Read: Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

We travel from Essex through Berkshire to end in the city of dreaming spires. Long ago, celebrated Oxford author Jane Fairchild was a foundling and an indentured servant to Berkshire landed family, the Nivens, whose magnificent library she plundered for stories. Secreted between her duties came a liberating affair with Paul Sheringham, indulged son of a neighbouring estate.

Opening in the aftermath of sensuously illicit love-making on sun-dappled sheets, this immersive novella sees them stretch out their hours together as Paul puts off leaving to meet his moneyed fiancée – a delay that will have life-changing consequences. Graham Swift is a master of the slow tease, eschewing breathless page-turning for a style that mimics the mind's own constant recapitulation. It's worth finding time to absorb it in a single sitting, all the better to sit in thrall to fate's unstoppable unfolding.

RRP £12.99, Scribner. Buy it here

Take a literary road trip with seven novels set in the towns and cities of England