The Spider Truces - Tom Connolly

Against the vividly described background of 1980s rural Kent, this moving portrait of a father-son relationship shifts effortlessly between evoking utterly convincingly the terrors and joys of adolescence and the complicated pleasure and pain of being an adult.

Ellis is obsessed by the spiders that inhabit the crumbling house where he lives with his dad, his older sister and great aunt Mafi and also by a need to find out more about his mother, whose death overshadows the family's otherwise happy existence. He is a quirky soul; awkward and sensitive, out of place most of the time, funny, and with an often embarrassing habit of speaking his thoughts aloud, whatever the company.

From early attempts at relationships, to unskilled jobs, flatshares and drug-addled nights on the beach, Ellis muddles his way towards adulthood. What endures is the strength of his bond with his dad and his affectionate relationship with his intrepid sister, Chrissie, who turns up whenever he needs her a new boyfriend in tow every time to take the mick out of her introspective and hapless brother. The family banter is Ellis' lifeline and a counterpoint to the constant heartache of his desire to know something anything about his mother. Meanwhile their dad, Denny, an ex-Merchant Navy man, bottles up his grief at the loss of his wife, refusing to talk about her.