The Ephemeric

Welcome back to The Ephemeric's 2026 Hot List. This week we will have a look at the most exciting new literature and novels you'll be reading in the coming year.


You know the spiel by now: I love to read. Reading is one of the few pursuits that reliably repays the time you give it. A great book can challenge, comfort, and expand your view of the world in ways little else can. The problem, of course, is time. Even the most enthusiastic reader has limits, and the pile of new releases never stops growing. With 2026 set to bring an especially rich crop of novels and ideas, this list is my attempt to cut through the noise and highlight the books most deserving of a place in an already crowded reading life.

So here it is: your reading list for 2026, our list of the top 10 upcoming releases from the world of literature to keep an eye on this year, starting, as always, with number 10:



10. "The Astral Library" by Kate Quinn

We begin with The Astral Library by Kate Quinn. Billed as one of the most anticipated titles of early 2026, The Astral Library weaves historical depth with speculative imagination, inviting readers into a secret trove of books that may literally transport them to other worlds. 

Alexandria Watson, shaped by a lonely childhood in foster care, has learned to trust books more than people. Juggling dead-end jobs and with college out of reach, she finds solace each night in the Boston Public Library, until she discovers a hidden door leading to a secret library overseen by an ageless, sharp-tongued Librarian, a refuge where the desperate can step directly into the worlds of their favorite books and claim entirely new lives.

Drawing on Quinn’s strength in blending richly drawn settings and immersive plotlines, the novel is poised to merge literary fantasy with layered narratives about the power and peril of stories themselves. Have you ever wished you could live inside a book? The Astral Library releases in February.

9. "Hooked" by Asako Yuzuki

The latest from celebrated Japanese author Asako Yuzuki, best known for 2017's Butter. Hooked is a razor-sharp psychological novel that dissects obsession, desire, and the quiet violence of emotional dependency.

This novel follows a young woman whose carefully ordered life begins to unravel as she falls into a relationship that is intoxicating, destabilising, and ultimately dangerous. 

With cool precision and mounting unease, Yuzuki charts how intimacy can blur into control, and how longing can become a trap of one’s own making. Elegant, unsettling, and unflinchingly perceptive, this is a slow-burn exploration of vulnerability and power that lingers long after its final page. Hooked releases in March.

8. "Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter" by Heather Fawcett

Taking a turn for the warm and whimsical, we have Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett. This enchanting, and quietly profound novel centres on a reclusive woman who runs a peculiar shelter for cats. 

Set in 1920s Montreal, this cozy fantasy follows Agnes Aubert, a fiercely organized, type-A woman who has devoted her life to running a cat rescue charity and prefers her world tidy, practical, and free of nonsense. Her carefully managed existence is upended when a forced relocation reveals that her new landlord, a grouchy, disarmingly charming magician and former would-be Dark Lord, is using the shelter as a front for his notorious and illicit magic shop.

As magic, danger, and unexpected feelings collide, Agnes must decide whether she can protect her life’s work without compromising her principles, or her heart. this releases in February.

7. "So Old, So Young" by Grant Ginder

So Old, So Young follows six college friends whose lives weave together across five milestone gatherings over twenty years, from a Lower East Side New Year’s Eve party in 2007 to suburban barbecues, destination weddings, and ultimately a funeral, revealing how time reshapes love, ambition, jealousy, and the bonds that once seemed unbreakable. 

Told through multiple perspectives with sharp wit and poignant insight, the novel captures the messy, bittersweet realities of millennial adulthood: friends moving through new cities, spouses, children, and shifting identities while clinging to memories of who they once were. 

This generation-spanning, character-driven story comes from Grant Ginder, the American novelist best known for The People We Hate at the Wedding (now a major motion picture) and other acclaimed works that blend humor with emotional depth, who brings his signature voice to a tender, reflective exploration of lifelong friendship and change. This releases in February.

6.  "The Radiant Dark" by Alexandra Oliva

Set in March 1980 in a small Adirondacks town, The Radiant Dark is a sweeping, emotionally rich novel that blends intimate family drama with speculative wonder.

Carol Girard and her husband are settling into new parenthood when an unexplained flickering light in the night sky turns out to be communication from intelligent life eleven light-years away, sparking a decades-long exchange that forever alters humanity’s sense of itself and its place in the universe. Against this backdrop of first contact and cosmic mystery, Oliva follows the lives of the Girard family over fifty years: from Carol’s spiritual quest to understand the implications of what they’ve discovered, to her son Michael’s grounded perspective and daughter Ro’s growing fascination with interstellar communication

The novel bold fusion of speculative elements with thoughtful family portraiture comes from Alexandra Oliva, the author of The Last One and Forget Me Not, known for her atmospheric storytelling and emotionally resonant characters. Scheduled to hit the shelves in April.

5. "A Far Flung Life" by M.L. Stedman

From M.L. Stedman, author of the global bestseller The Light Between Oceans, A Far-Flung Life is a sweeping, emotionally resonant family saga set in the vast outback of Western Australia in 1958. 

On an ordinary day under an unending sky, a sudden accident on a lonely road shatters the lives of the MacBride family, claiming one sibling’s life and forcing the youngest, Matt, into a moral and emotional journey without map or guide. 

As tragedy and its ripple effects unfold over decades, Stedman explores the weight of love, duty, fate, and belonging against an unforgiving landscape, asking how people endure loss, seek redemption, and find shelter from life’s storms. A Far-Flung Life is both intimate and epic, a luminous meditation on resilience and the ties that bind us. Stedman, born and raised in Western Australia and now based in London, brings the same lyricism and moral depth that made her debut a global phenomenon. Due out in March.

4. "A World Appears" by Michael Pollan

Another Feburary book. In A World Appears, Michael Pollan embarks on an expansive, deeply researched exploration of one of science’s greatest mysteries: how and why subjective experience arises in the brain. 

Tracing what he calls the “unmapped continent” of consciousness, Pollan brings together scientific, philosophical, spiritual, literary, and psychedelic perspectives to investigate how feeling, thought, and a sense of self emerge from neural processes. Along the way, he meets neuroscientists probing cutting-edge theories, biologists considering sentience in unexpected forms, and AI researchers attempting to model feeling. 

Pollan’s inquiry illuminates not only what we know about consciousness, but also how understanding it reshapes our relationship to the world and ourselves. Pollan is the author of several New York Times bestselling works of nonfiction, including How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and In Defense of Food, and is widely celebrated for combining meticulous reportage with philosophical depth and cultural insight.

3. "Villa Coco" by Andrew Sean Greer

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Andrew Sean Greer comes Villa Coco, a sun-soaked, witty coming-of-age tale set in the rolling hills of Tuscany. 

Broke, directionless, and freshly arrived from America, the unnamed young narrator takes a job as assistant to Lisabetta, known affectionately as Coco, a charismatic, fiercely independent baronessa living in a crumbling villa. Though he expects to catalogue her eclectic art and artifact collection, his real duties range from battling a marten and navigating an ancient septic system to entertaining a parade of eccentric guests and aiding Coco in her last-ditch quest to reunite with the lost love of her life. 

Told with Greer’s signature warmth, insight, and humor, Villa Coco blends lighthearted farce with a deeper meditation on friendship, youth, age, and the messy, unpredictable path to becoming who you hoped you’d be. A nice summer read to be released in June.

2. "The Ending Writes Itself" by Evelyn Clarke

In The Ending Writes Itself, six struggling authors are invited to a secluded Scottish island with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: finish the final, unfinished manuscript of reclusive bestselling novelist Arthur Fletch and walk away with a life-changing publishing deal and prize money. 

Upon arrival they discover that Fletch is already dead and must compete over 72 intense hours to craft an ending worthy of literary immortality, in this clever locked-room mystery that doubles as a witty satire of the publishing world.

Written under the joint pen name Evelyn Clarke, a collaboration between bestselling authors V.E. Schwab (known for The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue) and Cat Clarke, the novel blends cozy whodunit energy with sharp industry insight and twisty intrigue, making it ideal for fans of classic mysteries and contemporary meta-thrillers alike when it releases in April.

1. "Exit Party" by Emily St John Mandel

Our top pick for 2026: the latest from Emily St John Mandel, the bestselling author of Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility. Exit Party is a mind-bending literary epic set in 2031 that blends speculative fiction with mystery, art, and survival. 

In a future America fractured by conflict and the emergence of the Republic of California, peacekeepers withdraw from Los Angeles and a lifted curfew prompts a massive party. Aseemingly ordinary night explodes into a mystery involving shadow selves, disappearances, and fractured realities. 

From war-torn cities and seaside resorts to Paris and beyond, the novel probes the price of safety, the perils of surveillance, and the resilience of the human spirit in a broken world. This one is out in September, and it is the hype standout from the year's upcoming novels. 

So there you have it folks: 2026 in literature. Tune in soon for our next instalment of the Hot List, covering the essential new theatre coming up in 2026!