Balle picks up her remarkable seven-part saga of a woman caught in a time loop with this stimulating account of a commune of people who are similarly stuck reliving the same day. Narrator Tara Selter, a Cologne-based rare book dealer who began repeating the 18th of November 1,891 days earlier, has been living in a vacant house in Bremen with three others she found over the course of her travels through Europe. They are joined by four more, including a couple, Peter and Sonia, who found each other after casually hooking up with a series of strangers, and whose love, now that they’ve committed to each other, unsettles Tara, who misses her husband and, given the fact that her body is aging, thinks increasingly of death. More people stuck in time loops find them, and as they hold meetings in which the agenda items range from household chores to philosophical questions, such as whether they should view their condition as an opportunity to help others, or if they’re “monsters” drawing too much on the world’s resources, Balle continues to expand on themes introduced in earlier entries. Near the end, a miraculous new development occurs. This will leave readers counting down the days to the next installment. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Oliva (Forget Me Not) blends a quiet family drama with a spellbinding saga of extraterrestrial contact in her alluring latest. Growing up poor in the Adirondacks, Carol Girard hoped for a better life. Instead, she settled down with a dependable but emotionally cold husband in their hometown. After giving birth to their first child, Michael, four weeks early in 1980, Carol experiences debilitating postpartum depression, exhaustion, and feelings of inadequacy. A few weeks later, flashes of light and a radio signal in the sky emanating from the constellation Virgo lead scientists to theorize that aliens from the star Ross 128, 11 light years away, are communicating with Earth. Carol, born under the zodiac sign Virgo, feels connected to the aliens, which humans call Rossians. Two years later, Earth sends a reply, beaming out a picture of the solar system. Over the course of decades, the narrative tracks how Carol’s daughter, Ro, becomes an astrophysicist to decipher a message sent by the Rossians in 2005. The extended depiction of Carol’s frustrated life doesn’t quite gel with the alien story line, but the novel picks up speed with Ro on the case, and Oliva imbues the story with a genuine sense of hope that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. This will fascinate readers. Agent: Lucy Carson, Friedrich Agency. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Burns (Mercury) serves up an evocative if contrived tale of how music legends are born. In 1973, Elle Harlow is a 22-year-old rising folk singer from Appalachia, where she was taught music by a healer named Merry, who gave her a special mandolin. Shortly after her debut performance at the Grand Ole Opry, Elle disappears. In 1991, Marijohn Shaw, 18, works at her father’s gas station and makes music with her best friend, Laz. Her father, Abe, claims to be the last person to see Elle, on the same night he found Marijohn abandoned in a wicker basket and decided to raise her as his own. One night, Marijohn and Laz get together to record a video of themselves performing a song, with Laz playing the mandolin Marijohn was found with as a baby. Later, the tape is broadcast by a local TV station, after which Marijohn is visited by a mysterious woman who demands her mandolin back, setting off a chain of events that will wed Elle’s past to Marijohn’s future. Though it’s rich with Appalachian atmosphere, the novel is undone by too many preposterous plot developments and some awkward exposition. This has its moments, but it doesn’t quite take flight. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, Gernert Co. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

For his tense latest, Boyle returns to the desert terrain that has long served as a crucible and moral testing ground in his novels, including The Terranauts. Set in and around Boulder City, Nev., the story unfolds against the stark backdrop of the desert surrounding Lake Mead, a landscape that’s “empty for a reason, a negative space interposed between you and someplace you’d actually want to be.” Los Angeles physician Terry Tully has recently traveled to Nevada to take possession of his late mother’s house. Enter Bethany, a long-legged 24-year-old with “honey-colored” hair, who’s been evicted from her apartment and is looking for a place to stay. Terry and Bethany’s burgeoning romance is soured by the regular presence of Jesse, Bethany’s handsome biker ex-boyfriend. Their love triangle drives the plot, and is further complicated after Terry suffers a serious spinal cord injury from a fall while hiking and Bethany uneasily assumes the role of caregiver. When Terry makes an unexpected recovery, tensions between him and Jesse heat up, resulting in violence. None of the central characters emerges unscathed from Boyle’s piercing depictions of their transactional and self-serving behavior. This sharply observed novel will keep readers turning the pages. Agent: Georges Borchardt, Georges Borchardt, Inc. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Dorn (Exalted) spins an enjoyable if chaotic satire of celebrity culture and the dark side of fandom. At the dawn of the Covid-19 pandemic, singer Blue Velour, 38, is at the peak of her fame. Superfan Rose Lutz, 24, secures a job as Blue’s assistant and moves into the singer’s lavish home. Unbeknownst to Blue, Rose is the creator of the BlueBeards subreddit, a “QAnon-level delusional” forum dedicated to unpacking Blue’s suspected romance with her producer, Sasha. When Blue’s tour is canceled as the world goes into lockdown, she lashes out, throwing her iPhone against the wall and almost hitting her sister in the head. Quarantining with Sasha and Rose in the redwoods, Blue is seemingly “unafraid of the virus,” declaring their home a “news-free household,” and she sends Rose on unnecessary errands like buying her nail polish and candy. Despite these mundane requests, Rose believes that “for the very first time, her life was exactly what she wanted it to be.” But as Rose and Sasha become closer, Blue grows increasingly resentful of their bond, creating a rift that leads to a shocking finale. The plot meanders, and some developments are over the top, but Dorn has a fine ear for dialogue and a sharp view of a celebrity’s cosseted world. Just like its characters, this is messy and appealing in equal measure. Agent: Sarah Phair, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

An aristocratic Hungarian family copes with cascading trauma over three generations and two world wars in the extraordinary English-language debut from Swiss writer Biedermann. The gothic-tinged story begins at the turn of the 20th century, with the birth of Lajos von Lázár. Lajos’s mother, Maria, was impregnated by the family’s horse groom, Pál, a fact she keeps secret from her husband, Sándor, a baron who, along with Lajos’s six-year-old sister, Ilona, is repulsed by Lajos’s “translucent” skin, which reveals his internal organs. Pál dies in an accident shortly after Lajos is born, and Maria slips into a deep depression and dies by suicide when Lajos and Ilona are in their teens. Sándor sends the children to a Catholic boarding school on the eve of WWI, where Lajos, a sensitive and impressionable child, is sexually assaulted by another boy. After the war, Lajos marries and inherits Sándor’s title and land after he dies from falling during a drunken stupor. The couple’s two children come of age on the eve of WWII, which brings on waves of upheaval and loss during German occupation followed by Hungary’s turn to communism after the war. Biedermann artfully weaves surreal images and dramatic irony into the family tragedy, as when preteen Lajos fantasizes about escaping his life by sailing on the Titanic, only to feel “as if he himself had drowned” when he hears that it sank. This is a marvel. Agent: Marc Koralnik, Liepman Literary. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Everhart (The Road to Bittersweet) serves up a shocking tale of a reform school for “promiscuous” women in 1940s North Carolina. After 15-year-old Stella Temple is impregnated by her father, her parents take her to the State Industrial Farm Colony for Women, where she’s forced to have an abortion. Ruth Foster, a 24-year-old single woman, ends up at the Colony after she’s stopped by the local sheriff while walking to work and tests positive for a sexually transmitted disease despite claiming she’s never having sex. Landlord Josephine Littles and her female tenants are brought to the Colony following a false accusation that she was running a brothel out of her boarding house. The women vacillate between obeying the rules in hope of early release and conspiring to escape, until one resident’s shocking behavior threatens all their lives. Everhart expertly reveals the horrors of forced abortion, sterilization, and unjust imprisonment, while never losing sight of the humanity of her characters. This will stay with readers. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

Sabit debuts with an electrifying whodunit about the suspicious death of an Afghan American teen. The Sharaf family fled Afghanistan for northern Virginia, where Rahmat manages to build a fortune via a one-man gutter-cleaning business while Maryam raises their four children. They move into a mansion and send their children to exclusive schools, with visions of their older daughter, Zorah, attending an Ivy League university and becoming a Supreme Court justice. Then Zorah’s body is found in a submerged Mercedes, and her death is rumored to be an honor killing. Structured like an oral history, in which none of the Sharafs speak for themselves, the novel creates a complex portrait of the family through interviews with others in their Afghan community along with classmates, school officials, lawyers and journalists. Along the way, Sabit lays bare jealousies, rifts, and competing perceptions. For example, the first-generation immigrants interviewed describe Zorah as a girl run amok, while her classmates recall a girl who dressed modestly in gym class and wasn’t allowed to mention boys at home. While the large cast blurs together, Sabit expertly captures the cadence of her characters’ voices and the tangle of their cultural biases. This propulsive tale heralds Sabit as a writer worth keeping tabs on. Agent: Sharon Pelletier, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

Dunnigan makes a promising debut with this tale of a boy’s secret love affair with a popular male classmate at their English boarding school in the 1970s. Jean, 17, is a loner at the unconventional Compton Manor, where students care for pigs and take turns butchering a cow. The other boys come from wealthy and stable families and seem to have their futures figured out, which makes Jean feel alone, given his complicated relationship with his mother and the fact that he’s never met his father. One day, a well-liked boy named Tom approaches Jean in the pig pen and they begin meeting by the lake to smoke. As the nights at school go on, they become closer and begin experimenting sexually. In groups, Tom ignores Jean, who begins to wonder what he means to Tom, while also fighting to control his angry outbursts. As the character study unfolds, the reader learns of Jean’s troubled relationships with his mother’s boyfriends along with a painful secret kept by Tom, and the tension between the boys plays out over more fraught scenes, including a party where Tom dances with a girl. Throughout, Dunnigan paints a realistic picture of a troublesome teen outcast. There’s plenty to enjoy in this coming-of-age story. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

The unnamed narrator of Koestenbaum’s uproarious latest (after The Cheerful Scapegoat) recounts his affair with a male rabbi. Composed of 188 vignettes, ranging from a few lines to a few pages, the narrative playfully chronicles the narrator’s “up-and-down roller coaster relationship” with the “unconventional” rabbi, telling of their trysts in a New Jersey love nest, and how the rabbi lost his congregation after turning up to a bar mitzvah naked. As more secrets are revealed and the narrator’s obsession with the rabbi becomes all-consuming, a caper develops that hinges on the rabbi’s deceased son, Rockland; his wastrel nephew, whose “latent sanity” the narrator hopes to unlock; and his doting maid—none of whom are exactly who they seem. The narrator’s search for the truth leads him to a sect known as the Anti-Pontificators, a pair of brothers who make fetish jewelry, and the cemetery from which the ghosts of the rabbi’s past cling to him. As the ribald and searching quest narrative progresses, the narrator longs to know his lover completely, and eventually despairs that “I may never find my synagogue.” Perverse and perplexing, this novel is a scream. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink