There’s a sense of things spooling out of control in Sarah Leipiciger’s novel: her prose is beautifully laconic – calm, orderly, spare; a striking contrast to the emotional disturbance that up-ends the Berry family.

Tom is a single father, a huntsman, with an intense appreciation of the wilderness and an unexpressed love for his children, Erin and Curtis. When Curtis is involved in a tragic accident and goes missing Tom abandons his forestry job and heads out in search of him, uncovering longstanding misunderstanding and resentments, but also revealing a lifetime’s worth of protection and sacrifice.

The Mountain Can Wait by Sarah Leipciger (Tinder Press, £12.99)