12 New Novels To Fall For This Autumn
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19 minutes ago
All the leaves are brown, and the books are piling up
Nothing sounds quite so tempting as a long evening tucked up on the sofa leafing through a gripping book. Throw in a hot drink, a flickering candle and a cosy blanket, and you have all the makings of a night well spent.
Which book will capture your attention? As autumn unfurls, plenty of new titles are hitting the shelves, while quieter summer releases are set to hit peak popularity as we inch closer to (whisper it) the Christmas shopping rush.
Whether it’s historical fiction, a whirlwind romance or something haunting for spooky season, here are our top reading picks for autumn 2026.
New Novels Coming Out This Season
Land by Maggie O’Farrell
It hit the shelves as summer commenced, but Maggie O’Farrell’s latest work seems more fit for summer’s end. Pulling us back to 19th century Ireland with the same intimacy and intricacy that captivated Hamnet readers, Land is a multigenerational tale of separation, longing, recovery and survival, told through father and son, Tomas and Liam, who are on course to map the entirety of Ireland for the Ordnance Survey. Out now
Tinder Press, hardback, £25
Sophie Standing There by Meg Mason
The bestselling author of Sorrow and Bliss returns with a sharp yet achingly tender story of obsession and loneliness. We centre on Sophie, a lovely friend, sister and colleague who yet finds herself in a well of solitude. Sometimes she goes an entire day without speaking. But she finds solace in reading, and feels a spark of passion when she stumbles across an author she hasn’t read in a while. Soon, her books, interviews and podcasts are a lifeline, and Sophie longs for nothing more than to meet her. Out now
Bloomsbury, hardback, £16.99
Voyagers by Meg Charlton
When planet Earth’s politics get messy, look up. For fans of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven, Voyagers opens with a mysterious Signal – a pulsing transmission suggesting human contact with the extra terrestrial is finally, terrifyingly imminent. Who would you want by your side when it seems like the world might end? For Alex, it’s Ana, a childhood friend he shares a foundational experience with: disappearing for 36 hours as six-year-olds in Palm Springs, and swearing it was an alien abduction. Out now
The Borough Press, hardback, £16.99
Taipei Story by Rebecca F. Kuang
She is prolific. First came the Poppy War trilogy, then came Babel, then Yellowface, then Katabasis – all in almost consecutive years. Where Yellowface was a scathing tale spinning out of the publishing industry, Taipei Story, which marks Kuang’s return to the phenomenological realm, was penned in the wake of the death of her grandfather. Described as a coming-of-age rumination on grief, pegged for fans of Sally Rooney and Coco Mellors, we centre on Lily, a Yale student taking a summer of study at the National Taiwan University, where she is hoping to work on her Chinese language and find her Chinese self. 8 September
HarperCollins, hardback, £22
Switzy by Emma Cline
Already longlisted for the Booker Prize, this is the book to be seen reading this season. Lauded by authors, we are told to expect a heartbreaking, elegiac portrait of an ageing modern man’s final days – and his final choices. Retired executive David is weighted with the fact of his deteriorating mind, and as such is on a pilgrimage to Zurich by way of dinner with his adult daughter in London and a meeting in France with an old friend. 10 September
Chatto & Windus, hardback, £18.99
Exit Party by Emily St John Mandel
Bestselling author of Station Eleven (2014), The Glass Hotel (2020) and Sea of Tranquility (2022), Canadian author Emily St John Mandel returns with Exit Party, centring on a disappeared man in the near future. We’re in Los Angeles, 2031. The Republic of California has declared independence, and everyone in the city is going to a party. Ari, newly released from prison, heads out with her friend Gloria – and encounters something very wrong, something that hangs over her new life in Paris years later. 17 September
Picador, hardback, £18.99
Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley
Nothing says autumn quite like a murder mystery – better still, one of Agatha Christie’s. It’s taken a long time for the late Queen of Crime’s estate to trust another author to take the baton and carry the flame of her timeless detectives. But Lucy Foley is certainly up to the challenge. High in the Swiss Alps, the Grand Alpine Hotel draws moneyed guests from far and wide. But when one guest enters a gondola alive only to be found dead at the top of the mountain, it’s clear there’s a murderer in their midst. Luckily Miss Marple is on the case. 22 September
HarperCollins, hardback, £22
Stations by Louise Kennedy
Louise Kennedy’s 2022 debut Trespasses was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and we are falling just as hard for Stations which opens back in 1982 Ireland and moves to London, tracing two decades of friendship, loyalty, secrets and love between Róisín McCaffrey and Red Camelin. Based on much of Kennedy’s own youth in London, it touches on identity and addiction and hones in on the pummelling weight of past choices on our present lives. 24 September
Bloomsbury, hardback, £20
Doom Painting by AK Blakemore
If there’s a season for historical fiction, it’s autumn – and in Doom Painting, AK Blackmore whisks us all the way back to the peasants’ revolt of 1381. Chronicling the 16-day affair in painstaking detail, this inventive story is filtered through two childhood friends who ride into Brentwood, Essex, and there find local nobility bent on squeezing coin from the masses. 24 September
Granta, hardback, £20
Partitia by Barbara Kingsolver
The only two-time Women’s Prize winner returns after the whopping success of Demon Copperhead in 2022. This time she has a less bombastic tale to tell, that of gifted pianist Livia who uses music to escape the sadness of her rural Tennessee life, shadowed by the untimely death of her older brother. When Livia starts college, she glimpses new life and new hope – and a man with his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow. 8 October
Faber & Faber, hardback, £20
Bad Words by Ríoghnach Robinson
With love from Emily Henry, Beth O’Leary and more of romance’s hottest names right now, Bad Words is set to be the unputdownable love story of the season. Peeking inside New York’s literary bubble, we centre on Selina Chan, the city’s fiercest critic, and novelist Parker Navarro, whose professional feud spirals into a viral spectacle. Questioning the ethics of criticism and the cultural appetite for media takedowns, Bad Words is also a slow-burn love story; think Emily Henry worthy enemies-to-lovers. 8 October
HarperCollins, hardback, £16.99
Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus
The Lessons in Chemistry author is finally back with another zippy, grippy tale that whisks us back into a past peopled with an eccentric cast of characters. It’s 1982, NYC, and recent graduate and poetry enthusiast Batter Gray is in dire need of a job. So when he scores a role at Peck & Peck, the most prestigious poetry quarterly in the world, he is pleased to be whisked off his feet and plummeted in the literary fastlane. There he discovers a secret feud between the magazine’s editors – the twin Peck brothers – and finds himself privy to the private affairs of their 39 editors. 27 October
Bonnier Books, hardback, £22
