Books to Look Out For in February 2026: Part One

Lots of new fiction to keep those of us in the Northern Hemisphere interested through the winter months beginning with one I’m particularly keen to read. Danish writer Helle Helle’s This Should Be Written in the Present Tense was one of my books of 2014 raising hopes for they translated by Martin Aitken, a name I’ve learnt to look out for. A mother and her sixteen-year-old daughter take a daily walk through the small town of Rødby, even after the mother begins to feel unwell, talking about anything and everything besides her diagnosis and what it might mean for them. ‘they is a tender and piercing exploration of a mother–daughter relationship, brought into startling focus by Helle Helle’s distinctive, immediate prose’ says the blurb promising more of the author’s distinctive style. Very much looking forward to this one.

I was a little ambivalent about Ashani Lewis’s Winter Animals but I like the premise of Suckerfish which sees a daughter in her twenties reluctant to reconnect with her estranged bipolar mother. Kolia’s fraught relationship with her vibrant but unpredictable parent has made her wary but circumstances suggest she has no choice. ‘A painful love letter to childishness, innocence and imagination, Suckerfish scrutinises what we really owe each other’ says the blurb which sounds worth investigating.

In Patmeena Sabit’s Good People, the Sharaf family, once refugees who fled the war in Afghanistan, is now successful and well established in one of Virginia’s well-to-do neighbourhoods. When the eldest daughter dies tragically the family is both devastated and the subject of blame and speculation. ‘A kaleidoscopic, urgent narrative, told through the chorus of voices surrounding the Sharafs, Good People is a riveting, provocative and unforgettable story of community, family and identity’ according to the blurb which sounds right up my street.

Madeleine Dunnigan’s Jean is set over the sweltering summer of 1976 when Jean and Tom are pupils at Compton Manor, a boarding school for troubled boys. Prone to episodes of rage, Jean is the son of a single mother, Jewish and a scholarship boy, making him a perpetual outsider. He and Tom form a connection which will likely be trouble if discovered. ‘Spellbinding and evocative, Jean is a meditative narrative of loss and escape distilled into the heartrending story of an intense and dangerous adolescent love’ says the blurb which sounds promising. Another from the ever interesting Daunt Publishing’s list.

Set in 1999, Charleen Hurtubise’s Saoirse follows the eponymous artist who has settled in Donegal with her husband and family, hoping she’s found a place of safety. Her Dublin exhibition attracts a prestigious award together with the kind of publicity that leaves her panic stricken at the likely uncovering of ten years of buried memories and past crimes. On the run since she was seventeen, Saoirse is not at all who everyone thinks she is. ‘Exploring the fine line between dishonesty and reinvention, Saoirse is an evocative and compelling story of a woman perpetually in flight’ according to the blurb. I like the sound of that.

The premise of Alex Preston’s A Stranger in Corfu is intriguing. It’s set on the tiny Greek island of Vidos, just off the cost of Corfu, home to ex-members of MI6 living in exile, too damaged by their experiences or too compromised to live in freedom. Lots of secrets, as you can imagine, but they all rub along together until a body washes up on the beach. ‘A vivid reimagining of a real, hidden slice of the British Intelligence Service’s history, A Stranger in Corfu is an exquisitely tense and masterfully spun novel about shadowy morality, unravelled secrets and the futility of trying to outrun the past.’ promises the blurb.

That’s it for February’s first batch of new fiction. As ever, a click on a title will take you to a more detailed synopsis for any that take you fancy. Part two next week after I’m back from catching up with friends and family in London and no doubt visiting one or two bookshops.