Albion – Anna Hope
If you like your fiction simmering with family drama, crumbling estates and high-stakes sibling tension, Albion is your golden ticket. Hope’s ambitious new novel centres on the adult children of the late Philip, the husband and father who has dominated his family’s lives, all brought together to determine the future of their ancestral Sussex pile after his demise. One wants to turn it into a luxury spa, another into a nature reserve; the third just wants out. But as the summer unfolds, old resentments bubble up, and a shocking incident tests the fragile threads of kinship. Elegant, atmospheric and simmering with class tension. It is, says, Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground, ‘The English country house novel reimagined for our times.’ Buy it.
Fair Play – Louise Hegarty
Set over a single weekend in a grand Scottish lodge, Fair Play begins as a genteel birthday celebration and spirals quickly into something far darker. Old friends arrive; a storm traps them in; and then – inevitably – someone dies. But this is no standard country house mystery. Hegarty writes with the sharp observational eye of a playwright and the timing of a stand-up comedian. With shades of Agatha Christie and Eleanor Catton, this one’s wickedly fun, deeply stylish and just the right amount of sinister. The Times describes it at ‘Sally Rooney meets The Secret History.’ Buy it.
Sunburn – Chloe Michelle Howarth
One of the more quietly dazzling novels of the summer, Sunburn is a lyrical coming-of-age story set in rural Ireland during the early 1990s. It follows Lucy, a seventeen-year-old grappling with first love, Catholic guilt and the slow, thrilling realisation that her feelings for her best friend are something more than platonic. The novel has a languid, sensual quality – . think Call Me by Your Name meets Conversations with Friends. But with more tractors. Its easy to see why it was shortlisted for the veritable smorgasbord of awards this year. Buy it.
Universality – Natasha Brown
Brown’s follow-up to her acclaimed debut Assembly is a compact, razor-sharp meditation on truth, virality and modern morality. The novel begins with a shocking incident at a rave on a Yorkshire farm, where a young man is bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar. This event sets off an ambitious journalist on the case – and its aftermath is seen through the perspectives of an interconnected cast of characters, including a disgraced banker, a provocative columnist, and a cult leader. As the New Statesman writes, ‘Brown is an astute political observer, easily dismembering cancel culture and our media circus.’ Buy it.
The Sirens – Emilia Hart
After the breakout success of Weyward, Hart returns with a haunting, multi-timeline story that weaves myth and history into something genuinely magical. Set across 19th-century Ireland, 18th-century Australia and a present-day academic’s descent into obsession, The Sirens explores the folkloric power of these mythical women – part enchantress, part avenger. Hart’s prose is lush and lyrical, with just enough grit to ground the fantasy. An instant Sunday Times bestseller, and with good reason. Buy it.
The Year of the Dog – Sophia Money-Coutts
Oh how we love Sophia Money-Coutts, the Jilly Cooper de nos jours. This new book is a departure from her usual flirtatious love stories, instead documenting the year that she got a puppy - the perfectly named Dennis – and promptly suffered an unexpected break-up, finding herself solo parenting her new doggy charge. As with all in the Money-Coutts’ oeuvre, you can expect it to be funny. But it is also a heartwarming and beautiful meditation on the power of dogs to comfort, soothe and just, well, be the very best of friends. Buy it.
