TEENAGER Violet moves with her mother from a city life to look after an ailing relative in a small town hidden in the woods of rural New York in The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman (Titan, £8.99), a debut novel and presumably the first in a series.

[[{"fid":"13510","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"}}]]To Violet, Four Paths seems like the armpit of America, a dull and insular place cut off from the world. But, as it turns out, her mother's hometown is much worse than boring. It’s deadly.

For generations, the locals have devoted themselves to containing the monster that lives in the woods and now it’s breaking free. And, in further bad news, only Violet and a small and fractious group of her schoolmates can save the town.

Some readers may find the front-and-centre emoting and lesson-learning a touch sickly — young adult fiction from the US tends to be a bit more Hollywood and a bit less rugged than its British equivalent.

But the setting is well done and the unfolding of Four Paths’ secrets is great fun.

The same set-up, with the residents of a community inheriting the burden of protecting it against an ancient evil, is the basis of The Plague Stones by James Brogden (Titan, £7.99), in which a West Midlands family are delighted to swap their damp, cramped flat for a historic cottage in a villagey suburb.

[[{"fid":"13511","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"2":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"2"}}]]In this ghost story with class struggle at its heart, it doesn’t take them long to realise that their out-of-the-blue inheritance is too good to be true.

A sequence of inexplicable and frightening events reveals that the rich have always seen the lives of the poor as unimportant, whether centuries ago or today. Brogden’s writing is dynamic, his characterisation sharp and his plotting compelling.

No Way by SJ Morden (Gollancz, £14.99) is a sequel to last year’s One Way, but includes enough catch-up to be read on its own.

Frank was sent to build a pioneering habitat on Mars, along with several fellow expendable convicts, by a PFI company that’s even more crooked than usual. As the book begins, he’s alone, with no way of getting home, in an environment where “everything's trying to kill you.”

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Morden’s work, authoritative in its science, is constantly exciting and surprising. The greatest tension is within Frank himself — he knows he’s not a good man but dare he start to believe that he could be a better one?

Another sequel to a 2018 hit, which also works as a standalone, is Fleet of Knives by Gareth L Powell (Titan, £7.99).

[[{"fid":"13513","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"4":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"4"}}]]Sentient spaceship Trouble Dog —  a repentant former warship — and her crew now sail under the colours of the House of Reclamation, a philanthropic organisation which exists to rescue space travellers in distress.

Their latest mission puts them in the middle of a deadly conflict involving an ancient race of ruthlessly single-minded peacekeepers in what’s some of the best-written, most imaginative space opera currently available.