Maya grows up in Germany in the shadow of her beautiful, volatile mother: a whirlwind, spinning stories of the family’s former glory. Then Kojo arrives. Kojo has a way of talking about Ghana, empire, and history and for the first time, Maya understands that her parents are exiles. But fate intervenes, and the cousins are separated. Returning to Ghana years later, Maya’s homecoming sets off an exorcism of her country’s darkest demons. In this destruction’s wake, Maya realises her purpose: to tell the story of her mother, her cousin, their land and their loss, in her own voice.

Tara Westover grew up preparing for the End of Days, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. She hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she’d never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn’t believe in doctors or hospitals. According to the state and federal government, she didn’t exist. As she grew older, her father became more radical, and her brother, more violent. At sixteen Tara decided to educate herself. Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief that comes with the severing of the closest of ties.

An arresting debut collection from a young poet, Monika Radojevic’s Teeth in the Back of My Neck – launching in May this year – was the inaugural winner of the #Merky Books New Writers’ Prize, dedicated to discovering the stories that aren’t being heard and to find the best writer of a new generation. Written with profound depth and insight, the poems in the book will explore the joys, the confusions and the moments of sadness behind having one’s history scattered around the globe – and the way in which your identity is always worn on your skin, whether you like or not.

Kololo Hill is set in Uganda in 1972, where a devastating decree is issued: all Ugandan Asians must leave the country in ninety days. They must take only what they can carry, give up their money and never return. For Asha and Pran, who have been married a matter of months, it means abandoning the family business that Pran has worked so hard to save. For his mother, Jaya, it means saying goodbye to the house that has been her home for decades. But violence is escalating in Kampala and people are disappearing. Will they all make it to safety in Britain and will they be given refuge if they do? And all the while, a terrible secret about the expulsion hangs over them, threatening to tear the family apart.