Paperbacks to Look Out For in February 2026: Part One

The first instalment of February’s paperback preview begins with one that slipped through my net when it was first published. Rupert Dastur’s debut, Cloudless, is set in rural Wales where in 2004 Catrin and John wait for their older son to return from Iraq, horrified at his decision to enlist. The appearance of an old flame in their small town unsettles Catrin further, already struggling with what to do about her troubled younger son and the uncertainty of the family finances with John taking increasing risks. ‘Written in luminous, exquisitely calibrated prose, Cloudless is a masterful portrayal of the fragility and resilience of human connection’ says the blurb, promisingly.

Jessica Soffer’s This is a Love Story is about a long marriage between an artist and a writer who met in 1967, played out against a New York City background. Abe became a prize-winning author while Jane excelled in every artistic medium she worked, overwhelmed by an episode of postnatal depression which only re-immersion in her art eased. Now, in their final days together, no chance of another remission from the cancer first diagnosed when Max was only five, Jane devotes what little energy she has to recounting her memories of their past to Abe. Largely made up of short episodic paragraphs, Soffer’s novel is quite beautiful at times, conveying the depth of this relationship between two people, deeply enmeshed in each other’s lives, one aware that he will soon be left alone.

Andrev Walden’s Bloody Awful in Different Ways is a slice of autofiction which begins with young Andrev, aged seven in 1983, living with the first of his seven dads, a know-it-all who likes to teach him life lessons, clipping him round the ear when they don’t sink in, a habit he also practices on Andrev’s mother. The next five aren’t much better. Andrev’s last dad is his biological father who he finally meets for the first time in Stockholm. What seems to save him is his friend’s family, solid and generous, welcoming him on summer holidays and so many sleepovers it’s as if he and the boy he calls Cyclops share a room. Walden’s journalism has been described as making his readers ‘laugh and see the world, the family and ourselves in a new and slightly wiser light’, which could also be applied to his book

Georgi Gospodinov won the 2023 International Booker along with his translator, Angela Rodel, for Time Shelter. I didn’t get on with that as well as I’d expected but I’ll be trying again with Death and the Gardener which sees a son reporting on the progress of his father’s beautiful garden as he lies on his deathbed. ‘A novel about a father, a son, and an orphaned garden in a fading world that spans from ancient Ithaca to present-day Sofia, interweaving the botany of sorrow, the consolations of storytelling and the arrival of the first tulips of spring’ says the blurb which sounds rather lovely.

February’s first paperback short story collection is Curtis Sittenfeld’s Show Don’t Tell. Themes of marriage and female friendship are explored in twelve stories including an awkward school reunion for Lee Fiora, who some readers may remember from Prep. ‘Sittenfeld skewers our assumptions about fame, marriage and celebrity. Laying bare on the page what we’re all thinking but hesitate to say, she explores women’s lives at the intersection of sex, love, ambition and the entangled pursuit of a fulfilling life’ says the blurb. Looking forward to getting stuck into this one although it didn’t quite live up to Kate’s (very high) expectations. Her review’s here.

That’s it for the first batch of February’s paperbacks. A click on a title will take you either to my review or to a more detailed synopsis should you want to know more. If you’d like to catch up with new fiction, it’s here and here.