Books to Look Out For in March 2026: Part One

We’re on the home strait, heading towards spring here in the UK with some interesting fiction to ease us along although I wasn’t entirely sold on March’s first title.

Quite a lot of pre-publication brouhaha around Eliana Ramage’s ambitious debut, To the Moon and Back, which follows Steph who arrives with her sister in Oklahoma after her mother fled their violent father, telling them he died in an accident. As they grow up Kayla happily fits in while Steph single-mindedly focusses on her ambition to walk on the moon. When she’s accepted as an astronaut candidate, it’s the first step on a long arduous path that sees her family and career clash in a way that endangers both. From her author’s note, it’s clear that many of the incidents in Ramage’s novel are based in fact and although I enjoyed it, I felt her research got the better of her. Review soon…

Tayari Jones’s new novel Kin sees two women born on the same day in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, neither of whom will know their mothers. They grow up against a background of segregated America in the ‘50s and ‘60s, both leaving their home town but whereas Vernice looks to the future Annie’s decision to try to find her mother proves to be a dangerous one from which she needs to be rescued. ‘Tayari Jones returns with an exuberant, richly told novel about mothers and daughters, about a lifelong friendship, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South’ promises the blurb. I enjoyed both Jones’s Women’s Prize for Fiction winner, An American Marriage, and Silver Sparrow so have hopes for this one.

Set over a Manhattan summer, Brandon Taylor’s Minor Black Figures follows Wyeth, a black artist who earns enough from a gallery gig and grunt work for an art restorer to pay for his walk-up apartment and studio space but is stalled in his own work. After visiting the glitzy MangoWave opening, the latest in what he considers to be identity grift art, he meets Keating who does ‘a little of this, a little of that’. A back and forth of texts leads to much agonising from Wyeth unsure about the interest of this striking white man who seems drawn to churches on their walks around the city. Taylor mercilessly lampoons the preciousness, greed and hustling of the art world in this elegantly expressed novel reminding me of Hari Kunzru’s takedown of Brit art in Blue Ruin. Review to follow…

Spanning thirty-five years, Kiran Millwood-Hargrave’s Almost Life follows Laure and Erica who meet one summer morning in 1978 on the steps of Sacré Coeur when Erica smiles at Laure after spotting they’re reading the same book. She’s spending August alone in Paris before university. Several years older, Laure is studying for a doctorate at the Sorbonne, dishevelled, confident and sizing Erica up as a potential lover. Hargrave’s richly immersive love story hinges on coincidence and miscommunication, so that we’re left after each seven-yearly meeting wondering if this will be their last. A novel to savour. Review shortly…

It’s a decade since I reviewed Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s The Nest with its supremely dysfunctional family. In Lake Effect a mid-life fling with a neighbour is a thrilling adventure for Nina but throws her daughter badly off kilter just as she’s becoming an adult, unable to put the scandal behind her even in later life despite her successful career. A family wedding results in a decision which precipitates another unravelling. ‘Written with Cynthi a D’Aprix Sweeney’s signature humour and insight, Lake Effect is a wise and probing look at love and desire, mothers and daughters, loss and grief, and what we owe the people we love most’ says the blurb suggesting another well turned-out piece of entertainment.

Australian author M. L. Stedman’s A Far-flung Life begins in 1958 with a family tragedy from which there’s only one survivor. Matt is injured so badly he will take many months to recover, returning to the MacBride homestead irascible, unpredictable and beset by memory problems, leaving his sister wracked with guilt at having persuaded him to take her place that day. Stedman’s compassionate, engrossing novel is full of secrets, the family’s fate pivoting on a fundamental one. The ending was a little too neat and tidy for me but the journey to it was so enjoyable I’m not going to quibble. Review to come…

I’ve had more success with Lauren Groff’s novels, particularly Matrix, than her first short story collection but I’ll be trying again with Brawler which includes stories whose settings range widely from the ‘50s to the present day, and from New England to Florida to California, exploring the battle between our dark and light sides. ‘Precise, surprising and provocative, anchored by profound insight into human nature, Brawler reveals the repeated fracture points between love and fear, compassion and violence, reason and instinct, altruism and survival. It is a timeless, stunning achievement from one of the very best short story writers working today’ says the blurb, somewhat ambitiously.

That’s it for March’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 soon…