FIRE AND FURY
MICHAEL WOLFF
HENRY HOLT
Following President Donald Trump’s failed legal attempts to suppress this tell-all book, Michael Wolff’s publishers rush-released Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House in early January. The bestselling author and journalist spent months inside Trump’s West Wing (often unsupervised), listening to senior officials pour out real-time accounts of their internal battles, maneuvering and frustrations. The result is a juicy portrait of a White House in chaos and of a clearly mentally unstable POTUS (described as “a fucking idiot” by Rupert Murdoch). Unless you’ve been living under a rock this month, you’ll already have read the most explosive sections. An early contender for the most controversial book of 2018. (January)

THE HOARDER
JESS KIDD
CANONGATE
The mesmerising new novel from tJess Kidd – winner of the 2016 Costa Short Story Award – follows her debut novel Himsel (a BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice). Maud Drennan – underpaid carer and unintentional psychic – is the latest in a long line of dogsbodies for the ancient, belligerent Cathal Flood. Yet despite her best efforts, Maud is becoming drawn into the mysteries concealed in his filthy, once-grand home. She realises that something is changing: Cathal, and the junk-filled rooms, are opening up to her. With only her agoraphobic landlady and a troop of sarcastic ghostly saints to help, Maud must uncover what lies beneath Cathal’s decades-old hostility, and the strange activities of the house itself. And if someone has hidden a secret there, how far will they go to ensure it remains buried? (February)

DON’T SKIP OUT ON ME
WILLY VLAUTIN
FABER
This is the fifth novel from the much-loved, Reno-born, writer and musician Willy Vlautin, and his first book in four years. Horace Hopper, a half-white and half-Paiute Indian farmhand in Nevada, dreams of bigger things. Leaving behind the farm and its fragile stability, he heads South to reinvent himself as the Mexican boxer Hector Hidalgo – but at what cost? And what of those he’s left behind? Exploring the fringes of contemporary America, Don’t Skip Out On Me is an extraordinary work of compassion – a novel about the need for human connection and understanding. Vlautin has also recorded a limited edition soundtrack album for the book with his old band Richmond Fontaine. (February)

ALMOST LOVE
LOUISE O’NEILL
QUERCUS
Described as “a bold uncompromising depiction of obsessive love” by no less an authority than Marian Keyes, Almost Love is the highly anticipated first adult novel from bestselling feminist powerhouse Louise O’Neill, whose YA novels Only Ever Yours and Asking For It have already provoked national conversations around the controversial subjects of date rape, consent and slut-shaming. When Sarah falls for Matthew, she falls hard. So it doesn’t matter that he’s twenty years older. That he only sees her in secret. That, slowly but surely, she’s sacrificing everything else in her life to be with him. Sarah’s friends are worried. Her father can’t understand how she could allow herself to be used like this. And she’s on the verge of losing her job. But Sarah can’t help it. She is addicted to being desired by Matthew. And love is supposed to hurt. Isn’t it? (March)

TRAVELLING IN A STRANGE LAND
DAVID PARK
BLOOMSBURY
Set in a frozen winter landscape, the new novel from acclaimed Irish author David Park is a psychologically astute, expertly crafted portrait of a father’s inner life; and of a family in crisis. The world is hushed, cloaked in snow. Transport has ground to a halt, flights cancelled and roads treacherous. Yet Tom must venture out into this transformed landscape to collect his son Luke, sick and stranded in his student lodgings. During this solitary journey from Belfast to Sunderland by car and boat, Tom reflects on his life: the beloved wife he leaves behind, labouring to create the perfect Christmas; the son he is driving towards, yet struggles to connect with; the countless small disappointments of his photography career; and the absence that is always there as a voice in his head – his other son, Daniel. In prose both lyrical and effortless, David Park vividly captures a man grappling with existence’s challenges: the memories that haunt us, the secrets that divide us, and the bonds that strengthen us. With its exquisitely nuanced, precisely delineated depiction of human experience, this novel delineates the unsolved mystery at the heart of our lives. (March)

COAL BLACK MORNINGS
BRETT ANDERSON
LITTLE BROWN
The last time Hot Press interviewed Brett Anderson, the chisel-cheeked Suede singer stated that he had no interest in writing his autobiography. He’s obviously changed his mind. Coal Black Mornings traces the journey that took him from a childhood as “a snotty, sniffy, slightly maudlin sort of boy raised on Salad Cream and milky tea and cheap meat” to becoming founder and lead singer of one of the most influential UK indie acts of the ’90s. In a profoundly moving, funny and honest book, he charts the shabby romance of creativity, as he travelled the London tube in search of inspiration, fuelled by Marmite and nicotine, and Suede’s rise from rehearsals in bedrooms, squats and pubs.And he catalogues the intense relationships that make and break bands, as well as the devastating loss of his mother. (March)

HOW TO BE FAMOUS
CAITLIN MORAN
HARPER COLLINS
This is the hilarious, heartfelt sequel to How to Build a Girl, the breakout novel from feminist sensation Caitlin Moran hailed by the New York Times as “rowdy and fearless… sloppy, big-hearted and alive in all the right ways.” Johanna Morrigan (AKA Dolly Wilde) seems to have it all: at eighteen, she lives in her own flat in London and writes for the coolest music magazine in Britain. But Johanna is miserable. Her best friend and man of her dreams John Kite has just made it big in 1994’s hot new Britpop scene. Suddenly John exists on another plane: that of the Famouses. Johanna hatches a response: she will Saint Paul his Corinthians, she will Jimmy his Pinocchio – she will write a monthly column, by way of a manual to the famous, analysing fame, its power and its dangers. In stories, girls never win the girl – they are won. Well, Johanna will re-write the stories, and win John. Or will she? How to Be Famous is a hilarious tale of fame and fortune - and all they entail. (March)

THE RUIN
DERVLA McTIERNAN
SPHERE
The debut novel from Perth-based Galwegian Dervla McTiernan, The Ruin is a dark and twisting tale, perfect for fans of Tana French. Detective Cormac Reilly is thrown back into an old case from twenty years before, involving two children whose mother died of an overdose. Now the children, grown adults, are possibly the victims of another crime. As Reilly re-opens the investigation into their mother’s death, he is plunged into some of the uglier aspects of Ireland’s past – drugs, poverty and the abuses of the church. The Ruin draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland and asks who will protect you when the authorities can’t – or won’t? (March)

DEAD MEN’S TROUSERS
IRVINE WELSH
JONATHAN CAPE
Irvine Welsh’s new novel reunites the Trainspotting crew of Spud, Renton, Begbie and Sick Boy – but the twist is that one of them dies at the end. Mark Renton is finally a success. An international jet-setter, he makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, soulless hotel rooms and broken relationships have left him dissatisfied. He’s rocked by a chance encounter with Frank Begbie, from whom he’d been hiding for years after a terrible betrayal and the resulting debt. But the psychotic Begbie appears to have reinvented himself as a celebrated artist and doesn’t seem interested in revenge. Sick Boy and Spud, who have agendas of their own, are intrigued to learn that their old friends are back in town, but when they enter the bleak world of organ-harvesting, things start to go so badly wrong. Lurching from crisis to crisis, the four men circle each other, driven by their personal histories and addictions – so desperate that even Hibs winning the Scottish Cup doesn’t really help. One of these four will not survive to the end. Which one of them is wearing Dead Men’s Trousers? (March)

CONNECT
JULIAN GOUGH
PICADOR
Julian Gough used to front legendary Galway indie act Toasted Heretic before turning his not inconsiderable talents to literary fiction. According to a recent tweet by the award-winning author himself, “Connect is my best novel by a mile.” The book concerns a teenage boy named Colt, the only child of divorced parents, living in Nevada. His mother is a biologist, on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough, while his father works for a mysterious government agency. Socially awkward and ‘benignly neglected’ by his parents, Colt spends most of his time living in a virtual reality gaming world. For fans of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One and Naomi Alderman’s The Power, Connect is a page-turning novel of ideas that thrillingly explores what connection – both human and otherwise – might be in a digital age. (May)