27th February 2026


Literary Emily Adrian


Seduction Theory W&N, 28th, £10.99, 9781399631242


A long marriage between creative writing professors is derailed during a hot summer on a prestigious American campus in upstate New York, exposing new sides to the appearance of a flawless union. “Smart, funny and enjoyable,” said the Financial Times.


Kathy Biggs Attention All Shipping The Borough Press, 21st, £9.99, 9780008736941


The story of a daughter looking after a father with dementia on a crumbling Welsh family farm, disrupted by a woman claiming to be a long-lost niece and a granddaughter.


Elizabeth Day One of Us 4th Estate, 21st, £9.99, 9780008534950


One British establishment family comes face to face with the consequences of privilege and the true cost of power. Sequel to Day’s 2017 novel The Party.


Rochelle Dowden-Lord Lush Serpent’s Tail, 7th, £9.99, 9781805220367


Four different people, each at a crucial point in their lives, arrive at


a French vineyard for a transformative experience, but provide a reckoning with class, beauty, hedonism and desire. “Intoxicating,” said the Times. Shortlisted for the Nero Book Award for Debut Fiction.


Noah Eaton The Harrow Atlantic Books, 7th, £9.99, 9781805462101


John Salmon is the battle-hardened editor of The Harrow, last survivor


of London’s muckraking magazines but extinction looms. When trainee


Danny is allowed to investigate a gangland killing, a story emerges that could save the magazine but might cost them their lives. Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Fiction 2025.


Elaine Feeney Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way


Vintage, 14th, £9.99, 9781529967463


Booker-longlisted Feeney’s tale of the O’Connor family, its troubled past in the West of Ireland, and a love story of second chances. Shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year.


Anna Hope Albion Penguin, 14th, £9.99, 9781405966733


When the Brooke family gather in early May in their 18th-century ancestral home to bury the family patriarch, the next generation’s dreams of inheritance come into conflict. “Exquisitely put together, with a tight structure and richly drawn characters,” said the Literary Review. A BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime.


Chloe Michelle Howarth Heap Earth Upon It Verve Books, 5th, £10.99, 9780857309471


In 1960s rural Ireland four orphaned siblings are taken under the wing of their respectable neighbours but one intense attachment spells danger.


William Rayfet Hunter ( 1) Sunstruck Penguin, 21st, £9.99, 9781804948330


A man spends the summer in a luxurious mansion in the south of France


with the Blake family and finds his desire for their eldest Felix reciprocated. When both men return to London, their bonds risk being pulled apart. “Sticky and pacy with an undercurrent of unease,” said Vogue. Shortlisted


for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize.


Connor Hutchinson Dead Lucky Corsair, 7th, £10.99, 9781472159076


Jamie, an embalmer at a busy Openshaw funeral home, is hiding a gambling


addiction that has left him in eyewatering debt. When pressure increases, he responds by placing the biggest bet of his life. Debut novel from Mancunian Hutchinson.


Honor Jones Sleep 4th Estate, 7th, £9.99, 9780008722937


A newly divorced young mother reckons with a long-buried secret


as she returns home one summer. “Shattering, but also witty, arch, probing and hopeful,” said the Sunday Times.


Jonas Hassen Khemiri The Sisters Sceptre, 7th, £10.99, 9781399753630


The lives of three Swedish Tunisian sisters, narrated over three decades and spanning continents by the distant Jonas who is in awe of them. Longlisted for the National Book Award.


Catherine Lacey The Möbius Book Granta Books, 7th, £10.99, 9781803511498


Half fiction and half non-fiction, considering belief, loss of faith and past personal encounters with the divine stemming from self-evaluation in the wake of a breakup. “A compulsively readable meditation on desire,” said the Observer.


Graeme Macrae Burnet Benbecula Polygon, 7th, £8.99, 9781846977398


The events of July 1857, when Angus MacPhee, a labourer from the island of Benbecula, murdered his father, mother and aunt, are narrated by his haunted older brother.


Sarah Moss Ripeness Picador, 28th, £9.99, 9781529035520


Memories of a summer in 1960s Italy reverberate across the decades, carrying with them a secret Edith must face that will disrupt her contented life in present-day Ireland.


Ben Okri 1 14


Madame Sosostris & the Festival for the Broken-Hearted


Apollo, 21st, £9.99, 9781035910717


A midsummer night’s festival at a chateau in the South of France commemorates the 20th anniversary of when Viv’s first husband left her and promises the appearance of clairvoyant and fortune-teller Madame Sosostris, from the lines of TS Eliot’s epic poem The Waste Land. Okri won the Booker Prize in 1991 for The Famished Road.


Derek Owusu Borderline Fiction Canongate Books, 21st, £9.99, 9781838855734


A young Black man navigates relationships at the age of 19 and 25 in parallel narratives while living with mental ill health. Owusu won the Desmond Elliott prize for his debut novel and was one of the Granta Best of Young British Novelists in 2023.


Helen Oyeyemi A New New Me Faber, 7th, £9.99, 9780571387540


Seven versions of Kinga (A to G) take their turn each day as they head through the week, leaving notes for their successors and with no memory of their fellow Kingas. All goes well until one Kinga finds a man tied up in their apartment. A “dizzyingly funny narrative”, said the New Statesman.


Teresa Präauer, Eleanor Updegraff (trans) Cooking in the Wrong Century One, 7th, £10.99, 9781805331780 A dinner party unravels and a hostess struggles to maintain control as small talk gives way to sexual tension and lost inhibitions. “Clever, amusing and delightfully compact,” said the Daily Mail.


Matilde Pratesi Pig Corsair, 7th, £10.99, 9781472159090


Bookseller Valentina’s struggles with a toxic female


friendship and a lifelong obsession with pigs, the latter of which promises a pathway out into the world. Shortlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award.


Eric Puchner Dream State Sceptre, 21st, £10.99, 9781399744164


How the events of one summer reverberate across three friends’ lives, over 50 years, spanning generations and a changing landscape.


Marie Rutkoski Ordinary Love Virago, 14th, £10.99, 9780349146904


When Emily catches sight of Gennifer at a party, she recalls how they fell in love 20


years before as teenagers. A love story about desire, friendship, mistakes and the possibility of second chances.


Emily Slapper It Might Never Happen HQ, 21st, £9.99, 9780008629168 Noa and Elliott have an immediate connection, but can they love each other when they have no idea how to love themselves? Second novel from Slapper set between London and Stoke-on-Trent.


Edward St Aubyn Parallel Lines Vintage, 7th, £9.99, 9781529953886


A story of twins raised by two different families and what happens when they are brought together as adults for the first time. A sequel to Double Blind.


Emily St James Woodworking Crooked Media Reads, 26th, £15.99, 9781638934172


A trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota befriends the only other trans woman she knows: one of her students. Longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize.


Lucy Steeds ( 2) The Artist John Murray, 7th, £10.99, 9781399819589


In Provence, in the summer of 1920, an artist, his niece and an


aspiring journalist are ambitious and seeking self-fulfilment. Waterstones Book of the Year 2025. “A blaze of a book, poetic, passionate and quietly powerful,” said the Daily Mail.


Emma Stonex The Sunshine Man Picador, 7th, £9.99, 9781529047400


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Books


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BRYCE McCOY


PAUL STUART


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