s with him as a 26 year old assistant florist, and ends with him hosting the titular dinner party in 1997, his life having changed beyond recognition, but in some ways coming back to where the book began...

Blonde Roots has a concept that’s hugely appealing in its simplicity: it imagines a world in which the history of the slave trade is inverted, where “blak Aphrikans” are the masters and “whyte Europanes” the enslaved. Its central character is Doris Scagglethorpe, a white Englishwoman who is kidnapped as a child and taken on a slave ship to the New World (in the "West Japanese" islands) where she is acquired by the plantation owner Bwana, also known as Chief Kaga Konata Katamba I. She is ultimately moved to the imperial capital of Londolo, in the island of Great Ambossa where she becomes a "house slave" until her attempt to escape. As punishment, she is returned to the plantation and ends up labouring in the fields, suffering incredible hardship and dreaming of a final escape.

Fugitive Pieces is a novel in two sections, each focusing on a character's attempts to deal with trauma and loss relating to the Holocaust. Its first and longer section focuses on Jakob Beer, who as a 7-year old is the only person in his town to survive a round-up of Jews by invading Nazis. He is found by a Greek archaeologist, Athos Roussos, who take him into his care, moving him secretly to Zakynthos in Greece.

A Little Life begins in a familiar enough mode, detailing the lives of four clearly exceptionally talented young men, brought together as roommates at university in New York: JB, a painter; Malcolm, an architect; Willem, an aspiring actor; and finally Jude, a mathematical genius and eventual lawyer. It’s clear from early on that much of the novel’s intrigue is going to revolve around Jude, who despite his many talents is clearly suffering - with both serious physical and mental health issues resulting from initially undisclosed past events.

As it develops, it comes to focus more directly on Jude, and all of the other characters largely come to be defined more in terms of their relationship to him. We learn relatively early on that he has suffered severe abuse as a child, the nature of which is slowly expanded upon in increasingly horrific detail. Crucially, he is unable to reveal the truth of his life to anyone - instead taking refuge in long hours of work as a lawyer and in persistent self harm. While he enjoys the love of many friends, and ultimately adoptive parents in the form of mentor Harold and his wife Julia, he is unable to overcome his trauma. Throughout we’re given hope that through a series of positive developments Jude may be able to begin to face his past and at least begin to enjoy his life, but this - ultimately - isn’t that kind of novel.

A Spell of Winter is a gothic novel set in wealthy rural England in the years before World War I. It focuses on two siblings, Cathy and Rob, who live with their grandfather after their parents have departed in initially mysterious circumstances. They are brought up mainly by a servant, Kate, and taught by their hated governess Miss Gallagher, who appears to have an unhealthy fascination with Cathy.

The Inheritance of Loss is a novel that focuses on the diverse experiences of the inhabitants of a decaying colonial-era mansion in Kalimpong, and their relatives and friends. The primary focus is on two characters: Sai, an orphan living with her grandfather, retired judge Jemubhai Patel; and Biju, the son of the house's cook, who is living in New York illegally.