Archives de catégorie : London 2026 Fiction

SIDE CHARACTER ENERGY d’Olivia Tolich

A sharp, wise, hilarious novel about love—romantic, platonic and toxic—from a brilliant new voice in Australian fiction.

SIDE CHARACTER ENERGY
by Olivia Tolich
Text Pubishing Australia, February 2026

After a series of Mr Wrongs, Bee has finally found her Mr Right. Attractive, mature—William is everything she’s been looking for.

Gertrude is Bee’s best friend since forever (and also her flatmate, workmate and Insta content videographer). She’s happy for Bee—just as she’s been sad for Bee during those romantic missteps, and supportive of Bee in everything else. Actually, now she thinks about it, Gertrude isn’t sure there even is a Gertrude that isn’t determined by what Bee wants or thinks or feels.

Panicked to realise she’s not the main character in her own life, she turns to William’s best friend, Arthur. He isn’t the obvious choice for life coaching—apart from anything else, Gertrude doesn’t really like him—but everyone else is…Well, there is no everyone else. Just Bee.

Arthur’s mission is to find out whether there’s more to Gertrude than she thinks, and if so, what it is. The problem is, that might throw up some hard questions—about her life, her choices and above all, her friendship with Bee.

SIDE CHARACTER ENERGY is a sharp, wise, hilarious novel about love—romantic, platonic and toxic—from a brilliant new voice in Australian fiction.

‘A wonderful late summer weekend read.’ —Canberra Weekly

‘What a delight this book is.’ —Jodi McAllister

‘If you’re looking for banter, chemistry and characters who are authentically imperfect, Side Character Energy delivers.’ —Books+Publishing

Olivia Tolich is a writer based in Melbourne (Naarm). She holds a Masters of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing from the University of Melbourne and works as an educational publisher.

BABY QUEEN de Ty Landers

Already optioned by HBO for development, Ty Landers’ debut novel is a vivid, sharp-as-a-blade tale of family crime set in his home state of Alabama. For fans of S.A. Cosby, Ace Atkins, and Eli Cranor.

BABY QUEEN
by Ty Landers
HarperPerennial, Fall 2026
(via David Black Agency)

When a queen bee can no longer do her job, the workers will kill her, producing a baby queen to take her place.

A perfectly preserved but very dead body is found in a barrel of honey, and the town of Noccalula, Alabama, will never be the same.

Natalie Link has inherited the family honey business from her beloved grandmother Lana, who raised Nat after her mother ran off to Los Angeles. But it turns out Nat had no idea what Lana’s been hiding in the bee goop. Is Nat up to running an enterprise of questionable repute, evading the investigator whose been on her family’s case since she was a kid, and surviving her suddenly lethal life?

Bob Sauk is a PI on a twenty-year losing streak who torpedoed his own promising cop career once upon a time when a man vanished under very suspicious circumstances and Sauk knew in his core that Lana Link was to blame. Will he finally get the chance to prove he was right all along?

Ed Sorter is a small-town sheriff who has to get this all figured out without pissing off absolutely everyone in town, or at least not too bad.

Ty Landers writes southern crime fiction. His short stories have appeared in Popshot Quarterly, In Shades Magazine and Fjords Review. He is currently working on his first novel, set in his home state of Alabama. Ty spent over twenty years in Nashville, Tennessee before moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his wife Emily and their sons Jack, Rowan, and Barrett.

THE LAST RUN de Rachel Weaver

A story of family, resilience, and hard work, about fiercely independent people doing the best they can and coming to the hard truth that sometimes, what takes the most courage, is accepting the help of others.

THE LAST RUN
by Rachel Weaver
Lake Union, June 2026
(via Harvey Klinger, Inc.)

It’s been years since Ellie has fished the Alaskan waters—not since her mother died, not since her father took to drink, and not since the birth of her five-year-old son. She’s been living half a life, working a cubicle job in a small fishing town and drowning in debt while barely having the energy to be a single mom to Drew. When she finds her father lying in an alleyway, she learns he’s done the unforgivable. Pete has gambled away the family legacy, the fishing boat and license, and unless he can come up with fifty thousand in two months, the bookie will get everything, Pete will be homeless and Ellie and her son will be stuck in the grinding cycle of poverty. Ellie agrees to fish the season with her dad, bringing Drew on the boat as they chase the pipe dream of making enough money to pay off the debt. Ellie is used to the 20-hour days and the back-breaking work, and she’s used to risking her life to find the biggest catch. What she’s not used to is accepting help from others, and definitely not from a secretive homesteader who seems to have demons of his own. Ellie’s growing attraction and the dangerous Alaskan waters are the least of her worries, though. Because Ellie is hiding secrets of her own and, as the date with the bookie draws closer, she is at risk of losing it all.

THE LAST RUN is a story of family, resilience, and hard work. It’s about fiercely independent people doing the best they can and coming to the hard truth that sometimes, what takes the most courage, is accepting the help of others. Featuring a woman fighting against the limits of her existence and whose story is shaped by her relationships with the natural world, it would appeal to the same audience as Della Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing, Shelley Read’s Go As A River, Julia Phillips’ Bear and novels by Charlotte McConaghy.

Rachel Weaver is the author of Point of Direction (Ig Publishing, 2014), which Oprah Magazine named a « Top Ten Book to Pick Up Now.” It was chosen by the American Booksellers Association as a Top Ten Debut for Spring 2014, by IndieBound as an Indie Next List Pick, by Yoga Journal as one of their Top Five Suggested Summer Reads and it won the 2015 Willa Cather Award for Fiction. Prior to earning her MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University, Rachel worked for the Forest Service in Alaska studying bears, raptors, and songbirds. She is on faculty at Regis University’s MFA program and Wilke’s University’s MFA program, and her work has appeared in The Sun, Gettysburg Review, Blue Mesa Review, Alaska Women Speak, and Fly Fishing New England.

WILD ASTER d’Anna Hogeland

A powerful portrait of an unforgettable woman with a talent for survival, whose life spans the early twentieth century, from a writer acclaimed for her “unwavering passion and insight” (Jess Walter, NYT bestselling author of The Cold Millions)

WILD ASTER
by Anna Hogeland
Bloomsbury, December 2026
(via DeFiore and Co.)

Mae Smith starts her life as a stolen good: her biological mother, Ida, kidnaps her from her adoptive parents, and Mae grows up on the run, constantly changing towns and names, never able to find a home. After her mother’s death, Mae is determined to live a different kind of life. But over the next half century, as she reinvents herself against the backdrop of the Depression and Second World War and pursues stability amid the personal upheavals of marriage and motherhood, she must reckon with the choices she’s made and life’s inexorable turns.

For readers of Zorrie by Laird Hunt, The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott, and The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant, Wild Aster explores the price of security, the drive to be a different mother than your own, and the daily gains and losses that define who we become. Ultimately, Mae’s story challenges us to confront the choices we make for personal fulfillment and family obligation and the perseverance that even a seemingly ordinary life demands.

Anna Hogeland is the author of the novel The Long Answer (Riverhead, 2022). She is a psychotherapist in private practice, with an MSW from Smith College School for Social Work and an MFA from UC Irvine. Her essays have appeared in Literary Hub, Big Issue, Gloss Magazine, Romper, and elsewhere. She lives in Massachusetts.

GODS OF THE HOLLOW WILD de Michael Sala

In the tradition of Justin Cronin, prize-winning author Michael Sala has created a breathtaking new fantasy series with an absorbing cast of flawed heroes and heroines. With its propulsive narrative, and its epic world-building, The Hollow Wild series is set to become a publishing sensation.

GODS OF THE HOLLOW WILD
(The Hollow Wild, Book One)
by Michael Sala
Text Publishing, February 2027

The world is fractured. Every night, the Shroud rises from the cracks, a dread mist that devours souls…Or transforms them.

Isa was always viewed with suspicion in her village. Partly because her mother was a foreigner, partly because Isa fell into the Shroud as a child and survived. This animosity has smouldered away, fanned by the village Seer. And when Isa’s father can no longer protect her, she has only the forest for refuge.

Dio’s family is poor, but she knows that when the time comes she will be chosen, elevated to the Weaver caste and trained for mighty deeds. But when her father sells her to a city crime lord to pay his gambling debts, Dio will have only two options: kill or die.

Kyron is destined for greatness. As a Second of the Hyrarchs, he will eventually take his place among the half-dozen most powerful people in the world. Until an act of shocking violence destroys his innate powers, and his life is upended. Now he has to decide who he will betray in order to survive.

These three people, living in different places and times, have never met. But a time of crisis is coming for their world. Between them, they hold its future in their hands.

“The story is a huge feat of imagination, the narrative drags you in powerfully, and the characters are subtly drawn but heroic. It hits all the right notes and just the right amount of new ones – everyone here who’s read any fantasy thinks it is up there with best in class.” (Mandy Brett, senior editor)

Michael Sala is a prize-winning Australian author, whose earlier works have been praised by many, including Raimond Gaita and Hannah Kent. He was born in the Netherlands in 1975 to a Greek father and a Dutch mother, and first came to Australia in the 1980s. His critically acclaimed debut, The Last Thread, won the 2013 NSW Premier’s Award for New Writing and was the regional winner (Pacific) of the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize.