The Survivalists by Kashnana Cauley
In the Survivalists, Aretha, a lawyer, moves in with her coffee-entrepreneur boyfriend, Aaron, and his doomsday-prepping housemates. What follows is a half-joking exploration of capitalism, gun ownership, and what it takes to survive in the modern world as a black American. “Learn her name, because Cauley is one of the funniest writers at work today, period,” says the Los Angeles Times. Vulture agrees, describing Cauley as “one of the smartest and funniest writers working today, and this novel is a chance for fans to spend even more time with her cutting critiques of the flaws in American culture.” (LB)
Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin
Based on her own mother’s story, and interweaving real historical events with fiction, Cecile Pin’s debut novel begins in 1978, three years after the last US troops have left Vietnam. Young orphan siblings Anh, Thanh and Minh flee their village, first to Hong Kong, making their way as refugees towards the uninviting landscape of Thatcher’s Britain. Their journey is accompanied by the voice of their younger brother, Dao, a lost soul who speaks from the hinterland between the dead and the living. Wandering Souls is “subtle and gripping”, writes the LA Times, while the iNewspaper says: “this is a powerful and timely debut about seeking asylum; about what life is when it is ripped from its origins, and how happiness and identity can be found again on foreign shores.” (RL)
The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore
Set on the UK’s Isle of Wight in a beloved but crumbling family home, Sandcove, three very different sisters and their unconventional mother tackle life and long-held family secrets. The Sunday Times best-selling debut novel by Georgina Moore explores whether or not children can ever truly be free of the mistakes their parents make. “Each of the main characters is flawed yet relatable,” says The Independent, “and the family dynamics between the strong women are portrayed perfectly by Moore. An immersive novel which leaves the reader feeling they have become part of the family.” It’s a confident debut, according to The Observer. “With Moore’s evocative prose it’s easy to see why The Garnett Girls is being likened to works by Penny Vincenzi.” (LB)
Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood
This 15-strong short-story collection is Atwood’s first publication since The Testaments. Divided into three parts, it is dedicated in part to Atwood’s partner, Graeme Gibson, who died in 2019; scenes from the marriage of Tig and Nell sandwich a disparate bunch of tales that encompass everything from aliens to pandemics. Old Babes in the Wood is “a gripping read,” writes the FT, which highlights “themes that are always at the heart of Atwood’s work: the haunting presence of traumatic histories, profound imbalances of power and opportunity in the world today, and society’s darkest possible futures”. The Guardian says: “There are chips and fragments of lives, full of sass and sadness”. (RL)
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry
When he’s faced with the past he would prefer to forget, retired policeman Tom’s life is thrown into further confusion. In the Irish author’s ninth novel, Barry explores how the effects of violence and abuse reverberate across generations. Old God’s Time is a “reckoning with violated innocence,” says the Irish Independent. “The familiar story of the crimes of church and state is told in a fresh and spectacular way.” Meanwhile, iNews describes the book as a “profound state-of-Ireland novel”. Barry, it says, is “a master storyteller… exploring the fluid border between the real and the unreal, and its relation to trauma”. (LB)
This Other Eden by Paul Harding
This is New Englander Harding’s third novel: following Enon (2013) and his 2009 debut, Tinkers, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. It is in This Other Eden, though, “that Harding’s gifts have found their fullest expression”, writes The Observer, praising “the depth of Harding’s sentences, their breathless angelic light.” Inspired by historical events, the story is set on Apple Island in early-20th Century Maine, which the mixed-race Honey family have called home for generations, until they are abruptly cast off the island. This Other Eden, writes The New York Times, is “a novel that is both devastating and meditative.” (RL)
