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When Luca drops out of his prestigious PhD programme and moves back home to Manchester, he thinks he’ll take some time to consider his life choices: the failed love affair that ended in a disastrous holiday and embarrassing exit, the pursuit of an academic life that gave him nothing but a strong sense of failure.

In need of money, and still convinced the literary life might be for him, Luca takes on a job as a ghost writer: Andy, who has progressive MS, wants Luca to write his life story. Luca’s own father had MS and eventually took his own life – making the assignment a full immersion in the dark parts of his childhood Luca has never really dealt with. Luca has his own ideas about what Andy’s book should be like – but he’ll have to learn how to curb his dreaming, if he ever wants to get paid.

While his love of literature and intellectual ambition might have got him so far away from his childhood in Manchester, Luca is grappling with what it means to try to go home again – how far where you’re from shapes you, and how difficult your parent’s past is to shake off.

‘Gabriel Flynn’s work, rich with insight and wit, makes the world newly vivid’
Claire Messud, author of This Strange Eventful History

‘Laconic and darkly poignant, Poor Ghost tackles class, grief and narrative perplexity with distinctive dry wit’
Leon Craig, author of Parallel Hells

‘A brilliantly simple idea . . . compellingly complicated characters’
Aidan Cottrell-Boyce, author of The End of Nightwork

‘Intimate, clever, unforgettable’
Elvia Wilk, author of Oval

‘Darkly funny and deeply intelligent’
Julianne Pachico, author of Jungle House

Once, Beth was a different person, convinced she was living her dream life with the enigmatic wellness group, Elixir. But when that dream became a nightmare, she had no choice but to run, no matter what – or who – stood in her way.

Ten years later, exhausted and struggling with the pressures of motherhood, she receives a mysterious letter bearing only the infinity symbol, and knows immediately it is from them.

The past she’d run from has finally caught up with her, and the secrets she’s tried so hard to hide will soon be uncovered. Can she finally escape them for good, or will her freedom pay the ultimate price?

If wellness is the new religion, what happens when it’s taken too far?

“There’s no better escape than one of Lizzy Barber’s smart, seductive thrillers. She’ll hook you with an intriguing mystery, but she’ll keep you up with her fabulous characters, with all of their weaknesses, spite and charisma.”
– Abigail Dean, bestselling author of Girl A

“Lizzy Barber returns with a thriller that’s as chilling as it is addictive. Set against the stylish backdrop of San Francisco, this novel hooks you from the start, pulling you deeper with every twist and turn. The last quarter will have you gripping your seat as secrets unravel at breakneck speed. Prepare for an expertly crafted mystery that’s as sophisticated as it is suspenseful – a treat you won’t be able to put down.”
– Emily Freud, author of Her Last Summer

In this pacy thriller, a female con artist chooses the wrong woman as her target, and both women end up on the run for their lives.

Avalon Dale is a masterful grifter. She researches her victims thoroughly, kidnaps and sedates them, cleans out their bank accounts, and uses injections and hair clippers to change their appearance so that when they wake up, they can’t easily prove who they are. It gives her a head start and a new identity to get away. She’s targeted Primrose Meath for her last big score, and then she’ll fade away to a life of ease and luxury–something she’s dreamed of since a very tough childhood.

On paper, Prim is the perfect target: wealthy, workaholic, and distracted by her cheating husband. But when Avalon finds Prim’s husband dead, she can’t get away so easily–not when she’s been mistaken for Prim who’s now wanted for murder. The two women, opposites, enemies, are suddenly on the run together, and must learn to get along, to depend on each other, in order to get away. And then, what starts as a cat-and-mouse run to the coast of England becomes a fight for their survival.

**ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED NOVELS OF 2025 AS SELECTED BY THE OBSERVER, THE IRISH TIMES, JOURNAL.IE, RTE GUIDE AND SUNDAY TIMES IRELAND**

Claire O’Connor’s life has been on hold since she broke up with Tom Morton and moved from London back home to the rugged West of Ireland to care for her dying father. But glimpses of her old life are sure to follow when Tom unexpectedly moves nearby. As Claire is thrown into a love she thought she’d left behind, she questions if Tom has come for her or for himself.

Living in her childhood home brings its own challenges. While Claire tries to maintain a normal life – getting lost online, going to work and minding her own business – Tom’s return stirs up haunting memories trapped within the walls of the old family house.

Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way is a story of love and resilience, rich with history and drama, and the legacies of violence and redemption. As the secrets of the past are revealed, Claire must confront whether she can escape her history to make a future for herself.

‘I believe [this] is the best book of 2025’ Oliver Callan, RTE RADIO

‘Elaine Feeney is one of Irish literature’s most gifted and persuasive storytellers’ SINÉAD GLEESON

‘Hugely powerful’ DAILY MAIL

‘An uncanny understanding of the workings of the human heart. I loved this book’ LOUISE KENNEDY

‘Full of humanity, a story for our times’ MARY COSTELLO

‘Sizzling, electric… charged with humour and anger… I loved it’ JENNY MUSTARD

‘Clear-eyed and deep-hearted… packs an intellectual and emotional punch’ CLAIRE-LOUISE BENNETT

‘This book touched my soul’ KATRIONA O’SULLIVAN

‘Feeney will break your heart with her characters but she will also lovingly put it back together again’ EDEL COFFEY

Twenty-five-year-old Nell has curated a perfect museum of the self: early accolades in her career as an archaeobotanist, a pastel Instagram filled with flowers, and a consistent manicure routine to give a veneer of control. But there has always been a part of her that doesn’t fit the mask of perfection she wears.

When two ‘bog bodies’ are discovered in elaborate floral graves in a Somerset fen, Nell gets the opportunity of a lifetime to excavate and uncover their secrets. But the deeper she digs into the fertile, waterlogged mud, the more she uncovers repressed memories of her unsettled childhood and strained relationship with her sister… and the more her body manifests her own wildness in ways she can’t ignore.

Under the pressure of a blazing summer, Nell whirlwinds into a heated but toxic romance, intense friendships, and the brutal process of reconciling her past and her future before the weight of it all buries her, too.

Blending folkloric horror and an exploration of womanhood, against a background of eco-anxiety, Tender beautifully depicts the quiet violence of overcoming and accepting our darkest sides.

Jake and I planned our romantic trip to the south of France to unwind from all the stress of organising our wedding and enjoy some blissful, sun-soaked days just the two of us.

But when we return to the villa after a day exploring the stunning countryside, our dream holiday is turned upside down. Because there, on the beautiful antique rug, is the body of the man everyone saw Jake arguing with in the town square just this morning…

I stop breathing as I take in the scene. The footprints in the same tread as Jake’s trainers. The knife I used at breakfast lying near the body, covered in my fingerprints.

I feel dizzy, reaching out for Jake as my knees tremble. He holds me upright, saying nothing. Is someone trying to frame us for this death? If they are, they’ve set us up flawlessly.

And now we have a choice to make. Call the police and risk everything – or get rid of the body and hope nobody ever finds out…

I’d give anything to go back to the stress of wedding planning, because now I feel nothing but terror.

We Were There is about a Black Britain that for too long has been unknown and unexplored – the one that exists beyond London.

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s Britain was in tumult: rocked by Margaret Thatcher’s radical economic policy, the rise of the National Front, widespread civil unrest. With anti-immigration policies in the political mainstream, Black lives were on the frontline of a racial reckoning. But it was also a time of unrivalled Black cultural creation, organising and resistance. This was the crucible in which modern Britain came into existence.

We Were There brings into the spotlight for the first time extraordinary Black lives in once-rich cities now home to failing industries: the foundries of Birmingham, the docks of Liverpool and Cardiff, the mills of Bradford. We are in Wigan, Wolverhampton, Manchester and the green expanse of the British countryside. We meet feminists and Rastafarians, academics and rugby-league superstars; witness landmark campaigns and encounter radical artists and thinkers; tread dancefloors that hosted Northern Soul all-nighters and the birth of Acid House.

London was only ever part of the picture – We Were There is about incorporating a vastly broader range of Black Britons into the fabric of our national story.

Alive with energy and purpose, We Were There decisively expands our sense of who we are. Confronting, joyful and thrilling, this is a profoundly important new portrait of modern Britain.

Johnny Grant faces stark life decisions. Seeking answers, he looks back to his relationship with Jerry Field. When they met, nearly thirty years ago, Johnny was 19, Jerry was 45. They fell in love and made a life on their own terms in Jerry’s flat: 1, Nova Scotia House. Johnny is still there today – but Jerry is gone, and so is the world they knew.

As Johnny’s mind travels between then and now, he begins to remember stories of Jerry’s youth: of experiments in living; of radical philosophies; of the many possibilities of love, sex and friendship before the AIDS crisis devastated the queer community. Slowly, he realizes what he must do next―and attempts to restore ways of being that could be lost forever.

Nova Scotia House takes us to the heart of a relationship, a community and an era. It is both a love story and a lament; bearing witness to the enduring pain of the AIDS pandemic and honouring the joys and creativity of queer life.

Intimate, visionary, and profoundly original, it marks the debut of a vibrant new voice in contemporary fiction, and a writer with a liberating new story to tell.

Charlie Porter is an acclaimed art and fashion writer, critic and curator. He is the author of the acclaimed books What Artists Wear and Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion. He lives in London. He is represented for publishing by Rebecca Carter at Rebecca Carter Literary.