Highlights of the Season
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Mark Lawrence The Bookshop Book HarperVoyager, 22 October, hb, £18.99, 9780008800406
Set in the world of Lawrence’s Library trilogy (The Book That Wouldn‘t Burn, The Book That Broke the World, The Book That Held Her Heart), this is an epic fantasy adventure. When Frederick ‘Red’ Archer wanders into the magical bookshop that will change his life, Rose Penrose is watching from the other side of the page, fleeing from story to story while searching for her own.
Sarah J Maas A Court of Thorns and Roses 6 Bloomsbury Publishing, 27 October, hb, £25, 9781037200076
I can tell you nothing about ACOTAR 6, except that it will be massive. Even the title is strictly under wraps for now, as it will provide an enormous clue to fans about Maas’ return to the courts of Prythian…
north across the Canadian border, which is why widower Jack discovers an injured draft-dodger lying in the deep winter snow and, of course, takes him in. If you are a fan of Anne Tyler or Elizabeth Strout, you will not want to miss this.
Jonathan Coe Lessons in Harmony Viking, 12 November, hb, £20, 9780241796665
Paris, 1907. The widely admired but controversial composer Maurice Ravel takes on a new pupil, a rising British composer who has come to France to study with him: Ralph Vaughan Williams. It marks the beginning of a deep friendship that will come to symbolise the new alliance between France and England in the run-up to the First World War.
Adventure, Crime & Horror
Louise Candlish A Knock at the Door HQ, 5 November, hb, £16.99, 9780008641054
November
General Fiction Solvej Balle;
Sophia Hersi Smith, Jennifer Russell (trans) On the Calculation of Volume V
Faber, 5 November, pb, £12.99, 9780571397099
“Our century’s answer to Proust,” said the New York Times of Balle’s landmark literary saga. In this fifth instalment, Tara Selter has now spent 13 years trapped in 18th November. The first three volumes collectively won the Nordic Council Literature Prize.
Mary Lawson Solace in Winter Chatto & Windus, 5 November, hb, £18.99, 9781784746827
Latest in the absorbing sequence of small-town community life, set in Solace in remote Northern Ontario (Crow Lake, The Other Side of the Bridge, Road Ends and A Town Called Solace). The year is 1969 and the Vietnam War is driving young men
Autumn/Winter 2026
I always look forward to Candlish’s ingenious thrillers, and this sounds like a corker. When three-year-old Tippi Macklin goes missing on holiday with her glamorous parents, they never give up hope she will be found. A young woman arrives at their door 18 years later, claiming to be Tippi. A DNA test will prove her identity, but when the results come back it seems the mystery has only just begun…
Frederick Forsyth, Tony Kent
The Odessa Assassin Bantam (Transworld), 5 November, hb, £22, 9781911754374
An assassin concealed in the rafters of New York City’s Grand Central Station prepares to take a shot at the US president. If his bullet meets the target, Odessa, a menacing Nazi group, will take control of the White House. But something is about to turn this deadly game of cat and mouse on its head. Follows Revenge of Odessa.
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Brandon Sanderson The Fires of December Gollancz, 8 December, hb, £25, 9781399640893
A new standalone novel set in the Cosmere universe from the author of the Stormlight Archive and the Mistborn saga. In a forgotten land sustained by rivers of demon blood, a young woman named December learns that a devastating plague is on the way. But who will believe her?
one of America’s most distinguished and original writers”, according to the Spectator. Now in paperback.
Joseph O’Connor The City of Echoes Harvill, 28 January, hb, £16.99, 9781787303898
January General Fiction
Ann Patchett Whistler Bloomsbury Publishing, 6 January, pb, £9.99, 9781037206177
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Daphne bumps into her former stepfather – who was briefly married to her mother when she was nine – and this story about family, memory and connection unspools, from the author of Tom Lake and The Dutch House. Now in paperback.
Julian Barnes Departure(s) Vintage, 21 January, pb, £9.99, 9781529959147
Said to be the final book from the Booker Prize-winning author of 14 novels, including The Sense of an Ending. “[An] elegant, thoughtful final book, which considers old age, fate and happiness. It’s an arch blend of memoir and make-believe – and rather touching,” said the Times. “His ‘last book’… proves one of his best,” said the Daily Telegraph. Now in paperback.
George Saunders Vigil Bloomsbury Publishing, 21 January, pb, £9.99, 9781526624345
December
The latest from the Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo is “a wild ride through recent history, otherworldly reunions and good and evil – suitably big themes for
Conclusion of the Rome Escape Line trilogy, inspired by the true story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, follows My Father‘s House and The Ghosts of Rome (named Irish Book of the Year 2025). In May, 1944, Rome is still ruled by the Gestapo and John May’s work smuggling escaped prisoners of war to safety through the Vatican Escape Line grows ever more treacherous. Then a strongbox of stolen Nazi money is discovered…
Ali Smith Glyph Penguin, 28 January, pb, £9.99, 9781405959476
“A playful, melancholy story of sibling bonds, unreliable memory and the tales we use to keep the dead close. It’s also a powerful anti-war novel with Palestine firmly in its sights,” said the Observer. The sibling novel to Gliff, which works as a standalone, now in paperback.
Adventure, Crime & Horror
SJ Parris Rebel’s Gambit Hemlock Press, 28 January, hb, £20, 9780008595746
The second in the Sophia de Wolfe series follows Traitor‘s Legacy. England, 1601. When the body of a Scottish envoy washes up on the banks of the Thames, covert intelligencer Sophia is tasked by Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster Robert Cecil to discover why he was killed, and finds herself drawn into perilous waters.
Sagas, Romance & Historical
Victoria MacKenzie Each Leaf, Each Curve of Stem Bloomsbury Circus, 21 January, hb, £16.99, 9781526647993
I was a huge fan of MacKenzie’s dazzling debut novel For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain so I am really looking forward to her second, about the art critic and social campaigner John Ruskin, and his spiral in the wake of terrible grief after the death of a young woman he once loved. An epic, intimate novel about grief, trauma, revelation and art, says Bloomsbury.
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sarah J Maas A Court of Thorns and Roses 7 Bloomsbury Publishing, 12 January, hb, £30, 9781037205682
Hot on the heels of ACOTAR 6 (see October) comes the seventh instalment of romance, danger and intrigue. Maas is also the author of the bestselling series Throne of Glass and Cresent City and has sold more than 75 million books worldwide, according to the publisher.
Sally Smith A Case of Fear and Favour Raven Books, 21 January, hb, £18.99, 9781526697431
The first in this excellent historical crime series set in Inner Temple, A Case of Mice and Murder, scooped Crime & Thriller Book of the Year at The British Book Awards in May. This is the third to feature reluctant sleuth Gabriel Ward KC. Author Smith, herself a barrister and later KC, was once again inspired by real events in legal history for this tale of a murdered librarian and a missing manuscript.
13
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
