XXth Monthname 2025
10
Fiction Pre 2025
Titles not to miss in 2025
Literary
In December, Lauren Brown selects her Top 10 fiction titles of the year, which include two Booker Prize-longlisted novels and five debuts
Krystelle Bamford Idle Grounds Hutchinson Heinemann, 17th April, £16.99, HB, 9781529154580
This debut, which follows a group of children investigating the
disappearance of their cousin across their late grandmother’s New England estate, is one of my absolute highlights of 2025. When I interviewed Bamford, she said: “I wanted [it] to start out slow and meandering, and then suddenly you realise time is ticking down and the day is getting away from the kids and things are moving faster, they’re trying to catch up with themselves, but they never quite manage it, and then it’s too late.”
Holly Brickley Deep Cuts The Borough Press, 13th March, £18.99, HB, 9780008695828
Set against a backdrop of the Noughties music world, this
incredible debut charts the relationship of Percy and Joe, who meet at university and connect over their shared love of music. When he plays her one of his songs she realises she is watching a star in the making, that she can help shape his music into something extraordinary – and that she will be always on the sidelines. I was beyond excited to see the announcement of a film adaptation starring Austin Butler and Saoirse Ronan.
Natasha Brown Universality Faber, 13th March, £14.99, HB, 9780571389018
I could not tear my eyes away from this compact, razor-sharp satire on contemporary culture from the author of Assembly that begins when a man is bludgeoned with a gold bar on a farm. Following a viral article that connects the dots between a banker landlord, a columnist and a radical anarchist movement, the mystery unravels into a slippery exploration of meaning, language and truth that wryly skewers discourse and power structures, asking who gets to make meaning – and to what end.
Garrett Carr The Boy from the Sea Picador, 6th February, £16.99, HB, 9781035044535
Funny, immersive and huge-hearted, I was gripped from the first page to the
last by this story of family, community and belonging that begins when a baby is discovered on the beach and a fisherman named Ambrose takes him home. The novel follows the consequences of this action on him, the boy (Brendan), their family, and the people of Donegal as they are all carried into the future. Told in an irresistible, witty communal voice, this is a book to be treasured.
Literary Literary Literary
12
Books
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DAVID GOW
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