Duck a’ l’Orange for Breakfast, by Karina May

Maxine is having a bad run. Diagnosed with a brain tumour and scheduled for surgery, before she can tell her long-term partner, Scott, she discovers he has been cheating – at Christmas. In the safety of her best friend’s flat Max soothes her broken heart and distracts from her upcoming operation with a Tinder flirtation. She has no intention of taking it offline and enjoys a few weeks of competitive cooking from Scott’s family recipe book – project ‘fork him’. Elements of this novel are both entertaining and interesting and it is fabulous for foodies. The brain tumour aspect is poignant and believable and the portrait of the dreadful stand-up comedian is amusing. It reinforces a theory heard recently about how horrible they are to date. But the plot rests on too many unlikely coincidences and the new love interest has little credibility. This makes the final third a bit of a yawn, basically down-to-earth Greek wins over pretentious French – in food and in life.

Terms of Inheritance, by Michelle Upton

Queensland hotel and casino tycoon Jacki Turner has a diagnosis of terminal cancer and gives each of her four daughters a task to achieve in the next year, in order to inherit her multi millions. All must succeed, or her money goes to an animal charity. Youngest daughter Jess, who runs her own design business, must sustain a relationship for longer than three months. Disability support worker Mel, who is overweight and massively in debt, must run a marathon. Mum-of-three Rose, a widowed accountant who has been estranged from her mother since her husband died, has to write and publish a children’s book. Eldest Isla runs her own chain of jewellery stores and idolises Jacki, so is baffled to be told to find her real self. An intriguing premise is not well executed, slabs of exposition managing to omit key details. Switching points of view between all four sisters, and sometimes Jacki, serves well to demonstrate the tensions and nuance of mother-daughter relationships, but there is sloppiness in the detail, particularly around timelines. Rose is the only fully-fleshed character; her sisters a somewhat sketchy support act, although the outcome of Jess’s relationship woes is neat. It’s all about mothering, or the lack of it, but love and good intentions win out, apparently, in a resolution that is eye-rollingly nonsensical.