Half a Soul

A lonely caseworker is sent to inspect an orphanage of magical children on a tiny island, and slowly, hilariously, his grey careful life cracks open into colour. It's about a six-year-old Antichrist, a sea sprite, and the radical idea that you're allowed to be loved. Read it when you need a good cry of the happy kind.

A cold-hearted lawyer dies and lands at a teashop that doubles as a waystation for the recently departed, where a kind ferryman serves cakes and helps people let go. It's a book about dying that is really about how to live, full of warm rooms and reluctant tears. Read it when you're quietly grieving something.

A solitary witch who's spent her life keeping her distance takes a job tutoring three young magical children at a rambling, cat-haunted country house, and accidentally finds the family she never let herself want. There's a grumpy librarian, hot cocoa, and a great deal of bickering over dinner. Read it when you want to be folded into a warm household.