A shattering and beautiful love story, the most personal and powerful piece of storytelling by New York Times bestselling author of Child 44 and The Farm.
TWENTY YEARS TOGETHER
by Tom Rob Smith
Simon & Schuster, Spring 2026
(via Aaron Priest Literary)
Danny and Luis have been a couple for twenty years. Piece-by-piece, they’ve built a life together. They’ve created a home. They’ve comforted and held each other up through challenges and tragedies. They’ve shared happiness and they’ve shared joy.
The one thing they didn’t have was the one thing that, when they first met, was denied them: the possibility of marriage. They’ve witnessed the weddings of their friends, but the law was clear and would not recognize the union of two men.
But the law has now changed. Marriage, for the first time, would be legal. So while celebrating the 20th wedding anniversary of their close friends, Danny realizes he’s ready for more from his relationship with Luis. He wants them to be married.
He wants to declare their shared past as the start of their renewed future. He proposes to Luis, and the moment he does, he risks everything they’ve built falling apart.
Deeply felt and remarkably tender, TWENTY YEARS TOGETHER is a profound exploration of the bonds we create with each other, of the tension between living authentically against the expectations of family and community, and, most of all, of desire, romance and love.
Tom Rob Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Child 44 trilogy. Child 44 itself was a global publishing sensation, selling over two million copies. Among its many honors, it was longlisted for the Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Prize and won the CWA Steel Dagger Award and ITW Award for Best First Novel. His novel The Farm was a number 1 international bestseller and the first crime thriller to be longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Tom also writes for television and won a Writer’s Guild Award for best adapted series and an Emmy and Golden Globe for best limited series with American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. His recent original series Class of 09 was released on Hulu in the USA and Disney Plus around the world. The Farm is currently being adapted as a series for the BBC and Swedish Broadcaster SVT.

For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali’s piercing scream as she is taken. With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He’s put his past behind him. Until, on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali’s car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me… Then, halfway around the world, the unthinkable happens: Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night. As Ryan races from the rolling hills of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the glittering streets of Paris in search of the truth, he has no idea that his salvation may lie with a young sheriff’s deputy in Kansas working her first case, and a mobster in Philadelphia who’s experienced tragedy of his own.
A stay-at-home mom with a past. A has-been rock star with a habit. A reality TV producer with a debt. Three disparate lives. One deadly secret.
Adele Schumacher isn’t a typical worried mom. When she hires Elvis to find her missing son, a controversial podcaster named Josh Shoe, she brings a bag filled with cash, bizarre tales of government conspiracies, and a squad of professional bodyguards. Finding Josh should be simple, but Elvis quickly learns he isn’t alone in the hunt—a deadly team of mysterious strangers are determined to find Josh and his adult film star girlfriend first.
Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city’s most prestigious investment firm. In the mornings, he gazes out the train window at the lavish homes of the uberwealthy, dreaming about joining their ranks. In the evenings, he listens to the fiscal news on his phone, already preparing for the next grueling day in the cutthroat realm of finance. Then one morning Devine’s tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead.