A decaying gothic mansion tells the story of the family who once lived there, in this pitch-perfect debut of disappearances, betrayal and despair

Angela Tomaski’s debut novel is a delicious comfort read about loyalty and despair, and a gentle questioning of the nature of progress. Crumbling stately home Thornwalk is on the verge of becoming a luxury hotel. The ancestral owners are all dead – with the exception of a pair of rapacious cousins, naturally – and the only person left to mourn is the loyal valet (and maybe more?) of the old master.

Maximus, last guardian of the house, guides the reader on a final tour through Thornwalk, and the lost lives, loves and brass buttons of the titular Gilberts: Lydia, the eldest girl, desperate to fall in love; Hugo, the stubborn eldest son; “poor little Annabel”, dreaming of writing; quiet runaway Jeremy; and unstable actor Rosalind. He takes us, room by room, trinket by trinket, stain by stain (blackcurrant to blood) through 100 years of family life before it is all lost for ever.

They’re all over blurbs and social media, but do these bite-size labels lead to formulaic fiction? Plus the classics reimagined for a modern reader

Opposites attract. He falls first. Coffee shop. Forced proximity. Sports romance. University sports romance. Ivy League university sports romance! Best friend’s brother. Brother’s best friend. Slow burn. Age gap. Amnesia. Wounded hero. Single father. Single mother. Language barrier. The bodyguard. Fake dating. Marriage of convenience.

If this list means nothing to you, you’re not a romance reader. Tropes, as these bullet-point ideas have come to be known, have taken over romance. Those who write, market and read romantic fiction use them to pinpoint exactly what to expect before the first page is turned. On Instagram, Amazon and bookshop posters you’ll find covers annotated with arrows and faux-handwritten labels reading “slow-burn” or “home-town boy/new girl in town”. Turn over any romance title and they’ll be there listed in the blurb.

From Emily Henry to Rebecca Yarros and Alison Espach’s The Wedding People – romance has dominated the book charts this year. So why is it still dismissed by critics?

People buy lipstick when the world is falling apart. This genuine economic theory, known as the “lipstick index”, was first noted by Leonard Lauder (son of the more famous Estée). When the world seems very bleak – in the weeks and months after the twin towers fell, for instance, or after the 2008 financial crash – and spending generally goes down, lipstick sales trend strongly upwards.

The psychological truth at the heart of this equation is real: when people have less than they need, they spend more on small, beautiful things. It’s easy, maybe, to dismiss this in the way most feminine-coded things are dismissed: frivolous, wasteful, foolish. But that would be a mistake. A single treasure, bright and gorgeous, is like a talisman; a candle in the night. It is possible, with your small candle, to make your way in the darkness. One delight, against all this. The world crumbles, and lipstick sales go up.