Everything to the Sea (2026) Alicia Upano "With controlled, incisive prose, Alicia Upano harnesses and unleashes the fury of nature and life-defining love - and what happens when the two come in opposition. Hyper-rooted in place and the social fabric of an island community, Everything to the Sea is a story of unthinkable upheaval that tests and redefines every form of loyalty: to love, to family, to land, to the future. An arresting, profound, and fiercely beautiful debut."
I'll Be the Monster (2026) Sean Gilbert "Gilbert's narrative voice is cool and superbly controlled, overlaying a filter of nihilism on a twisted young couple's glossy Turkish vacation. Reading this daring novel is like watching a cat toying with its prey before the kill - it is as if the elitist indolence of Donna Tartt's Secret History met the millennial malaise of Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico."
Flashlight (2025) Susan Choi "A shapeshifting novel that reconfigures reality at every turn, Susan Choi's Flashlight is a powerful beam searching through the cavernous depths of alienation, of the cruel, fierce love binding a singular family, and the historical reverberations of unthinkable displacement and loss. With masterful control, Choi charts us through a journey that defies every expectation-its cumulative effect is epic, devastating, and incandescent."
Salutation Road (2025) Salma Ibrahim "A bold, intriguing act of imagination . . . Salutation Road confronts important questions about parallel existences splintered by immigration, the price of survival, and the ways migration and distance reshape blood ties and family."
Notes on Surviving the Fire (2025) Christine Murphy "A biting, savage, unflinching story of how the culture of sexual assault is systemically tolerated and tucked out of sight into the dark corners of ivory towers. Part campus satire, part murder mystery, and most importantly a tale of formidable survival, Notes on Surviving the Fire asks: who among us is a perpetrator, and how do we keep on living once we know? Christine Murphy writes with the nimbleness of a hunter: muscularly and with precision, while also propelled by undercurrents of cold, simmering fury and hot, big-hearted empathy."
And He Shall Appear (2024) Kate Van Der Borgh "Unsettling and richly atmospheric, And He Shall Appear is a bacchanalian campus noir that will keep you up at night wondering what is a trick or magic, and what is it we choose not to see. I loved this tense tale of intoxication, infatuation, and friendship, where Saltburn meets TheSecret History with a wholly original splash of the occult hiding in the shadows of Cambridge."
The Fertile Earth (2024) Ruthvika Rao "An achingly beautiful book... A spellbinding epic of land, class, and family in post-independence India. Vijaya, Krishna, Ranga, and Sree are formidable characters whose choices never fail to upend expectations, hurtling towards a future of earth-shattering emotional reverberations."
