Jon McGregor is an unconventional novelist. There is no one else that I know of who can do what McGregor does in a novel. He has written 3 previous novels and a collection of linked short stories, and he's pushing the bounds of what can be done with the novel form, while always being readable. Reservoir 13 opens with a teenage girl going missing in a small English village. It's winter, in the early years of the 21st Century.

Magnus Mills is unique. There is nobody else quite like him. In this quirkily packaged novel - it's the size of a 45 rpm record, with the cutaway in the paper in the centre revealing the label - two men who are passionate about vinyl records form a society to meet weekly at a local pub to listen to and appreciate a selection of records. There are certain strictly observed rules: members are required to listen forensically but without commentary or opinions being expressed. However, this uncompromising dogma leads to a schism, and a breakaway society is formed.

John Darnielle is the man behind The Mountain Goats, a quite brilliant but under-the-radar American alternative rock band, and the author of the acclaimed novel Wolf in White Van. His second novel is similarly unusual and original, although quite different to the previous novel. In the 1990s, in Iowa, Jeremy is working at the local video store (remember them?), and notices that tapes are being returned with short but eerie black and white sections seemingly recorded over or spliced in to the tape, which cumulatively seem to show an extremely disturbing and violent incident.

Sarah Perry's previous novel After Me Comes The Flood was highly acclaimed, but passed almost without notice by the public. I loved it. Her new one, while completely different, also comes highly acclaimed, but this time the public have taken it to their hearts. It's easy to see why. It's a very beautiful package, and a tremendously accomplished piece of writing. It's set in London and Essex in 1893, and features Cora Seaborne, recently widowed from a loveless marriage.

Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher in stem cell biology. His previous book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer won a Pulitzer Prize, while his research laboratory has identified genes that regulate stem cells, and genetic alterations in blood cancer.

The Wish Child is Catherine Chidgey's fourth novel, and it comes 13 years after her previous outing The Transformation. Perhaps best known for her first novel In A Fishbone Church (1998), she has won and been shortlisted for local and international awards. This novel is set in Berlin, and opens in 1939. It follows two children who observe their parents dealing with events that they can't understand.