Books to Look Out For in May 2026: Part One

Lots of new fiction to look out for in May including several by favourite authors beginning with Claire Fuller’s Hunger and Thirst which follows a group of young people who come together in the ‘80s. Sixteen-year-old Ursula’s social worker finds her a job in the post room of an art college where she meets Sue who becomes her first real friend. She’s a little spooked by Sue’s grizzly stories, becoming increasingly unsettled after her friend engineers a séance and unwilling to take part in her film based on a couple whose corpses were found in the bungalow Ursula’s squatting. Decades later, now a renowned sculptor, Ursula refuses to be interviewed for a documentary about Sue’s disappearance shortly after that night. A riveting story of madness, manipulation and suspense. Review soon…

Ana Kinsella’s Frida Slattery as Herself is a two-hander following Frida from her early acting days and John who has begun to make a name for himself as a director by the time they meet in 2006, eleven years after he first saw her perform. Over the next seventeen years, lines will blur in their creative relationship which becomes something else, one will walk away from the other, events in the outside world intervene, and success will be attained then fade before a massive risk is taken by one of them, leaving the power balance upended. I raced through this smart, funny and immersive doorstopper. Review to follow…

Very pleased to spot a new Sarah Gilmartin in the schedules having enjoyed both Service and Dinner Party. Little Vanities follows two couples, friends since university, whose lives are still closely intertwined two decades later. When one of them lands a role in Pinter’s Betrayal, it’s as if the play’s unsettling themes seep into their lives. ‘Wry, sexy and deftly observed, Little Vanities is a novel about the dangerous thrill of stepping outside the roles we’ve been given – and the distance between the lives we imagine and the ones we live’ says the blurb. Keen to read this one.

Ben Faccini’s Other People’s Children is about a family secret that surfaces when Tommaso’s grandmother is beset by troubling memories. As he becomes more unsettled by his grandmother’s revelations, Tommaso’s complicated life threatens to be upended. ‘Reaching back to the tumultuous days of the Italian resistance during the Second World War and into the domestic chaos of modern life, this is a story of the past’s long shadow, and the families we have and those we make’ says the blurb intriguingly.

Anna Quindlen’s More than Enough sees Polly given an ancestral test kit as a joke by her book club and confidantes, taken aback when she’s matched with a stranger leading her to scrutinise her family history in search of answers. ‘Written with Anna Quindlen’s trademark warmth, humor, and insight into the power of love and hope, More Than Enough explores how we find ourselves again and again through the relationships that define us’ says the slightly wishy-washy blurb which might not have caught my imagination but I’m a long time Quindlen fan.

Kathleen MacMahon’s Other People’s Lives follows two childhood friends now nearing fifty but still close despite their very different lives: Justine married Iseult’s brother twenty-five years ago and is still living where they grew up while Iseult lives abroad in an unhappy marriage. When her daughter announces her engagement, Justine is prompted to examine the choices she and her friend made. ‘From the Women’s Prize longlisted author of Nothing But Blue Sky and The Home Scar, Other People’s Lives is a captivating story about the decisions we make in a heartbeat, and their lifelong consequences’ according to the blurb. Very much like the sound of that structure, and I enjoyed MacMahon’s previous novels.

That’s it for May’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…