If you're starting to feel like you're going square-eyed scrolling through Instagram on public transport (or else - developing the attention span of a gnat) then don't worry, we've all been there.
But we're betting this list of books driven by gripping stories about deeply-buried secrets, lies and unresolved cases are just the thing to wean you off of quizzes about what type of bread you are and absent-mindedly following your cousin's best friend's sisters holiday in the South of France. With gripping plots, beautiful writing and characters that you'll fall in love these writers will have you glued to the pages from start to finish. Just try to make sure you don't miss your stop...
If You Love A Good Plot, You'll Need To Read These Five Books - Grazia
1 of 5If Only I Could Tell You, Hannah Beckerman
Two estranged sisters, Jess and Lily, and their teenaged daughters who have never met are forced to confront their past when Audrey, the matriarch of their family, falls gravely ill. The 30-year-old secret that divides them also keeps them together. But the years of silence are shattered as tensions simmer over. Given that the tale is so full of conflicts, it could be grim reading but it's actually a life-affirming tearjerker. If you loved Me Before You, you have a treat in store.
2 of 5Excellent Woman, Barbara Pym
What looks like a quiet, unassuming novel about quiet, unassuming women is in fact a work of comic genius, and one which is as fresh today as it was when written in the early 1950s. The discreet hopes and dreams of a post war single woman are captured perfectly here. This is the very best of her work, but all Pym novels are gently brilliant and would ideally be spoken of with the same reverence and love as Nancy Mitford. Dazzlingly funny, and strangely comforting to reach across the decades and see female worries so familiar.
3 of 5Late In The Day, Tessa Hadley
Praised by everyone from Hilary Mantel to Zadie Smith, and frequently popping up in the New Yorker's prestigious pages, Hadley still somehow feels like a bookish best-kept secret rather than a Big Author. Her latest sees two once-close couples unravel into resentment following an untimely death. It doesn't seem like a sexy premise but she has the same insightful eye for human nature's darker side as currently-cooler authors, and deserves to be just as beloved.
4 of 5The Language Of Birds, Jill Dawson
Dawson is a novelist everyone should know about. Often tackling real life subjects such as Patricia Highsmith, the poet Robert Brooke and a criminal East End good time girl, she breathes life and insight into characters. This time, she takes inspiration from Sandra Rivett, Lord Lucan's murdered nanny. Giving voice to the character so often forgotten in this famous case, she conjures 1960s London with all its sense of hope just as well as the ominous atmosphere at the Lucan's home. Despite you knowing what's coming, it's both atmospheric and genuinely riveting, with a huge feminist heart.
5 of 5The Chronology Of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch
Yuknavitch's TED talk about the 'Beauty of Being a Misfit' has been watched over two million times and this reissued memoir covers much of the same ground: raw, intense and powerful, it is partly about grief and abuse but more about how writing, art and human connection can help to heal a person. It is currently being adapted into a movie by actress Kristen Stewart and is beloved of Wild's Cheryl Strayed. As well as writing beautifully about pain and anguish, she also captures nature and her passion for swimming -despite the pain it caused in her past- with shimmering brilliance.