The best new book releases for 2026 offer plenty of inspiration, from true crime to contemporary romance and historical fiction. A family in post-famine Ireland spreads across the world in Maggie O’Farrell’s multi-generational historical epic, Land, while a high school teacher's life is turned upside down by a secret in Elizabeth Strout’s Booker Prize-nominated The Things We Never Say. The tension between duty and desire is explored on a remote Scottish island in Douglas Stuart’s novel, John of John – also in the running for the Booker Prize – while a couple’s love story is told from the perspective of strangers, friends and family in Bobbie Palmer’s Main Characters.
Fiction highlights
Elizabeth Strout’s latest acclaimed novel, The Things We Never Say, is a standalone story set in Maine. Artie is a high school history teacher grappling with middle-aged ennui. Despite appearing fine to his students, family and colleagues, he’s grieving the direction of life. Then, a brush with death while out on his sailing boat transforms his perspective, before a decade-long secret comes to light. Forced to reevaluate everything he’s ever known, Artie gains a new, powerful perspective that makes the reader reassess their own life in the process. The father-son relationship is particularly touching, while Strout’s political commentary on Trump America gives the small but mighty book extra weight.
Ann Patchett’s Whistler begins with a couple, Daphne and Jonathan, strolling around the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a Saturday afternoon. When Jonathan notices an elderly man following them, his innate curiosity causes him to strike up a conversation. It turns out to be Daphne’s former stepfather, Eddie, whom she hasn’t seen since she was nine. The serendipitous meeting forces Daphne to interrogate her childhood and long-repressed memories. As Eddie and Daphne catch up on decades lost, they begin to realise their bond, albeit short-lived, had a profound impact on both their lives. It’s the kind of slow-burn novel that emotionally sucker punches you out of nowhere, full of quiet wisdom about the passing of time, grief and enduring love.
Memoirs and non-fiction
Patrick Radden Keefe’s London Falling brings us to London, where a single incident unravels an insidious underworld in the capital city. Zac Brettler is just 19-years-old when he falls to his death from a luxury apartment building on the Thames. His parents refuse to believe it was an accident or suicide. Through meticulous research, interviews and conversations detailed word-for-word, London Falling recounts the investigation conducted by Zac’s parents after they suspect foul play. A deep dive into the sinister world of Russian oligarchs in London, the sweeping story explores everything from the expulsion of Asians from Uganda in 1972, the immigrant experience in the UK and the life of teenage boys online.
David Sedaris’ new collection, The Land and Its People, contains 28 mostly new essays that can be dipped in and out of. In the collection, he poignantly reflects on caring for his long-term husband Hugh, following hip-replacement surgery, as well as his ageing family and friends. Any profundity is balanced by recounts of bizarre conversations with a Duolingo chatbot, daring his friend Dawn to eat a truck tyre, and his numerous global escapades, from a safari in Kenya to horse riding in Guatemala.
Hannah Murray, the actor known for Skins and Game of Thrones, reveals what happened to her in the memoir The Make-Believe. Following a particularly heavy filming job, Murray sees a ‘healer’ recommended to her by a friend. What begins as seemingly innocent ‘wellness’ sends her down a dangerous path toward a sinister organisation that practices magic. Murray is brutally honest when recounting the grip the organisation had on her, from their cult-like, charismatic leader to their complex, repetitive rituals involving wands and energy healings. She empathetically writes about her subsequent psychotic breakdown, being sectioned, and her slow path to recovery.
Debut novels and more
Jem Calder’s debut, I Want You To Be Happy, is a story about two people dating in London. Chuck and Joey meet one night at a bar and, despite the 12-year age gap, they’re united in their need for connection and company in a city that can feel anonymous. The book is at times painful reading – Chuck is insufferable and self-destructive, while Joey is desperately trying to make a relationship out of nothing – but the novel says so much about contemporary living that you can barely put it down.
Meg Mason’s latest novel, Sophie, Standing There, is set in the world of literature festivals with mentions of real-world authors – Ann Patchett, George Saunders, Zadie Smith and Elizabeth Strout. Our titular character is Sophie, a festival tech who attaches microphones to the ‘talent’. At home, she’s reeling from her husband leaving her for another woman and finds solace from sadness in books. After reading a proof by a beautiful actor-turned-author, she develops a parasocial relationship with the writer. When the author is booked for her festival, she has to face her obsession head-on.
Lena Dunham’s memoir Famesick charts her rise from aspiring writer-director to cultural phenomenon, offering a revealing look at fame, controversy, and the pressures of public scrutiny. While headlines have focused on her relationship with Jack Antonoff, and her complex dynamic with Girls co-star Adam Driver, Famesick is a moving portrait of a woman grappling with chronic illness, addiction and intense media attention.
Maggie O’Farrell’s Land is a multigenerational historical epic that begins in 1865 with a father and son mapping the Ordnance Survey in the aftermath of the Great Famine, when an estimated one million people died of starvation. Working for the ‘redcoats’ in the British Army, Tomás and his young son, Louis, are on a windswept peninsula in Ireland, where a strange incident transforms the trajectory of the family’s life forever. O’Farrell goes back as far as the Pagans and early Nordic settlers in the ancient woodland, before exploring colonisation, the Irish fighting back and migration around the world.
Claire Daverley’s People In Love follows Bren and Nora, childhood best friends who grew up as neighbours. Everyone thought they’d end up together, but after a tragedy, Bren runs from his problems to travel the world, leaving Nora behind to pick up the pieces. More than a decade later, Bren is back in the country for Nora’s engagement party. As secrets are unearthed and regrets revealed, their lives become intertwined once again – but will Nora stay with her fiancé or pick Bren?
Bobby Palmer’s third novel, Main Characters, follows Clara and Seb who meet one night in London and embark on a romcom-esque romance. Clara and Seb’s story is told from every perspective, except their own – from the barista serving them coffee and a woman eavesdropping on the bus, to friends, family and exes. For an enjoyable twist on a love story, Main Characters is an easy, funny and fresh sun-lounger read.
Caro Claire Burke’s debut novel Yesteryear has dominated BookTok of late, and the rights have already been snapped up in an 11-way bidding war, won by Anne Hathaway, who will star in the leading role. The protagonist is a loathsome “trad wife” influencer called Natalie. Living on a farm with her hapless, ‘manosphere’ husband, she spends her days broadcasting sourdough tutorials to her millions of followers, while pretending to homeschool her litter of children. Preaching the benefits of a traditional, rustic, rural life, she then wakes up in 1805, where she’s forced to live the image of a “simple” settler life, just as she curated on Instagram.
This year’s winner of The Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans follows Sybil Van Antwerp, a 73-year-old retired lawyer in Annapolis, through a decade of letters revealing grief, ageing and unexpected connection. Still mourning the loss of her young son, Sybil keeps others at a distance, yet her wit and compassion emerge in exchanges with loved ones, strangers and admired authors. Jane Fonda is set to star in the film adaptation.
Belle Burden's engrossing memoir, Strangers, begins with her discovering her husband of 20 years’ affair. During the pandemic at their holiday home in Martha’s Vineyard, he leaves his wife and three children for the younger woman. Burden – who comes from a privileged family of socialites and broadcasting moguls – delves into their seemingly happy marriage, its sudden end and his affair.
Madeline Cash’s Lost Lambs follows the three Flynn daughters as they navigate the fallout of their parents opening up their marriage. The eldest, Abigail, is dating an older ex-soldier nicknamed “war crimes Wes”; the middle-child, Louise, is befriending a domestic terrorist online; and the youngest, Harper, has been sent to a kids’ reform camp for sleuthing on the town’s corrupt citizens. Thanks to Harper never knowing when to quit, the Flynns become embroiled in a corporate conspiracy caper.
