But it’s not all clear-cut benevolence – random dead bodies are brought back to life, although they have no memories or personality, their bodies function and shuffle around and attack people until they are rounded up and re-killed by government officials. Once a year, the bubble opens and miraculously heals people, prompting a festival and pilgrimages. Rosewater is set in Nigeria, in a city which has grown up around a mysterious alien bubble. Given ongoing issues with diversity in publishing lists, I suspect it might be a little of both – publishers are starting to make a really conscious effort to expand the authors they publish, and this has happened at the same time as I have been making an effort to read outside the easy grabs within genres and challenging myself to be more considered in my selections. I don’t know whether there has been a surge in SFF informed by other cultures in recent years, or whether my attempt to diversify my reading list has just made me more aware of the wealth of books out there.

He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn’t care to again – but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realisation about a horrifying future. Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry and the helpless – people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumoured healing powers.

Rosewater tade