Highlights of the Season 10
Fiction Highlights
Titles not to miss this season
General Fiction
The Bookseller’s head of books Alice O’Keeffe selects 10 novels not to be missed in the next six months (August 2026 to January 2027), including the latest from literary heavyweights Min Jin Lee and Barbara Kingsolver, an Agatha Christie continuation from Lucy Foley, Robert Harris’ return to Ancient Rome, and books with prize potential from the likes of AK Blakemore and Louise Kennedy
General Fiction
Emma Cline Switzy Chatto & Windus, 17 September, hb, £18.99, 9781784746643
AK Blakemore Doom Painting Granta Books, 24 September, hb, £20, 9781803512730
The third novel from the author of The Manningtree Witches, winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize, takes as its subject the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, unfolding hour by hour over 16 extraordinary days. We begin in Brentwood, Essex when witnessing an impossible demand for yet more taxes will compel Wat Tyler, “a wolf, madly fang-brained”, a veteran of the wars in France, to lead a revolt. As word spreads, thousands will join the march to London to take their demands to the child-king Richard II. In Blakemore’s unmistakable opulent prose, the events of 600-odd years ago spring to vibrant, eye-wateringly pungent life, making this 672-page epic an involving, exhilarating tour-de-force.
08 The Bookseller Buyer’s Guide Fiction
I was a huge fan of Cline’s debut, The Girls, and I thought The Guest was even better, but Switzy, her third novel, is another level again. We are in the company of David, a wealthy, elderly American, as he flies east on a private plane with his young assistant. First to London, for dinner with his daughter, then to France, to connect with an estranged school friend, before his final destination, a clinic in Zurich. David’s mind is unravelling, drifting between his present and, increasingly, his past, with its minor triumphs and deeper regrets, as he moves towards an irrevocable decision.
Adventure, Crime & Horror
Lucy Foley Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel HarperCollins, 22 September, hb, £22, 9780008694821
Continuation novels are a trend this autumn, and this is likely to be one of the biggest. Agatha Christie superfan Foley (who contributed to 2022’s Marple: Twelve New Stories) here takes Miss Marple on holiday to the Swiss Alps in the company of her dear friend Mrs Bantry (from Christie’s The Body in the Library), Mrs B’s enterprising paid companion, a war hero- turned-politician, his coolly elegant society wife, a dodgy former wartime crony and a Hollywood starlet. All have their foibles and possible motivations and then, with a good sprinkling of red herrings, the plot fairly whiplashes around like a snapped cable (car).
Adventure, Crime & Horror
Robert Harris Agrippa Hutchinson Heinemann, 27 August, hb, £22, 9781529154412
No proofs are available at the time of writing but, thrillingly, this is a return to Ancient Rome from the author of the acclaimed Cicero trilogy (Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator). His latest, sure-to- be-unputdownable novel charts the rise of Julius Caesar’s nephew, Octavius, who becomes the Emperor Augustus, as seen through the eyes of his boyhood friend, Agrippa. For 20 years, they ruled the empire together but now Agrippa, aged 50, is ailing and alone. In his house on the Bay of Naples he begins to write his memoirs, but stirring up the past is a dangerous business. He finds himself asking: when it comes to power, does friendship exist at all?
David’s mind is unravelling, drifting between his present and, increasingly, his past
Continuation novels are a trend this autumn
Harris’ latest charts the rise of Octavius, as seen through the eyes of his boyhood friend, Agrippa
ALICE ZOO
JESSE DITTMAR
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