New Books To Look Forward To In 2026

The Lies Between Us
Jen Bray (February)
The debut novel from journalist Bray focuses on three warring sisters, Lucy, Susannah and Tara. Just before a dinner at their mother’s holiday cottage, Susannah disappears, while the same night, a young woman is killed on a nearby beach. After discovering a link between Susannah and the murder victim, Lucy has to draw on her short-lived policing career to find her missing sister.

Football
Chuck Klosterman (February)
One of the finest pop culture writers around, Klosterman follows up 2022’s The Nineties with Football, which looks at how American Football is woven into the fabric of US life. In 2023, 93 of the top 100 most watched TV programmes in the country were NFL games, and in Klosterman’s reckoning, if you want to understand US society, you have to understood the sport. As the advance blurb explains, football is “engrained in almost everything that explains what America is, even for those who barely pay attention”.

All Them Dogs
Djamel White (March)
An alumnus of Roddy Doyle’s Fighting Words programme, White’s debut is set in Dublin gangland, with Tony Ward at the centre of the action. When the opportunity arises to work alongside Flute Walsh, the enforcer of crime boss Aengus Lavelle, it’s a straightforward yes for Tony. But proceedings get a whole lot more complicated when Tony is drawn to his new associate in more ways than one. White also boasts some heavyweight endorsements, with Booker winners Anne Enright and Marlon James among those singing his praises.

The News From Dublin
Colm Tóibín  (March)
Having enjoyed considerable acclaim for his 2024 Brooklyn sequel Long Island, Colm Tóibín returns with a short story collection focusing on those living far from home. Among the various tales are those of a woman who hears of her son’s death in the First World War; an Irishman in Barcelona haunted by the crimes he’s committed; and an undocumented worker who must leave behind his child in San Francisco. It all makes for another must-read offering from one of Ireland’s most revered authors.

Son Of Nobody
Yann Martel (April)
The Life Pi author Martel returns with Son Of Nobody, in which classical scholar Harlow Donne uncovers a lost account of the Trojan war. After leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, Donne heads to Oxford University to translate the newly discovered poem. As he dives into the epic work, the scholar dedicates both the poem and its footnotes to his daughter Helen, in a novel that proves a profound meditation on family, history and myth-making.

The School Of Night
Patrick Radden Keefe (April)
The work of New Yorker journalist Radden Keefe came to a wider audience courtesy of Say Nothing, the FX adaptation of his 2018 book about the Troubles. His new book The School Of Night is similarly fascinating, this time focusing on the death of London teenager Zac Brettler, who in 2019 mysteriously fell to his death from a luxury apartment overlooking the Thames.

As his parents looked into the circumstances surrounding his death, they made a terrible discovery – that Zac had been leading a fantasy life, posing as the son of a Russian oligarch.

The Keeper
Tana French (April)
The latest thriller from the hugely successful Tana French is set in a small Irish town, where Rachel Holohan – who was about to be engaged to the son of the local big shot – turns up dead in the river. With friends in the locale, retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper begins investigating the town’s murky secrets, despite the reluctance of his fiancé. The Keeper looks set to be another gripping effort from French, whose heavyweight fans include Gillian Flynn and Stephen King.

Said The Dead
Doireann Ní Ghríofa (May)
Doireann Ní Ghríofa's latest offering is a ghost story, centring on a woman who becomes fixated with a derelict Victorian mental hospital in Cork, which is being converted into modern apartments. Haunted by the voices of those who formerly inhabited the hospital, the woman soon finds herself vacating her familiar roles of mother, spouse and daughter. In the spectral chorus of voices, she finds meaning and solace – and perhaps her final vanishing.

The Coast Of Everything
Guillermo Stitch (June)
The second novel from Stitch - who previously authored the strikingly titled Lake Of Urine - braids together three stories, including a dutiful soldier who sentences his daughter to a loveless exile; a dying woman who with her last breath exhales the whole world; and a young woman with a broken body who holds it up. Combining elements of gumshoe noir, space opera and multiverse drama, this is one for those who enjoy daring and boundary-pushing fiction.

Land
Maggie O’Farrell (June)
O’Farrell was most recently in the spotlight for co-writing the screenplay for Hamnet, Chloe Zhao’s adaptation of her widely acclaimed novel, which stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal and has scored multiple nominations in the run-up to the Oscars. Arriving this summer, O’Farrell’s latest, Land, is inspired her own family history. Set during the famine, it focuses on father-son duo Tomás and Liam, with the former tasked with mapping Ireland for the great Ordnance Survey. However, a fateful encounter for Tomás ensures family life will never be the same again.

A Violent Masterpiece
Jordan Harper (June)
This one is set to do exactly what it says on the tin, with noir author Harper – who has written for US TV shows like Gotham and The Mentalist – exploring similar terrain to James Ellroy, as he dives headlong into the seedy underbelly of LA. Fame, power, sex parties, a serial killer and more are all on the grisly agenda in this crime epic.

Cool Machine
Colson Whitehead (July)
The latest from two-time Pulitzer winner Whitehead represents the final instalment in his Harlem trilogy. Once again focusing on master fence Ray Carney, and set in ’80s New York, the narrative strands variously see Carney embark on one last heist to help his wife Elizabeth out of financial trouble; take a bodyguard gig that plunges into him the East Village art and club scene; and emerge from retirement to save his cousin’s son from violent forces. It all makes for a gripping read that also paints a powerful portrait of NYC at a critical juncture.

Exit Party
Emily St. John Mandel (September)
Canadian author Mandel enjoyed huge success with her 2014 apocalyptic dystopian novel, Station Eleven, subsequently adapted into a series for HBO Max. Reportedly, there has also been hefty competition to adapt her upcoming novel Exit Party for TV. In a story with uncomfortable parallels to the current political landscape, the action is set in 2031 America, where the country is in the midst of civil war after California has become its own republic.