Sandra Newman is co-author of How Not To Write A Novel. She is the author of the novels The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done and Cake, as well as the memoir Changeling. She has taught writing and literature at Temple University, Chapman University, and the University of Colorado, and has published fiction and non-fiction in Harper's, Granta, and London's Observer, Telegraph, and Mail on Sunday newspapers, among other journals and newspapers.
The Naked Light (2025) Bridget Collins "A spine-chillingly scary romance and a heartwarmingly romantic horror novel, with serious things to say about how the trauma of war spreads beyond those who fight it to those who try to help them, those who miss their help and companionship, and those who deal with the violence they bring back with them from the front. It has genuinely frightening monsters (not the least of which is war itself) and heroines whose love story is profoundly affecting because it's so real. I raced through it at breakneck speed even as I wished it would go on forever. Beautifully written, thrillingly imagined, and a joy on every page."
A Little Trickerie (2024) Rosanna Pike "A Little Trickerie has a big heart, a subversive wit, and the most lovable protagonist I've come across in years. It's funny, linguistically inventive, and angry about all the right things, dealing deftly with a slew of serious issues-class, homophobia, homelessness, religious faith. I tore through it and enjoyed every page. A thrilling, joyous, intoxicating debut."
Clinical Intimacy (2024) Ewan Gass "Clinical Intimacy is a fascinating exercise in understanding a life through the shadows it casts in other people's lives. It asks us whether great kindness can be a pathology, or if it is just pathologized by people to whom it is alien. Beautifully conceived and written, psychologically and politically acute, this is a debut of great breadth and power."
The Sleepwalkers (2024) Scarlett Thomas "The Sleepwalkers is never-endingly surprising and full of keen observations on relationships, politics, and art. Thomas makes real life so fraught with meaning, it feels hauntingly supernatural. A twisty Gothic tale of vertiginous depths and haunting power."
Drowning Practice (2022) Mike Meginnis "Drowning Practice is a magical, enigmatic novel about a society haunted by the foreknowledge of its imminent death. It's beautiful and often very funny but most of all profoundly compassionate, and also has one of the most insightful depictions I've ever seen of an abusive relationship. I loved it."
Be Here to Love Me at the End of the World (2022) Sasha Fletcher "A big-hearted, brainy, garrulous novel that is maybe the truest document yet of our life in the neverending end times. Stylistically, it's a marvel. Every page is full of sentences that deliver a knock-out punch. It's also that rare love story that tells you what love is like from the inside, on the long snowy Sundays of dystopian America, when lovers really get down to business. Fletcher talks about how 'the city always leaves the lights on at night. In case the angels come.' This book is one of the lights left on in case the angels come."
The Great Mistake (2021) Jonathan Lee "The Great Mistake is a great novel of 19th-century New York and the meaning of success, which makes the quietest moments of its hero's life as memorable as the bordellos and the murders. A magical escape from the 21st century that sent me back feeling wiser and more hopeful."
The Manningtree Witches (2021) A K Blakemore "This book is extraordinary first for the richness of the language, which is partly born from a remarkably sensitive use of 17th century English but is also brilliantly Blakemore's own. Her heroines are real, thinking people, sometimes petty and self-interested, sometimes courageous and generous, and often startlingly funny. She masterfully shows us a world where witchcraft feels absolutely real to real people, but where it can also be a cynical lie used to weaponize malice and misogyny--a phenomenon that feels frighteningly topical in the era of QAnon and Pizzagate. The Manningtree Witches is not just the best debut novel I've read in years, it's the best historical novel I've read since Wolf Hall."
Shuggie Bain (2020) Douglas Stuart "Shuggie Bain is an intimate and frighteningly acute exploration of a mother-son relationship and a masterful portrait of alcoholism in Scottish working class life, rendered with old-school lyrical realism. Stuart is a writer who genuinely loves his characters and makes them unforgettable and touching even when they're at their worst. He’s also just a beautiful writer; I kept being reminded of Joyce’s Dubliners. I loved this book."
The Paper Wasp (2019) Lauren Acampora "The Paper Wasp was a crazy joy ride of a novel; a bold and joyous take on female friendship, outsider ambition and the secret powers of loners. It gives us a heroine who is selfish, weird, manipulative, and sometimes just plain nasty, and makes us root for her with all our selfish, weird, manipulative, and nasty hearts. I loved every second of it."
