An Irish nurse must choose between patriotism and self-preservation in the stirring latest from Robards (Some Murders in Berlin). On Christmas night 1918, 22-year-old Rynn Carmichael is working a shift at Ballyshannon Court on the cliffs of northwest Ireland. A convalescent hospital during WWI, the mansion brims with British officers who have turned their focus to crushing the Irish resistance. When Rynn overhears the officers planning an ambush on a boat of Irish gunrunners, she races to warn them from the shore, knowing from her friend Molly Kincaid that her sweetheart Donal O’Reilly is onboard. Both the shipment and the ambush are botched, and Donal vanishes. Rynn returns to nursing, but when Molly’s body mysteriously washes up on the beach, she’s questioned by the British Crime Special Branch. To deflect suspicion, she accepts a marriage proposal from British lord Thomas Dunne. Though half British, Rynn feels out of place in her new London home with Dunne and is relieved when they return to Ireland less than a year later to avoid the Spanish flu. Robards crafts a well-rounded character in Rynn, who struggles while back in Ireland with whether to sacrifice her comfortable life for the cause of the country she loves. The result is a gripping portrait of the final years before Ireland’s 1921 independence. Agent: Robert Gottleib, Trident Media Group. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/23/2026 | Details & Permalink

The unnamed narrator of this intense and recursive work from Sajko unfurls an angst-fueled account of his train trip from Croatia to Berlin. He has left in a rush, driven by emotional turmoil over the deaths of his violent father and self-involved mother, as well as a recent breakup with his girlfriend. His memories are vivid, and as the train makes its way up the coast, he circles through fond recollections of his grandmother, who lived in a rustic village and doted on him, and memories of his confusion as a teen during the Balkan Wars. A journalist by trade, he’s chronically afflicted with writer’s block, and fancies himself a modern-day Baudelaire. He peppers the narrative with cultural references, from Jean Genet’s theories about war photography (the narrator agrees with Genet that “a photograph’s precision doesn’t make you a witness”) to Pearl Jam, remembering how their song about a classroom suicide played years earlier during a nightclub shooting. The sluggish train suffers multiple delays and route changes, a perfect metaphor for the narrator’s aimlessness and anxiety, “meandering and circling around what hurts the most and yet cannot be changed as it shrinks into nothingness behind me.” Sajko’s blackhearted modernist novel is worth a look. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/23/2026 | Details & Permalink

The protagonists of these finely crafted stories from Tóibín (Long Island) reflect on their lives and how they wound up where they are. For the aging Irish narrator and his younger Jewish American lover in “Sleep,” it was “Germany, Ireland, the internet, gay rights, Judaism, Catholicism: they have all brought us here. To this room, to this bed in America.” In “The Journey to Galway,” an Irishwoman grapples with grief in the wake of WWII. The story begins with the unnamed woman noting an “unusual silence,” and her tale comprises painful recollections of those she lost in the war. “A Free Man” follows Joe, a failed Maynooth pontifical student and former math teacher, from Ireland to Barcelona, where he hopes to start a new life following a lengthy prison term for molesting teen boys. “The Catalan Girls,” a novella, centers on discreet and resolute Montse, who, as a 10-year-old, migrates with her mother and elder sisters Conxita and Núria (“the rude one”) from Spain to Argentina only to return 50 years later. The quiet humanity of Tóibín’s characters is as arresting as his knack for rendering relationships and place. This collection offers much to admire. Agent: Peter Straus, RCW Literary. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/23/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this sweet novella from Kurniawan (Beauty Is a Wound), Sato Reang’s devout father guides him to become a pious Muslim boy, a direction he chafes at as he grows older. At seven, his father decides to get him circumcised. Though Sato feels anxious about the procedure, he’s excited to be like his friends (“Finally!”). He begins learning to recite the Quran without understanding the Arabic, and going to the mosque every day. After a grand prayer recitation, Sato meets Jamal, the grandson of a local Muslim scholar, with whom he is forced to become friends. Sato becomes increasingly frustrated and sad as he sees his old friends going to the movies and getting girlfriends, and grows to despise Jamal. After his father suddenly dies, Sato worries he’ll turn into his dad, and is gripped by the impulse to urinate on a truckload of fruit (“an idea... begging to be brought to life, begging to bring me even farther astray”). Kurniawan flips effortlessly from first to third person, creating a fun and textured style, which blends a clear-eyed perspective with moments of visceral emotion. This brims with humor and heart. Agent: Carla Briner, Pontas Agency. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/23/2026 | Details & Permalink

A 40-something woman looks back on her awkward teen years in 1970s London in this bold, hilarious, and surprisingly moving debut. Kadis, a music industry veteran, peppers the narrative with references to the era’s glam stars David Bowie and Marc Bolan, who capture the imagination of narrator Constance Costa and offer solace after she loses her British mother and brothers in a car accident. Constance blames her emotionally and physically abusive Greek father, whom she calls “The Fat Murderer,” for the deaths, and reels from his “jealousy and psychotic need for control.” While fearing she might be her school’s “freak,” she plots ways to kill her father, and takes in conflicting advice from the imaginary voices of Bowie and Bolan. “If I had cared about what other people thought, I’d never have made ‘The Laughing Gnome,’ ” Bowie confides, while Bolan presses her to go to the school disco (“you gotta funk or be square”). Meanwhile, she regularly attends her community’s Greek Night, or, as Constance calls it, “Freak Night,” with the other Greek families in the area. After kissing a boy there, she wonders if things might turn around for her. Kadis successfully balances the dark material with Constance’s teen ebullience and whimsy. In this joyful novel, being a “freak” means wielding a double-edged sword. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, CAA. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/23/2026 | Details & Permalink

Chapman (Your Presence Is Requested at Suvanto) unfurls an uneven tale of psychological horror about a woman’s lifelong experiences of the uncanny and struggles with ADHD. Mandy grows up in Tacoma, Wash., with her mother, Jandine; her stepfather, Terry; and her stepbrother, Jeff. As children, she and Jeff are terrified of the basement, convinced there is some evil presence there. Finding refuge at the public library, she reads obsessively about ghosts, aliens, and other unearthly subjects. Mandy leaves for college in Las Vegas and settles there after graduation. Years later, after Terry dies, Jandine joins her there, and Mandy cares for her as she declines from Alzheimer’s. When Jandine dies, Mandy’s childhood fears return, triggered this time by her belief that her kindly neighbor, known as TK, is possessed by a dangerous force. With the help of Jeff’s new girlfriend, Belén, along with Sam, the husband of Belén’s godmother, who is also experiencing cognitive decline, Mandy looks for a way to save TK. Mandy’s hectic narration is cluttered with free-associative tangents into esoteric subjects like ancient Egyptian history. More illuminating is an attempt to decipher an “ADHD parable” in Ray Bradbury’s “The Scythe” (“Today in hyperfocus my path through the grain is clear and easy to follow”). There’s plenty to admire, but not all of it hangs together. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/23/2026 | Details & Permalink

Rosenberg’s incendiary sophomore novel marks a departure from his historical debut, Confessions of the Fox. Here readers are transported not to the 18th century but to a “shrunken little apartment” on the Upper East Side, where self-described “yenta” Barbara Rosenberg is living out her final days. Blitzed on OxyContin, Barbara addresses “my confession, my apology, my prayer” to German philosopher Karl Marx, “god of impossible things” and the idol of her estranged trans son, whom she named Jordana after the Zionist warrior heroine of the 1960 film Exodus. As a child in the 1970s and ’80s, Jordana resisted the trappings of femininity pushed by Barbara, defiantly wearing combat boots and his father’s corduroy blazer. Throughout the novel, Barbara stubbornly refers to Jordana as her “daughter,” and views him as “the biggest disappointment of my life.” Rosenberg crafts his satirical portrayal of Barbara’s transphobia with a dizzying blend of broad humor and vitriol (Barbara calls Jordana a “golem of upside-down gender”). Barbara’s dismissiveness of Jordana’s gender and sexuality can be painful to read, but her voice is consistently arresting, and a shocking final twist will cause readers to reexamine everything that came before. It’s a memorable familial reckoning. Agent: Rob McQuilkin, Massie McQuilkin & Altman. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/23/2026 | Details & Permalink

Reinert’s charming latest (after Flight, the conclusion to the Eventing Series) concerns 21-year-old Brooke Haskell, whose great love is her mare, Roxie, a former racehorse she purchased with dreams of showcasing her talent at equestrian triathlons. While contending with Roxie’s stubborn nature and a lack of funds, Brooke serendipitously meets popular influencer Lenox Alvarez, who encourages her to apply to be a working student at the prestigious River Grove Farm in Virginia, run by superstar trainer Eddie Haskell. Eddie takes on Brooke, who spends the summer learning the business with manager Anise Kincaid and working alongside Lenox, who turns out to be down-to-earth and nurturing despite her moneyed background. Still, Lenox has a competitive side, which emerges when the girls learn they’re both up for the same job at the end of their apprenticeship. As the farm prepares for big events in Florida, Brooke grows wary of Eddie’s rough behavior toward the horses and his alcoholic benders. Matters come to a head when Anise and Eddie try to convince Brooke to sell Roxie to them, and Brooke has to come to terms with the nature of the business and her future. Reinert elucidates the world of equestrian eventing with her deeply informed story. This will please the author’s fans and win her new ones. Agent: Lacy Lalene Lynch, House of Story. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/23/2026 | Details & Permalink

Shorr (The Plum Trees) sets this spectacular portrait of abandonment against the backdrop of the Rust Belt’s decline over the second half of the 20th century. Spanning decades, the novel chronicles the slow dissolution of an Ohio family after the charismatic but feckless Martin Brier, a doctor, leaves his wife, Lora, and three children for a younger woman. Shorr eschews high drama for a quiet accumulation of detail: a secret mortgage taken out on the family home; two of the Brier children, standing outside “for anyone driving by to see,” while they wait for Martin to pick them up; and the humiliations of a woman struggling to maintain dignity in a small town where there are no secrets. The novel shines with a deep understanding of human nature: Lora gradually transforms from a bewildered helpmeet into a self-sufficient woman, while daughter Josie’s lifelong yearning for her absent father evolves into a complex mix of pity and detachment. Masterful, too, are the chapters from Martin’s perspective, as Shorr elicits empathy for her villain while he rationalizes, professes his desire for happiness, and finds solace in his professional life. The final scene between Josie and Martin, over soup in a “dirty little mall restaurant” in Cleveland, is devastating. Keenly observed and melancholy, this powerful and unsentimental novel maps the enduring geography of loss. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/23/2026 | Details & Permalink

Sams’s intimate debut centers on a complicated relationship between two British women. It opens with Julia, the middle-aged narrator, caring for a newborn baby in Brighton, after the baby’s mother, Nim, disappeared from the hospital. Julia reflects on how she wound up in the seaside party town at 18, desperate to escape the conventional life laid out for her by her “placid, attentive” parents. In flashbacks, she recounts falling for Leon, the charismatic and volatile owner of Gunk, a grimy nightclub, in her late 20s. What began as an adventure curdles into marriage, toil, and divorce, as Julia works behind the bar, propping up the failing venue and her now ex-husband, who continues to emotionally drain her. Her life tilts when Leon hires Nim, a teenage runaway. Julia is enchanted by Nim’s unstudied confidence and impressed by her skill (she claims to have worked as a bartender since she was 14, having lied about her age). When Nim sleeps with Leon, Julia’s feelings of betrayal expose the fragile dynamics between the trio. As the novel unfolds, Julia gradually reveals why Nim disappeared. Sams’s writing is assured and muscular (“Sometimes I could grope around inside myself and come up surprised,” Julia observes), and the novel subtly explores Julia’s motivations in caring for the baby and what a happy family might look like. This is striking. Agent: Nicola Chang, David Higham Assoc. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/23/2026 | Details & Permalink