The Most Anticipated Fiction of 2026

A stunning, fierce collection from a master of the short story and one of the most important writers of our time. Precise, surprising, and provocative, anchored by profound insight into human nature, Brawler reveals the repeated, sometimes heartbreaking turning points between love and fear, compassion and violence, reason and instinct, altruism and what it takes to survive.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author and two-time Pulitzer winner Colson Whitehead, an exuberantly entertaining novel that brings to life 1980s New York in the magnificent final volume of his Harlem Trilogy.

A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage — Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a sad, funny, thrilling novel about sex, consumerism, class, desire, loneliness, the internet, rage, intimacy, power, and the (oftentimes misguided) lengths we’ll go to in order to get what we want.

Pulitzer Prize-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout’s new novel tells the story of a chance incident that sparks a powerful realization in a beloved teacher’s life — a poignant meditation on loneliness, friendship, parenthood, and the importance of truth in a capsizing world.

The New York Times bestselling author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette returns to form in her most exuberant and life-affirming novel yet with the story of one woman’s cheerful determination to live a life of the mind only to have the heart force its way in.

An electric novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo, taking place at the bedside of an oil company CEO in the twilight hours of his life as he is ferried from this world into the next.

The award-winning, bestselling author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait, returns with a soaring historical novel set in Ireland in the years before and after the Great Hunger. Land is a novel about separation and reunion, tragedy and recovery, colonization and rebellion. It is a story of buried treasure, overlapping lives, ancient woodland, persistent ghosts, a particularly loyal dog, and how, when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away. As spellbinding and varied as the landscape that inspired it, Land is, above all, a story of survival, for our times, and for all time.

A gripping novel about two trailblazing women on opposite sides of the law — a prosecutor and a madam — who team up to bring down notorious mob boss Lucky Luciano in 1930s New York, from the New York Times bestselling authors of the million-copy bestseller The Personal Librarian.

Zorah Sharaf could do no wrong. Zorah Sharaf brought shame upon her family. What’s the truth? Depends on who you ask … Like a literary game of ping-pong, Good People compels the reader to reconsider what might have happened even on the previous page. Told through a kaleidoscope of perspectives, it is a riveting, provocative, and haunting story of family — sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, and the communities that claim us as family in difficult times.

A woman’s desperate flight from an Apache raid unfolds into a sweeping tale of the Mexico-U.S. border wars. Orchestrated with a stunningly imagined cast of characters, both historical and purely fictional, Now I Surrender radically recasts the story of how the West was “won.” Part epic, part alt-Western, Now I Surrender Is Álvaro Enrigue’s most expansive and impassioned novel yet.

From New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow, an irresistible story about what happens when your teenage fantasy comes true after you’re already an adult. In a smart and incisive book packed with laugh-out-loud reflections on fame, aging, marriage, and middle age, Emma Straub delivers a richly textured story that shows us real passion is never truly lost, that what we love makes us who we are, and that deep meaning can sometimes be found in a sea of screaming fans.

A provocative, fast-paced novel about two creative women — a young writer fighting to be heard and an older producer clinging to relevancy — and the age reversal treatment that intertwines both of their lives … from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Front Desk.

In this propulsive debut, a Buffalo Bills cheerleader will stop at nothing to solve the disappearance of her best friend and teammate, navigating the dark underbelly of a hardscrabble city, the grime and glamour of professional cheerleading, and her own tangled family history.

A propulsive debut novel following a has-been reality TV star and a disgraced producer who get one last shot at redemption on a show set on a remote island, only to discover that the plot twists are beyond what they ever imagined.

A trio of women bond in friendship as a neighborhood tries to seek justice from a system that has forgotten them. “The Shape of Dreams is a powerful prayer, a novel that indicts the injustice for which there is no quick solution … [It is] a song of furor and tenderness that will leave its mark” (Walter Mosley, author of the Easy Rawlins series).

Was this just a brief skirmish, or the beginning of a thirty-year feud? In the Rubinstein family, it could go either way. A kaleidoscopic portrait of a modern American family — steadfast, complicated, begrudging, and loving — from the bestselling author of Isola.

From Mieko Kawakami, award-winning author of Breasts and Eggs, comes a bold novel of sacrifice and the tumultuous bonds of sisterhood, set in the gritty Tokyo of the 1990s. A story of enduring friendship and deep betrayal, Sisters in Yellow is a masterpiece of teenage dreams and adult cruelties that confirms Mieko Kawakami as one of the great writers of her generation.

A recently laid-off golf reporter. A down-on-his-luck caddie. And a magical set of clubs once owned by Jack Nicklaus. In this funny, feel-good novel, New York Times bestselling author and former ESPN reporter Gene Wojciechowski gives us a pair of unlikely champions unlike any other.

A brilliant, sweeping, tour de force moving between the U.S. and modern India, following the illicit liaisons, real estate dramas, political ambitions, and mortal betrayals of one prominent Delhi family — from the author of the National Book Award finalist The Association of Small Bombs.

An intense, atmospheric novel about the devastating power of friendship, set against the backdrop of two cataclysmic events.

An immersive, page-turning novel about surviving as a funny woman in the male-dominated world of comedy — and what happens when the most promising female star of her generation disappears. A propulsive story of fame and friendship told through a variety of media — compiled interviews, articles, transcripts — The Midnight Show takes readers behind the scenes of the cutthroat world of comedy in 1980s New York and asks if the rush of getting a laugh is all it’s cracked up to be.

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Real Americans, a brilliant short story collection about love, life, and the anguish of becoming oneself in a time when it’s so easy to be someone else. Ranging from the sinister to the tender, these witty and expertly paced stories will have you laughing out loud one minute and reaching for your best friend the next.

On the occasion of his eightieth birthday, one of our great novelists delivers a playful and profound work about memory, love, and the writer’s endgame.

In this story of intense friendship and grit, two down-and-out teens escape their lives and chase a different future through rock-climbing — from the New York Times bestselling author of My Absolute Darling. With a magnificent gift for nature writing and a joyful appreciation for the redemptive power of friendship, Gabriel Tallent gives readers a rollicking, adrenaline-filled, and soul-searching novel about risking everything to change your life.

Meet Adam and Jules. Married for nearly twenty-five years and stuck in a rut, their futures look, well, boring. Then Adam stumbles across a box of old mixtapes he and Jules made for each other when they were young and falling in love. He dusts off his vintage stereo, inserts one of the cassettes, presses “Play,” and the unbelievable happens … With the power to travel back in time, Jules and Adam can recapture the headiness of falling in love. But they soon realize that visiting the past could be as dangerous as it is addictive, because the temptation to change just a few tiny things is irresistible. As the consequences start to spiral out of control, can they find a way back to their messy and imperfect, yet glorious, real life? Or will they lose each other forever?