Mary & Bryan Talbot, Jonathan Cape

The Costa award-winning team behind ‘Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes’ turn their attentions to eco matters in their latest graphic novel. It chronicles the long-distance and developing relationship between two young women and is set against the backdrop of the floods that devastated the north of England a few years ago. One of the pair knows her stuff, while the other needs educating on pesticides and other horrors. At times it reads like the graphic novel equivalent of one of George Monbiot’s Guardian columns, with the author resorting to clunky dialogue to squeeze in pertinent facts (“Everything about trees is brilliant. They purify the air too by pumping out oxygen and taking in carbon dioxide” – “I expect they clean up contaminants too”), but it successfully brings home the eco disaster now lapping at our shores. And it was nice to read a story about a lesbian couple where their sexuality didn’t drive the narrative.