No, not the magazine (possessor of one of the most laughably misleading titles in existence). I speak of the Holy Grail of publishing - the High Concept. This is something totally original, the sort of plot outline that will make you go: "WHY has no one thought of that before?"
They're precious for being so very rare, but I have compiled a list of my favourites from the past couple of years. If you think you've read it all, try these. Sorry about all the depressingly greyscale covers. At least the ideas are fresh. Please suggest your own for the benefit of other readers!
Before I Go to Sleep - S. J. Watson
A woman wakes up with no recollection of who she is, or who the man lying beside her is. He says he is her husband, Ben, and she has a notebook confirming everything that happened before a mysterious trauma took her memory. She meets a psychiatrist regularly to attempt to recapture her past and just what happened that night. However, who is telling her the truth? There's a note in her diary, you see: "Don't trust Ben". If that doesn't grab you, you don't like mysteries.
Every Day - David Levithan
One for teens and adults alike. Every morning A wakes in a different person's body, in a different person's life, learning over the years to never get too attached. It's all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with, day in, day out, day after day. A and Rhiannon seek to discover if you can truly love someone who is destined to change every day.
Creepy Carrots - Aaron Reynolds
I couldn't resist this one - a picture book with some angry monster carrots stalking a greedy bunny with a taste for their pals. I particularly like the carrot on the right...Perhaps Picture Book Noir is the next new genre. Don't know if it will inspire children to eat their veges, though.
The Boy Who Could See Demons - Carolyn Jess-Cooke
Continuing the vege theme, Alex Broccoli is ten years old, likes onions on toast, and can balance on the back legs of his chair for fourteen minutes. His best friend is a 9000-year-old demon called Ruen. When his depressive mother attempts suicide yet again, Alex meets child psychiatrist Anya. Still bearing the scars of her own daughter's battle with schizophrenia, Anya fears for Alex's mental health and attempts to convince him that Ruen doesn't exist. But as she runs out of medical proof for many of Alex's claims, she is faced with a question: does Alex suffer from schizophrenia, or can he really see demons?
The Rook - Daniel O'Malley
Myfanwy Thomas wakes up in a park with no recollection of who she is, and a letter in her hand. Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her. She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own. In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined. Cool.
The Last Policeman - Ben H. Winters
I was really intrigued by this one - a policeman who's been newly promoted to detective because all his colleagues are resigning or throwing themselves off bridges in droves. An asteroid is going to hit Earth in six months, bringing with it the end of the world. No one except Hank Palace can be bothered investigating suicides any more, but there's something about this latest one he just can't let go of. Was it really a suicide? Who would murder someone who'll be dead in six months anyway? The first in what promises to be a great trilogy.
The Corpse-Rat King - Lee Battersby
Marius dos Hellespont and his apprentice, Gerd, are professional looters of battlefields. When they stumble upon the corpse of the King of Scorby and Gerd is killed, Marius is mistaken for the monarch by one of the dead soldiers and is transported down to the Kingdom of the Dead. The dead need a King--the King is God's representative, and someone needs to remind God where they are. Marius is banished to the surface with one message: if he wants to recover his life he must find the dead a King. Which he fully intends to do. Just as soon as he stops running.
Dominion - C. J. Sansom
I'm a huge fan of the author's Shardlake mysteries, set in Tudor England, but this is a departure into alternative history. 1952. Twelve years have passed since Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany after Dunkirk. As the war against Russia rages on in the east, the British people find themselves under dark authoritarian rule. Churchill's Resistance is increasingly a thorn in the government's side. In a Birmingham mental hospital an incarcerated scientist, Frank Muncaster, may hold a secret that could change the balance of the world struggle for ever - but his allies are being stalked by an implacable Gestapo officer. Wheeeee!!!!
Intervention: How Humanity from the Future Has Changed Its Own Past - Alan Butler
I'd heard of aliens building the pyramids, and sharing their technologies with Leonardo da Vinci, but I'd never heard of humans beaming back in time to change the past before. Except in
The Terminator. This piece of non-fiction claims that many events in history have come about through the intervention of humans from the future.
Pandaemonium - Christopher Brookmyre
This was written back in 2009, but it had such an unusual premise that I couldn't resist slotting this in. In a top-secret facility, the UK and US militaries are conducting a joint exercise. They're summoning demons, and destroying them in creative ways (such as guns loaded with holy water), preparing for a possible apocalypse. But something goes wrong. Throw in a busload of schoolkids on a school outing, and you have Brookmyre's usual mix of comedy and horror - but there's an interesting twist on this one. Are the creatures really demons, just because they're from another dimension? Or are humans the ones at fault?
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