BOOKS
Editor’s Choice
Previews New Titles: Fiction
Editor’s Choice
Editor’s Choice
Literary
Alan Murrin The Coast Road Bloomsbury Publishing, 9th, £16.99, hb, 9781526663702
Bloomsbury’s lead début is a compelling story of small-town gossip and shame on the Irish coast in 1994, in the run-up to Ireland’s divorce referendum. The town is abuzz with the brazenness of poet Colette Crowley, who has returned to the community after leaving her husband and children. Unhappily married Izzy is drawn into Colette’s problems when she joins her writing workshop. Told through multiple perspec- tives, it paints an affecting portrait of the restrictions on women’s lives. As a work in progress, it was shortlisted for the Peters Fraser Dunlop Queer Fiction Prize.
Legend Press, 15th, £18.99, hb, 9781915643193
Début Three women join forces
against their cult leader husband in the Scottish settlement of Halcyon, in this début novel from a Waterstones bookseller who won a Northern Writers Award.
love song to smalltown life” offers a multi-voiced portrait of rural Ireland, capturing the rhythms of daily life and the bonds that hold a community together.
Historical Yael van der Wouden
The Safekeep Viking, 30th, £16.99, hb, 9780241652305
Début It’s no surprise that Viking’s lead liter- ary début was acquired in a nine-way
UK auction and rights have sold in 14 territo- ries. Set 15 years after the Second World War in the Dutch countryside, it’s a brooding, aching story of lesbian awakening and forbid- den desire that explores the legacy of the Holocaust, ideas of home and ownership, and the patriarchal limitations of life in 1960. Isabel lives a life of solitary routine. But when her brother’s girl- friend Eva comes to stay, Isabel’s resentment gives way to unfamiliar feelings.
Moving between London, Paris, LA and New York, the second novel from the author of the word-of-mouth hit Cleopatra and Frankenstein is a “moving, funny” story of three sisters dealing with grief and addiction in the wake of their fourth sister’s death. BookScan
Début From a 26-year- old screenwriter
comes the story of 24 hours in the life of Natwest, and his small-town odys- sey in pursuit of a missing package. "A wickedly funny début about identity, sex and connection", says Abacus.
Alana S Portero, Mara Faye Lethem (trans) Bad Habit 4th Estate, 23rd, £16.99, hb, 9780008663292
Sarah Leipciger Moon Road Doubleday, 16th, £16.99, hb, 9780857526533 An estranged couple meet again after 20 years and take a road trip across Canada in search of their lost daughter, in this story from the author of The Mountain Can Wait.
Orla Mackey Mouthing Hamish Hamilton, 30th, £14.99, hb, 9780241617298
Début Introducing a “bracing” Irish
talent, this “bittersweet 22 2nd February 2024
Moses McKenzie Fast by the Horns Wildfire, 9th, £20, hb, 9781472283160 This “powerful” story of broken dreams and divided loyalties explores activism and racial violence in Bristol’s deprived St Paul’s neighbourhood in 1980. The 26-year-old’s début, An Olive Grove in Ends, scooped the Soho House Breakthrough Writer Award, a Somerset Maugham Award and the Hawthornden Prize.
Coco Mellors Blue Sisters 4th Estate, 23rd, £16.99, hb, 9780008622992
Début Charting the coming-of-age
Juli Min
Shanghailanders Dialogue Books, 9th, £18.99, hb, 9780349704074
Début Written by the editor-in-ehief of
the Shanghai Literary Review, this “innovative” début follows a Shanghai household back in time, from 2040 to 2014, exam- ining their bonds, secrets and losses.
Nathan Newman How to Leave the House Abacus, 2nd, £16.99, hb, 9780349145631
of a young boy transition- ing to become a woman in 1980s Madrid, this début novel spent seven weeks in the Spanish bestseller lists and rights have sold in 12 territories. Taking us deep into the lives of a godforsaken Madrid neighbourhood, it’s one for fans of Detransition, Baby and Pedro Almodóvar’s films, says 4th Estate.
Catherine Prasifka This is How You Remember It Canongate Books, 2nd, £16.99, hb, 9781805300991
Francesca Reece Glass Houses Tinder Press, 23rd, £20, hb, 9781472272249 From the Welsh author of Voyeur comes the tale of an extramarital love affair set largely in a glass house overlooking a lake in North Wales, where past, present and politics collide.
Monique Roffey Passiontide Harvill Secker, 16th, £18.99, hb, 9781787303188 Four women spark a revolution on a Caribbean island in this “richly emotional page-turner” from the author of
Historical Lai Wen
Tiananmen Square Swift, 30th May, £20, hb, 9781800753464
Début Sent direct to Swift by an anonymous author, this novel sold in 10 countries
at LBF 2023. The author left China in 1989 and now lives in the UK, but will remain anon- ymous, as she still travels back to China. Reading Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet inspired her to fictionalise her experience of growing up in 1970s and ’80s Beijing and taking part in the Tiananmen Square protests. Acute and intimate, it charts the opening of her eyes to the realities of the regime and is publishing to coincide with the 35th anniversary of those protests.
At once a cautionary tale and a love story, the “chill- ing” second novel from the author of the Irish Book Awards-nominated None of This Is Serious explores the dangers of growing up online.
The Mermaid of Black Conch, which won Costa Book of the Year and the Costa Novel Award 2020.
Rose Ruane Birding Corsair, 2nd, £18.99, hb, 9781472158000 The second novel from the author of This is Yesterday intertwines the lives of two women in a small seaside town to explore consent, contrition and complicity. Takes the temperature of the female nation, says Corsair.
Shannon Sanders Company ONE, 2nd, £16.99, hb, 9781911590989
Début This “richly detailed”
début about the life and lore of one Black American family, told in 13 distinct snapshots of
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