Elizabeth Strout: The things we never say, Penguin Random House,

 9780241814307, hardcover, coming May 7, 2026

Elizabeth Strout has written a new, standalone novel whose protagonist Artie Dam would fit right into the characters around Olive Kitteridge. Except that Artie Dam is profoundly good, teacher of the year,  someone who has a lot to say but doesn't always say it. Which in turn has consequences.

How does Elizabeth Strout do it? I was sucked in from sentence go and sad when finishing the last page because, spoiler alarm, the book does not end on a bouncy note. Typical Strout, there is a melancholie flowing through Artie's and it seems everyone's life particularly when something profoundly happens in the middle of the book. Strout also weaves the current political development in the US into the book. 

In my view she is one of the best writers  writing about everyday life in all its cruelties with her unmissable style.  There are several sentences in the book that are so true and poignant that I had to mark them. Coming in May, thank you Penguin for the early netgalley. It was a treat.

 Salman Rushdie: The Eleventh Hour, Jonathan Cape, 9781787336056, trade paperback ( Deutsch:Die elfte Stunde, Penguin Verlag)

I working at Penguin when the "Satanic Verses" were published and we experienced the mayhem of the fatwa. Naturally i had to read "Knife" his book about the late attempt on his life that nearly killed him.

And now his latest book, " The Eleventh Hour", so very different, 5 short stories, some fairytale like, all full of imagination, moving between India, America and England, starting with two old quarrelsome men, who live next to each other in Chennai and ending with an old man whose life consists of just sitting on a piazza until he is catapulted into fame. "Oklahoma" was the most demanding  for me but so cleverly constructed, my favorites however were "Late", with a humorous ghost theme, and The Musician of Kahani. Ageing, death, love, identity and ghosts are the red thread running through all five stories.  It was such a treat and joy to submerge myself into Rushdie's masterfull storytelling.   

 Victor Suthammanont: Hollow Spaces, Counterpoint, ebook available now

"Hollow Spaces" was a NY Times Book Editors choice which prompted me to read this portrait of a flawed lawyer, the only Asian partner in a law firm, accused of having murdered his mistress, also a lawyer in his firm. 

His children Brennan and Hunter reunite years later, trying to make sense of what really happend;  their father was aquitted but never regained his life and their lives5 still overshadowed by the past, Brennan believing him to be innocent, her brother not.  The terminal illness of their mother prompts them to set out to uncover the truth. In part of course a whose done it, told in dual time lines with John Lo's and his children's voice, the narration is a finely drawn portrait of the catastrophic consequences their father's love for another woman had on their family. It is at times a heartbreaking story about discrimination, false expectations,  estrangement and does not have a glossy ending. I thought the book dragged on at times but all in all a fine psychological portrait of a tragic fall of a man and an excellent plot.

 Claire Douglas: The family friend, Michael Joseph, March 2026, hardbach and ebook

Claire Douglas is a new mystery author for me and thanks to a proof of The Family Frien, i snuggled up with this very well written mystery during a cold spell. Domestic violence is the overriding theme of this novel and the shadow it casts way beyond years when it happend. Switching between time lines and various characters,  the true story comescto light. 

Imogen, a journalist on leave, unexpectedly inherits a country house  from the artist Dorothea Roe, a woman who granted her, her mother and sister  refuge during a summer from her violent father. When they return, her mother is killed, her father accused of murder. Imogen decides to move into Dorothea's house in Bath with her boyfriend Josh where she discovers a box addressed to her igniting the investigative journalist. I will not reveal more, the book has many twist and turns,  a solid plot and i really had great fun reading The family friend.

 Eduardo Halfon: Tarantula, Penguin UK/ Hamish Hamilton,  9781405986762, paperbach, pub date March 2026

This is an extraordinary novel and I am still thinking about it, having ambivalent feelings.  Only 112 pages long it is a powerful story about what it means to be Jewish, present and past tense. Eduardo Halfon creates a masterful story, switching between a teenage and adult Eduardo, confronting his previous tormentor Salomon Blum who ran a youth camp in  Guatemala in 1984 where his US immegrated parents sent Eduardo and his brother.  At first a very normal youth camp, the tables are turned on day four where trusted Salomon Blum turns into a Nazi version as a concentration camp head. 

This disturbed me greatly when reading how the children are traumatized systematically. Eduardo's and Samuel's conversation years later about what happend and why,  steeling themselves to be Jewish in today's complex world, is thought provoking to say the least.  

 CJ Box: Battle Mountain, Penguin USa, 9780593851081, paperback, 

Started reading " Battle Mountain" before the 2025 endee and finished first day 2026. 

Picking up where the previous novel finished,  leaving Joe Pickett's neighbour Nate Romanoski's world in shreds due to the assault of their mutual enemy Axel Soledad, Battle Mountain sees Nate teaming up with another falconer Geronimo, to avenge his wife's death with Joe unaware of what is going on. True to form Joe Pickett novel, lots of action, a western of sorts but not too violent, escape reading where wrongs are rectified by a bunch of good guys. . If it were only that easy. 

Lori Inglis Hall: The Shock of the Light, pub date: February 2026, Harper Collins, trade paperback 9780008701321

"The Shock of the Light", a debut coming out in February 2026, was an absolute surprise,  truly compelling and exquisitely written.  I just had to go on reading and could not stop. The narration centers around the inseparable twins Theo and Tessa Armstrong, with a French /English heritage and begins with both of then entering WWII, Theo as a fighter pilot, Tessa on a secret mission, dropped by parachute into Nazi enemy lines in France  to join the French Resistance. What happens to them both from then shows the impact war has on individual lives, the novel stretching into the present, a tour de force of emotions and discoveries, only one of them coming back to search for the other. It is a brilliant story, based on facts with fictional liberties. Absolutely loved it.