Backlight by Pirkko Saisio

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Backlight

The comedy of puberty

Prickly Pirkko is in opposition to everyone and everything, above all her cantankerous father and most of her teachers, with the notable exception of her Finnish teacher who seems to spot a glimmer of talent in her student’s writing. Besides, she hates puberty. She seeks out trouble, befriends the wrong kids and is all round a pain in the butt. Backlight by Pirkko Saisio is an autofictional deep dive into the author’s teenage mind which will leave you relieved those years are behind you.

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The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski

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The Infamous Gilberts

A quirky and original take on the family saga genre

A splendidly eccentric debut novel, The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski tells the story of the once illustrious Gilbert family through the eyes of their elderly retainer, Maximus. Welcoming the reader as a curious visitor, Maximus takes us to Thornwalk, the now deserted and decaying family estate, his final tour before relinquishing the keys to the inevitable luxury hotel developers. Each room, nook and discarded item he introduces us to prompts revelations of scandal, perfidy, and more than a dash of insanity; the Gilbert loves and losses set against a twentieth-century backdrop defined by the reverberations of war and the decline of the great English country house.

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Audition by Katie Kitamura

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Audition

The performance of a lifetime

Previously Booker Prize shortlisted and now comfortably nestled on the Women’s Prize 2026 longlist, Audition by Katie Kitamura is a tantalisingly oblique read. Exploring the roles we play in life, their often performative nature and how others interpret them, the story centres on an unnamed middle aged woman and a young man. The woman is a successful actress, currently appearing on stage in New York, the young man may well be her lover. Or her son. Perhaps he’s actually an invention. A novel for those who love a challenge, from a writer adept at wrong-footing and disorienting her readers.

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Brawler by Lauren Groff

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Brawler

Hard hitting on good and evil

Anyone who loved the novel Matrix—a book I still think about—will leap at newly published short-story collection Brawler by Lauren Groff. Groff’s incredible range is on full display in this engrossing collection. We travel from the East Coast to Southern California, from Boston aristocracy to Los Angeles trailer parks. The settings vary, but the family troubles remain the same, as does the capacity for both good and evil.

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The Cat by Georges Simenon

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The Cat

The ultimate toxic relationship

First published in 1967 and now available in a freshly translated Penguin Classics edition, The Cat by Georges Simenon is a bleakly funny tale of marital warfare, old age and obsession. Celebrated for his wonderful Inspector Maigret novels, Simenon also wrote a series of psychological novels he named ‘romans dur’ (hard novels). In this one, we meet seventy-somethings, Emile and Marguerite Bouin, married in haste and repenting at leisure. Since Emile accused his wife of fatally poisoning his beloved cat and launched a barbarous retaliatory attack on her pet parrot, they have been enmeshed in a silent battle of wills. Will it be a duel to the death?

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The Artist by Lucy Steeds

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The Artist

A captivating quest for light and freedom

Creating a literary buzz upon publication in 2025, The Artist by Lucy Steeds dazzles amongst recent debuts. A luminous and evocative tale set in 1920s Provence, it tells the story of Joseph, an English journalist tasked with interviewing the famous, reclusive painter, Edouard Tartuffe. Joseph’s time staying with the volatile artist and his enigmatic niece, Ettie, will come to redefine all their lives in a fabulously immersive novel that manages to combine art, history, intrigue and romance, along with a stirring cameo from Peggy Guggenheim.

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The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns

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The Vet’s Daughter

Rising above it

We’re big fans of the Virago Modern Classics collection, the iconic green-spined books denoting wonderful women writers saved for posterity (and often from neglect). A personal favourite on this inspiring list is the 1959 gem, The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns, an eccentric tale tinged with melancholy and magic. Set in a rather gloomy Edwardian South London, it tells the story of a naive young woman named Alice, her confined girlhood, strange otherworldly gifts, and relationship with a father who must surely rank as one of the most monstrous parents in all literature.

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Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga

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Nervous Conditions

Instant African classic

Rare is the book that becomes an instant classic but that was the case for Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga when it was published in 1988. Set in 1960s and 70s in what was then Rhodesia, it’s the coming-of-age story of Tambu, a gifted girl from a dirt-poor farming family who defies her gender and class to be allowed an education. Nervous Conditions was the first book published in English written by a black Zimbabwean woman and its feminist outlook, inspired by Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch, revolutionary in itself. A fenomenal portrayal of misogyny, colliding cultures, colonialisation and class.

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Arborescence by Rhett Davis

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Arborescence

A curious rewilding

Bren and Caelyn are a twenty-something Australian couple, whose lives are somewhat adrift; Bren employed in a nebulous role in the content industry, Caelyn flitting between jobs, dissatisfied and searching for purpose. A random viewing of a surreal, so-called ‘tree cult’ video pricks her curiosity and the couple embark on an investigative journey into the startling rise of environmentalist groups whose members believe that if they stand still for long enough, they will take root and become trees. In the uniquely compelling Arborescence by Rhett Davis we watch as old-school tree-hugging morphs into a practice whose logic and finality becomes strangely infectious.

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A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland

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A Room Above a Shop

Love in a cold climate

An Observer Best Debut Novel of 2025 and Hay Festival Book of the Year, A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland is a poignant and beautiful tale of secret love. Set in a Welsh valley town in the late 1980’s, against a backdrop of industrial decline and the emerging AIDS crisis, it tells the story of two unhappily closeted gay men, M and B (symbolically shielded by the use of only their initials). Drawn to each other one fateful evening, they begin a tentative relationship in an insular, small-town community which would shun and shame them if the truth were revealed.

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