Paperbacks: Gifted, by Nikita Lalwani

In 1980s Cardiff, lowly academic Mahesh forces on his maths-prodigy daughter a hot-house regime to win for her the just deserts denied to his generation of incomers.

Rumi, of course, rebels, most painfully via a crush on a Muslim boy, Fareed. Subtle, comic, heart-breaking, Lalwani's first novel brims with insight on education and migration, but even more on parents and children. The climax, in Oxford, will stand comparison with Hardy's Jude.