SEASON HIGHLIGHTS February


Han Kang, Deborah Smith (trans), Emily Yae Won (trans) Greek Lessons Penguin, 1 February, pb, £9.99, 9780241997062


General fiction


Latest from the author of The Vegetarian, which


scooped the Man Booker International Prize, is set in a Seoul classroom where a Greek language teacher losing his sight makes a connection with a woman who has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son, and now struggles to speak. Now in paperback.


Salman Rushdie Victory City Vintage, 1 February, pb, £10.99, 9781529920864


General fiction


Styled as a translation of an ancient epic, this magical realist


tale tells of nine-year-old Pampa Kampana who becomes a vessel for the goddess Parvati. “A playful, magical realist epic, full of adventure and comically clashing registers, and a celebration of the power of storytelling and the endurance of literature”, said the Guardian. Now in paperback.


Benjamin Myers Cuddy Bloomsbury Publishing, 15 February, pb, £9.99, 9781526631466


General fiction


This experimental retelling of the story of the hermit St


Cuthbert, which incorporates poetry, prose, play, diary and real historical accounts, moves from the Viking invaders of the 8th century to class-ridden contemporary England, and won the Goldsmiths Prize 2023. “An epic the north has long deserved: ambitious, dreamy, earthy, dark, welcoming and not…”, said the Financial Times. Now in paperback.


Jacqueline Crooks Fire Rush Vintage, 15 February, pb, £9.99, 9781529925036


General fiction


Shortlisted for both the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023 and the


Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston (eds) Fourteen Days Chatto & Windus, 6 February, hb, £20, 9781784745455


General fiction


In a Manhattan apartment building in the early days of


lockdown, the residents gather on the rooftop each night to tell stories. Each character has been written by a different author and contributors include Margaret Atwood, Celeste Ng, Dave Eggers, Meg Wolitzer, Neil Gaiman and Emma Donoghue among many others.


Andrew McMillan Pity Canongate Books, 8 February, hb, £14.99, 9781838858957


General fiction


Début novel from the award-winning poet is set in the former


industrial town of Barnsley in South Yorkshire and tells, in sparse yet lyrical prose, of three generations from the same family and their very different lives in a world changed forever


10


Waterstones Début Fiction Prize, this début, set between London, Bristol and Jamaica from 1978 to 1982, is narrated by 24-year- old Yamaye who goes raving with her friends every weekend at an underground club, before she meets and falls in love with Moose. “Few have channelled so well the skittering beats and transcendent air of dub music as Crooks does in her semi- autobiographical début”, said the Daily Telegraph. Now in paperback.


Nicci French Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? Simon & Schuster, 29 February, hb, £18.99, 9781398524088


Adventure, crime & horror


Latest from the bestselling husband-and-


wife crime-writing team. In 1990, Etty’s mother Charlotte vanished without a trace. Now, two of Etty’s childhood friends are determined to do a true- crime podcast about Charlotte’s disappearance and bring the town’s secrets into the light.


March


Alan Warner Nothing Left to Fear from Hell


The Bookseller Buyer’s Guide Fiction


Eleanor Catton Birnam Wood Granta Books, 7 March, pb, £9.99, 9781783784288


by the closure of the pits. A beautifully written examination of community, sexuality and self-belief.


Polygon, 7 March, pb, £7.99, 9781846976612


Sagas, romance & historical


Third in the impressive Darkland Tales series, told by the


author of Movern Callar, follows a lonely figure fleeing through the Scottish Highlands with a small band of companions. This is Bonnie Prince Charlie, who came to Scotland to take the throne before suffering bloody defeat at the Battle of Culloden. “Intense, layered, dirty, poignant and laugh-out-loud funny”, says Polygon. Now in paperback.


General fiction


Latest from the Booker Prize-winning author of The


Luminaries who was named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 2023. “A smart, satirical novel... Glorious... Birnam Wood is a dark and brilliant novel about the violence and tawdriness of late capitalism. Its ending, though, propels it from a merely very good book into a truly great one”, said the Observer. Now in paperback.


Armistead Maupin Mona of the Manor Doubleday, 7 March, hb, £20, 9780857527073


General fiction


The long-awaited 10th instalment in Maupin’s beloved


Tales of the City series, this follows Anna Madrigal’s daughter, Mona, now the sole owner of an English country manor house, who has opened the doors to paying guests to keep afloat in 1980s Thatcherite Britain. Transworld will reissue the Tales of the City backlist in March with a new cover look.


Kerry Andrew We Are Together Because Atlantic Books, 7 March, hb, £16.99, 9781805460183


General fiction


I admired Andrew’s earlier novels, Swansong and Skin


(both Jonathan Cape), and this sounds intriguing, billed as Sarah Moss meets “The Last of Us”, about four half-siblings who spend their first holiday together alone in their father’s house in France, while eerie signs in the sky signal the end of the world.


Valerie Martin Mrs Gulliver Serpent’s Tail, 7 March, hb, £16.99, 9781800815391


General fiction


Said to be a short, lush novel about sex, second chances and


taking control in a man’s world, set on a tropical island in 1954 where prostitution is legal, and Lila Gulliver runs a brothel that promises her exclusive clientele privacy and discretion. Property won the Women’s Prize for Fiction.


Michael Donkor Grow Where They Fall Fig Tree, 7 March, hb, £16.99, 9780241656853


General fiction


Follows south Londoner Kwame Akromah from his 90s


childhood with warring parents to present-day adulthood, as a popular teacher at a secondary school. But a reckoning is due— with his identity, his sexuality and his family, before he can move on from the ghosts of his past. Donkor’s début Hold was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize.


Tana French The Hunter Viking, 7 March, hb, £18.99, 9780241684269


Adventure, crime & horror


Her previous thriller, the Western-


infused The Searcher, was terrific so I’m delighted to see the return of Cal Hooper, the former Chicago detective who now lives in a small community in the west of Ireland. When a local man returns to Hooper’s village with plans to deceive old friends, there will be fatal consequences.


Phoebe McIntosh Dominoes Chatto & Windus, 7 March, hb, £16.99, 9781784744892


General fiction


Originally a one-woman show written by actor and


playwright McIntosh, who has now turned it into her début novel. Londoner Layla meets Andy and falls in love, but then, just weeks before the wedding, she makes a devastating discovery about their shared surname and is forced to confront her own history and identity as a person of colour. McIntosh participated in


Victoria MacKenzie For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain Bloomsbury Publishing, 14 March, pb, £8.99, 9781526647931


Sagas, romance & historical


One of my favourite débuts of last year, this plunges the


reader into the late-medieval world when Margery Kempe visits the anchoress Julian of Norwich in search of spiritual guidance. Both epic and intimate, this reveals the hidden lives of two extraordinary women from history—and their voices ring across the centuries, clear as church bell. Very highly recommended. Now in paperback.


Natasha Pulley The Mars House Gollancz, 19 March, hb, £20, 9781399618533


Science fiction & fantasy


From the author of The Watchmaker of


Filigree Street, a queer romance set in a future where climate change is driving people to Tharsis, the terraformed colony on Mars. January, once a dancer


Penguin Random House’s WriteNow programme.


Beth O’Leary The Wake-Up Call Quercus Publishing, 14 March, pb, £9.99, 9781529418262


Sagas, romance & historical


Latest rom-com from the author of The Flatshare and The No-Show tells


of sworn enemies Izzy and Lucas who must work together to save the failing hotel that employs them both. “This beautifully written enemies-to-lovers romance kept me hooked from the start. Wonderful”, said the Daily Mail. Now in paperback.


John O’Farrell Family Politics Doubleday, 14 March, hb, £20, 9780857529770


General fiction


This sounds great; a witty political satire in which die-hard


Lefties Emma and Eddie are shocked to the core when their only child, Dylan, moves back home after university and reveals he is a Conservative. Shock, horror! An exploration of a divided household in a divided country that has to learn to live together, says Transworld.


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