From Sally Rooney to Percival Everett, here is the fiction we've loved this year.
Drawing euphoric reviews from both the national press and our booksellers, Sally Rooney's Intermezzo was widely hailed as her best novel yet - no mean feat considering she is the author of Normal People and Conversations with Friends. Other novels published this year that captured the richness and complexity of modern life came from authors as diverse as Jacqueline Wilson, Rumaan Alam and Andrew O'Hagan amongst many others.
Two brothers navigate the turmoil and joy of love after the passing of their father in this breathtaking novel from the hugely acclaimed author of Normal People and Conversations With Friends.
Written with Nicholls' trademark wit and empathy, this affecting love story from the author of One Day finds two lost souls thrown together on an epic coast to coast walk.
Featuring the characters from her beloved Girls series of children's novels as adults, Jacqueline Wilson chronicles a life on the cusp of change in this engaging and warm-hearted story all about making the most of the unexpected.
The celebrated author of Norwegian Wood and 1Q84 returns with a characteristically inventive and playful novel that shifts the boundaries of time and space, as a town’s Dream Reader takes over from a ghost as a librarian in a Fukushima province.
A tragi-comic tour de force from the acclaimed author of The Flamethrowers and The Mars Room, Kushner's parodic spy yarn-cum-novel of ideas centres on a gang of radical eco-activists, their charismatic leader and the glamorous undercover agent sent to infiltrate their commune.
A searingly insightful state-of-the-nation novel from the author of the former Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year Mayflies, Caledonian Road sees the worlds of a celebrated London professor and his provocative student collide in a gripping tale of power, privilege and the hypocrisy of the liberal elite.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author delivers another luminous tale of human bonds and the search for the meaning of life, as Lucy Barton befriends the town lawyer who has become enmeshed in a murder investigation and finally also meets the legendary Olive Kitteridge.
From the revered author of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and Piranesi comes a bewitching seasonal novella about a young woman who can talk to animals and the mysterious events that befall her in the woods.
The incomparable Ali Smith returns with a characteristically oblique and audacious tour de force revolving loosely around the concept of resistance in a dystopian society.
The author of the seminal Leave the World Behind delivers a wire-taut and scabrous thriller about the devastating effect of avarice, as an ambitious young Black woman and an ageing white billionaire reach a disturbing accommodation.
Finally published, this great final novel from the titan of Latin American fiction is a masterful dissection of sensuality, desire and regret that centres on a married woman who takes a new lover on one day every year.
From the bestselling author of Happy Place and Book Lovers comes another witty and romantic tale, as two wronged exes hatch a plan to make their former partners' lives hell.
The superstar author of the Rachel novels delivers a hilarious and affecting standalone story about another of the Walsh sisters - Anna, who trades the high life in Manhattan for a small Irish coastal town and the allure of an old flame.
Combining an urgent message about the state of our planet - and us humans - with luminous hope and a refusal to sink into despair, the author of former Book of the Month The Western Wind delivers an affectionate, deeply human saga of six astronauts in space reflecting on life back down on Earth.
Mining themes of guilt, forgiveness and loss, this profound, otherworldly novel from the author of The Weekend finds a woman in a secluded outback community confront three disturbing visitations.
From the author of the acclaimed Our Wives Under the Sea comes a breathlessly imaginative and insightful novel set at the end of the world, as three sisters gather to administer their late architect father's estate.
From the acclaimed author of The First Bad Man comes a wry, intimate portrait of female reinvention, as a 45-year-old woman begins a new life in a nondescript American motel.
The master of evocative and sensual fiction delivers a heat-hazed paean to love and longing set on the Amalfi Coast, as a group of college friends invite an elegant, white-bearded stranger to lunch.
In strikingly beautiful prose, Footman's luminous debut interweaves the stories of three women in suburban Surrey, London and Tokyo to explore grief, identity and the politics of desire.
Continuing the heartwarming tales from Satoru and Momoko's astounding Tokyo emporium, Yagisawa's sequel to the bestselling Days at the Morisaki Bookshop finds niece Takako in charge as her aunt and uncle embark upon a holiday.
Dark, mischievous and full of verve, Akbar's electrifying debut follows a newly sober poet adrift in the American Midwest, trying to come to terms with his mother's tragic death decades prior, as the mystery of who she really was begins to unravel.
The beloved author of The Midnight Library and How to Stop Time returns with another beautifully wrought and inspiring novel of wild adventure and deep transformation.
The bestselling author of Cleopatra & Frankenstein delivers another enthralling examination of the intricacies of human nature and love, as three siblings from different corners of the world reunite in New York to mourn the loss of their fourth sister.
A breathtaking feat of literary collaboration, Fourteen Days is a spellbinding, Decameronesque novel set in an Lower East Side apartment building at the beginning of the pandemic, with each of its characters written by a different author from a star-studded cast of contributors including Margaret Atwood, Dave Eggers and Celeste Ng.
The master of the timely grand narrative returns with the characteristically intelligent and engrossing story of four individuals on an island in French Polynesia as it is chosen for the revolutionary purpose of seasteading.
Utterly hilarious, ruthless and mesmerisingly original, this delicious debut follows a Maori-Russian-Catalonian family's two titular children navigating multiracial identity, queerness and unattainable love interests in present-day New Zealand.
Blending state-of-the-nation novel, cosy crime caper and coming-of-age story with Coe's characteristic elan, The Proof of My Innocence spins a genre-hopping tale of political extremists, forgotten novels and murdered academics.
This product is currently unavailable online. Click to be notified when it is back in stock or to collect in store.
Enter your email below and we will notify you when this item is next available to order.
The Proof of My Innocence: Signed Edition (Hardback)
£20.00
Thank you
we will contact you when this item is next available to order
From Ancient Greece to the Victorian Shetland Islands, the past was brought to vivid life by a whole host of accomplished authors in 2024. Sail down the Mississippi with Percival Everett, search for a pirate captain with Kate Mosse or stage a classical tragedy with Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize winner Ferdia Lennon; explore our brilliant selection of the year's best historical fiction.
Set in the Sicily of 412 BC, Lennon's at once riotously funny and incredibly moving novel finds two locals and a bunch of captured Athenian soldiers staging two of Euripides’ greatest tragedies in a quarry.
A breathtakingly accomplished retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of the enslaved Jim, Everett's tour de force reclaims the character's voice from the literary margins with power, precision and dazzling wit.
From the celebrated author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World comes an exquisitely constructed meditation on love, loss, and memory centred on three figures living on the banks of the River Thames and the River Tigris.
From the author of the bestselling Clytemnestra comes another intoxicating excursion into ancient history, as Casati reimagines the rise to power of the Assyrian empire's only female ruler, Semiramis.
From the bestselling author of Mad Honey comes a sweeping and insightful novel of female identity and inequality set in both Elizabethan England and present-day Manhattan, as two women centuries apart struggle to assert their artistic expression in a sphere dominated by men.
The final instalment of the sweeping Joubert Family Chronicles spans centuries as two descendants of the dynasty seek answers about the disappearance of a third, who vanished from the Cape of Good Hope in the early seventeenth century.
Set in the American West of the 1890s, this expansive yet psychologically intimate novel from the author of Night Boat to Tangier tracks the dangerously forbidden affair between a torrid young balladeer and the wife of a devout and powerful mine captain.
The breathtaking, psychologically complex sequel to Barker’s bestselling The Women of Troy sees Cassandra - the captured daughter of the king of Troy - arrive in Mycenae, setting in motion a bloody train of events involving King Agamemnon, his wife Clytemnestra and daughter Electra.
Dark and captivatingly told, Davies' intimate Shetland-set historical drama about the connections forged between strangers is a love letter to landscape, hope and human relationships.
Richly evocative of Renaissance Murano, this beguiling novel from the author of the bestselling The Girl with a Pearl Earring focuses on a virtuoso glass blower who struggles to be accepted in a patriarchal world.
Releasing Hera from her eternal reputation as a cruel and vengeful stepmother, this luminous retelling from the author of Ariadne and Elektra casts fresh light on the indomitable Greek queen of gods.
A breathtaking tale of loyalty, persecution and betrayal, this mesmeric retelling of Medea from the author of Medusa breathes fresh life into Greek mythology's perhaps darkest heroine.
Brimming with intrigue, danger and ruthless power games, the first instalment in a new trilogy from Iggulden's masterful pen revolves around Empress Agrippina's ambitious project of turning her son Nero into the ruler of all Rome.
Centring around a young maid in a much-lauded politician's house, Musson's magnificent period novel weaves a dark and thrilling tale of intrigue, power and complicity reminiscent of the finest nineteenth-century gothic novels.
As ever, the previous century has proven fertile ground for novelists this year. Whether dissecting the fall-out of war and conflict with Anne Michaels and Josie Ferguson, delving into mid-century America with Colm Toibin and Amor Towles or revisiting the social transformations of the 1960s with Andrew Miller and Yael van der Wouden, find your next favourite read below.
Spanning half a century and written with Hollinghurst's trademark eloquence and insight, Our Evenings traces the journey of Dave Win from boarding school childhood to an artistic flourishing in experimental theatre, against the backdrop of an ever-changing Britain.
Comprising six New York-set short stories and a novella rooted in Golden Age Hollywood, this mesmerising collection from the pen of the A Gentleman in Moscow author centres on the fateful consequences of brief encounters.
An ethereal, haunting novel with a howl of screaming rage at its core, van der Wouden's extraordinary debut sees tensions between two women in early-60s rural Netherlands reach boiling point over the course of a sweltering summer.
From the author of former Waterstones Book of the Year, The Essex Serpent, comes an intricately crafted exploration of love, religion and the supernatural, as two friends become obsessed with the ghost of a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer.
At once a literary nod to Mann's The Magic Mountain and a fierce feminist parable, Tokarczuk's deliciously piercing novel set in Poland on the eve of the First World War centres on a remote Guesthouse for Gentlemen whose surroundings become blighted by sinister events.
From the author of the bestselling Fleishman Is in Trouble comes a sharp and poignant exploration of legacy, family and wealth, charting four decades’ worth of repercussions that follow the kidnapping of a New York businessman.
A poetic, intricate exploration of war, injury and home from the author of the acclaimed Fugitive Pieces, Held jumps backwards and forwards in time as the devastation felt by an invalided WWI soldier recurs through generations.
Moving between WW2 Germany and Cold War Berlin, this hauntingly beautiful debut about a mother separated from her baby boy and the daughter who years later tries to reunite the family is a quietly powerful study in trauma, hope, and individual lives altered by seismic historical moments.
This immersive, multi-layered novel from the bestselling author of Small Pleasures follows an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital in 1960s Croydon who decides to unravel the story of an immensely talented mute patient.
Following three Libyans in London, My Friends is a deeply compassionate and eye-opening novel about exile, the price of freedom and the immeasurable value of human connection from the award-winning author of The Return and A Month in Siena.
From the author of Restless and Any Human Heart comes an exquisitely crafted espionage novel about a travel writer drawn into his brother's shadowy orbit when he is asked to purchase a particular painting in Cadiz.
From the masterful pen of the author of Pure and Oxygen comes a painfully acute dissection of resentment and betrayal, as two couples find themselves cut off from the rest of the world during the devastating winter of 1962.
Comments
There are currently no comments.