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Congratulations to Serpent’s Tail alumni Susan Choi on her Women’s Prize shortlisting!

We’re so pleased to see that Susan Choi has been shortlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Susan began her publishing journey with Serpent’s Tail, and her book, Trust Exercise, was published in 2019. Find out more about the book below!

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

Sarah and David are in love – the obsessive, uncertain love of teenagers on the edge of adulthood. At their performing arts school, the rules are made by their magnetic drama instructor Mr Kingsley, who initiates them into a dangerous game. Two decades on we learn that the real story of these teenagers’ lives is even larger and darker than we imagined, and the consequences have lasted a lifetime.

Trust Exercise is a brilliant, unforgettable novel about what we lose, gain and never get over as we’re initiated into the mysteries of adulthood.

As we head into the Easter weekend, it’s the perfect time to pick up a new book or two. From epic family sagas to genre-blending short-stories, from the streets of London during the Blitz to India’s sacred Saraswati river, dive into a new Serpent’s Tail read this Spring.

Which books do you plan on reading? Let us know on Instagram @SerpentsTail or BlueSky @serpents-tail.bsky.social

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☎️ Intelligence by Robert Newman

From the beloved comedian and writer comes an irresistible novel about love, secrets and WWII espionage. Can two young philosophers capture the attention of London’s spymasters and save thousands of lives before it’s too late?

‘A wonderfully feisty and beguiling novel’ William Boyd

🌊 Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal

Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, this is a masterpiece debut novel from one of the UK’s most exciting young writers. When the waters of the Saraswati, a river of Indian legend, start to rise, seven scattered descendants of a forbidden marriage are unexpectedly swept up in its current.

‘An ambitious, stylishly delivered novel … Reminiscent of Salman Rushdie’ Observer

🍂 Like Family by Erin White

What if everything you wanted is no longer enough? After a long-held family secret is exposed, tensions that have long been buried begin bubbling to the surface and three couples must confront truths they’ve never shared.

‘Warm, joyful, smart and nuanced’ Curtis Sittenfeld

💗 This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer

Abe and Jane have been together for fifty years, two among thousands of lovers in Central Park. Now, Jane is seriously unwell, and together she and Abe look back on their marriage. This is a Love Story is a homage to New York, to pleasure, loss and love that endures.

‘Unapologetically romantic: complicated, colourful and includes many tales that tug at the heartstrings’ New York Times

💚 Discipline by Larissa Pham

Christine is a young writer touring her debut novel – a thinly disguised account of an affair she had with a professor. When the professor reaches out, Christine is drawn back into his orbit. A taut, provocative novel about creativity and sex, coercion and control, with shades of Rachel Cusk and Katie Kitamura.

‘Lush and precise, Discipline reads like a taut thriller even though it is really an elegant exploration of creativity’ Roxane Gay

🐔 I Am Agatha by Nancy Foley 

Alice and Agatha are in love. Freewheeling, hilarious, moving and entertaining, I Am Agatha is a brilliant debut novel, combining the sideways humour of Big Swiss with the heart and strong female characters of Olive Kitteridge.

‘Surprising and spellbinding … a beautiful love story and meditation on grief, memory, art, and the deepest secrets we hold to keep living’ Angie Kim

🐦‍⬛ The Pelican Child by Joy Williams

Lauded as the best story writer of our time, Joy Williams returns with a taut collection that responds to our modern dilemmas with her signature dry wit and deftness of touch. Meet souls lost and found: from the twin heiresses of a dirty industrial fortune, to the pelican child who lives with the ill-tempered Baba Yaga in a little hut on chicken legs.

‘Williams hopes to reignite our sense of wonder in the world, so that we might be rallied to protect it. Here, at the height of her powers, she may just triumph‘ Financial Times

🦌 Stag Dance by Torrey Peters

Trans life past, present and future is explored in this kaleidoscopic follow-up to Torrey Peters’s bestselling debut, Detransition, Baby.  Acidly funny, provocative and inspired, this quartet of tales focuses in on the rough edges of desire.

‘Adventurous, mind-expanding and provocative’ Bernardine Evaristo

🍳 One Sun Only by Camille Bordas

In this prismatic new collection, Camille Bordas’s complex, wry, sometimes dark and always self-aware stories open a window onto the truths and misapprehensions of our shared, flawed humanity. A young woman takes stock following a burglary. A teenager becomes obsessed with the obituaries in a weekly magazine. Some win the lottery. Some don’t.

‘Camille Bordas is an invaluable new voice’ George Saunders

In addition to the slew of fantastic works already on bookshop shelves, we have many brilliant books coming out in the coming months. Here are a few highlights from our upcoming spring and summer publishing.

🪽 Song For Another Home by Bora Lee Reed

Bora Lee Reed’s debut novel follows one family’s struggle for survival during the Korean War. Full of heart and rich in history, Song For Another Home is an unforgettable portrait of resilience, courage, friendship and love, perfect for readers of Pachinko and Homegoing. Coming 6th August.

‘Timely, wide-ranging, immersive historical fiction and a magnificent debut’ Laurie Frankel

🐚 The End of Everything by M. John Harrison

A slyly satirical and unsettling post-apocalyptic adventure from a master of the surreal and one of our best contemporary novelists. It’s been years since the crisis changed everything. Government barely functions, the seas are full of new creatures, Europe has been mislaid. It feels like the end. Coming 18th June.

‘At once surreal, seductive, shrewdly funny and wholly terrifying’ Julia Armfield

🪟 Air by Christian Kracht, translated by Daniel Bowles

Two men venture through strange landscapes towards unknowable destinations. Inventive, enigmatic and chromatically resonant, Air is a haunting journey through a layered universe that may be a dream, the afterlife or reality’s inverted twin, from the author of the International Booker longlisted novel, Eurotrash. Coming 16th July. 

‘In Kracht’s nominal realism, a dreamlike air insistently prevails. You read him and wonder’ Nell Zink

We are pleased to announce that Gurnaik Johal has been shortlisted for the Charlotte Aitken Trust Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award for his debut novel Saraswati. Johal is one of four authors chosen by chair and Sunday Times chief literary critic Johanna Thomas-Corr, alongside fellow judges Caleb Femi, Esther Freud, Graham Norton, Sathnam Sanghera and Lea Ypi. Previous winners of this prestigious prize include Zadie Smith, Robert Macfarlane, Sally Rooney and Max Porter.

Johal will join his fellow shortlistees at the annual shortlist event hosted at the Barbican Centre and chaired by Booker Prize-winner Bernardine Evaristo on Monday 23^rd March. Tickets can be purchased here.

The winner will be announced on Tuesday 24^th  March at an awards ceremony in east London.

About Saraswati

A masterpiece debut novel from one of the UK’s most exciting young writers, for fans of David Mitchell, Deepti Kapoor and Zadie Smith

About Gurnaik Johal

Gurnaik Johal is a writer from West London. His 2022 collection We Move won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Tata Literature Live! Prize. Its opening story won the Galley Beggar Short Story Prize. Saraswati is his debut novel.

A young woman takes stock following a burglary. A teenager becomes obsessed with the obituaries in a weekly magazine. Grandchildren mourn the grandparents who loved them and the ones who didn’t. Painters and almost-painters try to distinguish Good Art from Bad Art. People grapple with life-altering illness, unrequited love and promises they have every intention of keeping. Some win the lottery. Some don’t.

In this prismatic new collection, Camille Bordas’s complex, wry, sometimes dark and always self-aware stories open a window onto the truths and misapprehensions of our shared, flawed humanity.

Read an extract from the titular story of Camille Bordas’ One Sun Only below.

Available from: Waterstones | Bookshop.org | Amazon

My phone rang. Nikki couldn’t help checking on the kids whenever they were with me for the weekend.

“I got a call from Ernest’s teacher,” she said.

“How are you doing?”

“Sorry. Yes. How are you doing? She says Ernie’s drawings worry her. She says he keeps drawing dead people.”

I left the living room.

“We know this already,” I said, once I reached my office. “It’s just a phase. Little boys are drawn to violent scenes.”

Nikki asked me to look through our son’s backpack for what he’d drawn at school that day.

“Describe what you see,” she said, once the drawing was in my hand.

What I saw was a single page with the instruction “Draw yourself many years in the future!” and my son’s response: a drawing of his own gravestone, with mine, his mother’s, and Sally’s surrounding it.

“Are there dates on the gravestones?” Nikki asked.

“Only on mine,” I said. “According to our son, I’ll die in . . . almost exactly two years.”

My ex-wife audibly shivered at the other end of the line.

“It’s just a drawing, Nik.”

I was pissed that Ernest’s teacher had called her instead of me.

“He shouldn’t be thinking about death so much,” Nikki said. “I think he might be traumatized.”

“Let’s not bring trauma into this. He’s had a rough year.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t draw your father’s grave,” Nikki said. “He misses him.”

“Does he?”

“We all do.”

…

While I made dinner, I let them pick their best work to Scotch-tape on the walls. After dinner, there would be bedtime, I determined. After bedtime, I could try to work, maybe finish that chapter I had been writing for weeks. The nights I had the kids were usually more productive. Since I’d bought myself a new apartment, a new desk, the right ergonomic chair, and a year off from my job, I’d discovered that I was the kind of writer who worked better when he was stealing time from other obligations. An hour here, two hours there, in between meetings, on my lunch break. I was better in a rush. Three months now of entire days at my disposal, and I’d written so little. In the mornings, I looked at what I had, despaired, and then read better writers than me for the rest of the day. Lately, I’d been looking at art books, too. My father’s collection had made its way to my living room. But tonight I would work well, I told myself, breading the cutlets. Because I’d been deprived of the possibility for a few hours, I would work well. Dinner, put the kids to bed, then work. I’d told Nikki I would talk to Ernest about his drawing of our family graves, but I knew I wouldn’t. How did one start a conversation like that? How did one keep it on track? It always looked easy in the movies. Mothers telling daughters how hard it was being a woman, fathers explaining death to sons in less than a minute, and, in both cases, explanations making sense, big warm hug, conversation over. I couldn’t do it. And what was wrong with drawing your own grave, anyway? There was something therapeutic about it, wasn’t there? We’d done it since Ernest was old enough to draw stick figures—drawn the things he was afraid of.

This reminded me of a book I’d read as a college student, one weekend when I was visiting my father. I’d taken it from his shelf, a slim volume about the drawings made by children in war zones, what could be learned from them. I don’t know why it had appealed to me. I guess I’d always been attracted to technically poor drawings—lines for limbs, squares for buildings, things that looked like I could’ve drawn them myself. My father had tried to make my interest sound fancy, said I liked “art brut,” but I don’t know if I liked it, exactly, or if I simply found comfort in it, its naïveté. If I could reproduce a drawing easily, then it meant that I could’ve been its creator in the first place, right? At least that’s what I thought as a child, when I copied Bill Traylor’s crooked houses and Henry Darger’s little girls with penises. My father had this rule that I had to make at least one sketch a day. I could keep copying, sure, you learned a lot from copying, he said, but it was important to come up with things of your own, too, your own way of rendering the texture of a lemon on a wooden table, for example, your own way of interpreting shadows on a sill. It was a person’s way of dealing with the small things that made him unique.

I drowned the cutlets in boiling oil, and realized as I watched them golden that I remembered quite a few things about the book. The book about children in war zones and what they drew. I remembered that roads that suddenly stopped, or mouthless faces, could be interpreted as signs of trauma. I remembered that traumatized children tended never to draw the sun. Ernest didn’t draw suns anymore, hadn’t drawn a sun in months, but maybe it was all right. Maybe he thought the sun was implied in most drawings, or boring to draw. And no sun in a child’s drawing was still better than several suns, according to the book, if memory served. Several suns could indicate developing psychosis, or even psychopathic tendencies. What you wanted, really, as a parent, was for your child to draw one sun and one sun only. But where would a sun have fit in Ernest’s drawing, anyway? The drawing of our family plot? Wouldn’t it have been worse if Ernest had drawn a sun there, over all our gravestones?

From the treacherous world of the Klondike Gold Rush, to an unforgettable quartet of stories about gender; and from addictive, twisty thrillers that will keep you glued to the sofa, to thoughtful, provocative novels that will leave you questioning the world around you – give yourself and your loved ones the gift of a great book this Christmas!

With love, the Serpent’s Tail and Viper team.

Let us know what you decide to pick up this holiday season on Instagram @SerpentsTail and @Viper.Books, TikTok @SerpentsTailBooks and @Viper.Books, and Bluesky @Serpents-Tail.bsky.social and @ViperBooks.bsky.social!

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UNMISSABLE NEW FICTION

✨ Eurotrash by Christian Kracht, translated by Daniel Bowles

The Waterstones November Fiction Book of the Month and longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize, Eurotrash is a tragicomic masterpiece that sees a middle-aged man and his terminally ill mother on a vodka-fuelled road trip around Switzerland, determined to give away their fortune.

‘Deliciously disrespectful… not only a hilariously unsettling road-trip of a novel, but also an exhilarating read’ Financial Times

✨ Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal

Shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, Saraswati blends political satire with ecological parable. The lives of seven individuals are transformed by the return of an ancient river in a rapidly changing contemporary India, from one of the UK’s most exciting young writers.

‘An ambitious, stylishly delivered novel… reminiscent of Salman Rushdie and resembling the energy and range of David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten and Zadie Smith’s White Teeth‘ John Self

✨ Service by John Tottenham

A hilarious, caustic look at life at a bookstore in LA through the eyes of a cynical English bookseller. Irascible, witty and darkly humourous, this is a must-read for fans of Black Books or Shaun Bythell’s Confessions of a Bookseller.

‘A brutally honest, insightful, intelligent and absolutely hilarious novel’ Michael Imperioli

✨ Stag Dance by Torrey Peters

Acidly funny, provocative and inspired, four stories of trans life past, present and future come together in this kaleidoscopic follow-up to the Women’s Prize-nominated bestseller, Detransition, Baby.

‘Hot, heartbreaking and thrillingly victorious’ Miranda July

ADDICTIVE STORYTELLING

🎄 The Rush by Beth Lewis

A BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick, The Rush is a gripping historical novel, rich in character and setting, following three women’s fight for fortune and survival in the brutal world of the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush.

‘A rip-roaring adventure that’s rich with drama and gutsy plotlines’ Daily Mail

🎄 This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer

An instant New York Times bestseller, this witty, moving portrait of a long New York marriage is the perfect blend of Elizabeth Strout’s My Name Is Lucy Barton and When Harry Met Sally – as complex, radiant and captivating as the city it’s set in.

‘Performs the magic trick of being a highly specific story that feels universal and timeless. You’ll find that your worldview has been altered’ Liz Moore

🎄 The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine

A celebrity chef, a missing husband and a scandalous tell-all memoir, this deliciously rich, sizzling thriller is perfect for readers of Bella Mackie’s How To Kill Your Family and Alexia Casale’s The Best Way to Bury Your Husband.

‘A compelling take on marriage, motherhood, love, and the sacrifices that women are routinely expected to make’ Guardian

🎄The Wolf of Whindale by Jacob Kerr

Laced with myth, faith and avarice, The Wolf of Whindale is a superbly twisted and ferociously imaginative English horror story, set in a stormy northern landscape, perfect for fans of Andrew Michael Hurley and Alan Garner.

‘A masterclass in English folklore horror fiction’ Buzz Magazine

JAW-DROPPING MYSTERIES

🎁 Murder In Wintertime: Classic Crime Stories edited by Cecily Gayford

Weaving together celebrated stories of murder and mayhem from the greatest writers in the genre, Murder in Wintertime brings a chill that will linger beyond the last frost. Featuring celebrated authors such as Catherine Aird, Carter Dixon, Peter Lovesey and more.

‘Perfect for a quick fix of golden-age crime‘ Janice Hallett

🎁 The Midnight King by Tariq Ashkanani

Winner of the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year, The Midnight King is a dark thriller about family, trauma and the secrets we hide within. Lucas Cole is a bestselling writer – a quiet and unassuming man, he’s a beloved celebrity in his small town. Lucas Cole is also a serial killer.

‘The best book I’ve read all year. Dark, twisty, gripping and full of pathos’ Sarah Pinborough

🎁 The Killer Question by Janice Hallett

The latest bestselling mystery from the author of The Appeal, Janice Hallett, features battling pub quiz teams, missing landlords and a grisly murder. Told in Janice Hallett’s signature style, through emails, WhatsApp messages and other mixed media, can you piece together the evidence to answer The Killer Question?

‘Hallett’s most fiendishly brilliant book yet… Endlessly inventive and a sheer joy’ Daily Mirror

🎁 A Trial in Three Acts by Guy Morpuss

A delightfully clever legal mystery from KC Guy Morpuss, combining nail-biting courtroom drama with a Christie-esque locked room murder mystery. When the leading lady of the smash-hit play Daughter of the Revolution is beheaded live on stage, every cast member has a motive, but is the killer in the dock?

‘An excellent courtroom drama… Very clever too with all the red herrings and intellectual arguments you could hope for’ Harriet Tyce

PERFECT PAPERBACKS

❄ Night Swimmers by Roisin Maguire

Roisin Maguire’s debut novel offers an unconventional and moving family story – Olive Kitteridge or The Shipping News on the edge on the Irish Sea. Grace lives alone in a coastal village in Northern Ireland, filling her days with wild swimming, fishing and quilting. When she saves a bewildered tourist, Evan, from drowning, their lives are unexpectedly thrown together.

‘Full of heart and humour, with two wounded souls at its centre and plenty to say about compassion, community and the power of cold water’ Irish Independent

❄ No Small Thing by Orlaine McDonald

Shortlisted for the Nero Book Award for Debut Fiction, No Small Thing follows Livia, Mickey and Summer – three generations of women living in a flat on a South London estate. Burning with hope and desire, this gorgeous debut evokes the power and pain of mothering and the damage we do to the people we love the most.

‘One of the best debut novels I’ve read in recent years… Intense, visceral and beautifully written’ Bernardine Evaristo

❄ The Course of the Heart by M. John Harrison 

Beloved author M. John Harrison’s cult classic novel is republished with a new introduction by Julia Armfield. On a hot May night, three Cambridge students carry out a ritualistic act that changes their lives. Decades later, none of the participants can remember what transpired; but their clouded memories bind them together.

‘One of the best writers currently at work in English’ Robert Macfarlane

❄ The Dragon Man by Garry Disher

The first novel in the Hal Challis Investigates series, from Australia’s king of crime. Detective Inspector Hal Challis is called to the sleepy town of Waterloo, where women are being abducted and murdered. The media is demanding answers, and with a team who cause as much trouble as they solve, Challis is under increasing pressure to solve the case.

‘A terrific plot, nuanced characters and solid procedures. Done with smooth, assured mastery’ New York Times

❄ The Examiner by Janice Hallett

A masterclass in murder from six-time-bestselling author Janice Hallett. The mature students of Royal Hastings University’s art course have been nothing but trouble. When an examiner arrives to assess their coursework, he becomes convinced that a student was killed on the course and the others covered it up. But is he right? Only a close examination of the evidence will reveal the truth…

‘A joy to read, containing some delicious surprises’ Sunday Times

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A huge congratulations to Rochelle Dowden-Lord, who has been shortlisted for the 2025 Debut Fiction Nero Book Award, for her novel Lush.

The judges said: ‘Set on a crumbling French vineyard, Lush sees a group of influential wine-lovers invited to taste the oldest bottle of wine in the world. A funny, hedonistic romp ensues, the tension increasing with every glass, as the guests begin to reveal the less savoury aspects of their characters’

Praise for Lush:

‘A sumptuous treat, I was absorbed from start to finish’ Bolu Babalola, bestselling author of Love in Colour

‘Hedonistic, Bacchanalian, lyrical and subtle, with a hint of tannic Sally Rooney wit’ GQ, Most Anticipated Books of 2025

‘A rich, full-bodied reading experience’ Eliza Clark, bestselling author of Boy Parts

Huge congratulations to László Krasznahorkai, who has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2025.

The Academy cited the 71-year-old’s “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art”. Congratulations also to Peter Straus and Colm Tóibín whose visionary publishing brought him to their Tuskar Rock list. Tóibín says “he has elevated the novel form and is to be ranked among the great European novelists”.

A towering figure in contemporary fiction, Krasznahorkai was born in Gyula, Hungary, in 1954 and has long been celebrated for his hypnotic prose and visionary scope. His many other accolades include the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature for Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming, the 2015 Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement and the 2024 Prix Formentor for lifetime achievement. Several of his most famous novels, including Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance, were turned into films by the director Béla Tarr.

László Krasznahorkai says: “I am deeply glad that I have received the Nobel Prize — above all because this award proves that literature exists in itself, beyond various non-literary expectations, and that it is still being read. And for those who read it, it offers a certain hope that beauty, nobility, and the sublime still exist for their own sake. It may offer hope even to those in whom life itself only barely flickers. Trust — even if there seems to be no reason to.”

We celebrate this historic achievement and look forward to readers discovering (or rediscovering) one of literature’s most fearless voices. Congratulations once again to László Krasznahorkai!

Explore his books here.

Congratulations to Serpent’s Tail alumni Susan Choi and Katie Kitamura on their Booker Prize shortlistings!

We’re thrilled, and not at all surprised, to see Susan Choi and Katie Kitamura receive this well-deserved recognition. Both authors began their publishing journeys with Serpent’s Tail, where their brilliance was already unmistakable and has only deepened with each new work.

If you’re new to their writing or looking to explore it further, here are some standout titles to start with…

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

Sarah and David are in love – the obsessive, uncertain love of teenagers on the edge of adulthood. At their performing arts school, the rules are made by their magnetic drama instructor Mr Kingsley, who initiates them into a dangerous game. Two decades on we learn that the real story of these teenagers’ lives is even larger and darker than we imagined, and the consequences have lasted a lifetime.

Trust Exercise is a brilliant, unforgettable novel about what we lose, gain and never get over as we’re initiated into the mysteries of adulthood.

Gone to the Forest by Katie Kitamura

Set on a struggling farm in a fiercely beautiful colonial country teetering on the brink of civil war, this second novel by one of international literature’s rising young stars weaves a brilliant tale of family drama and political turmoil.

Since his mother’s death ten years earlier, Tom and his father have fashioned a strained peace on their family farm. Everything is frozen under the old man’s vicious, relentless control – even, Tom soon discovers, his own future. When a young woman named Carine enters their lives, the complex triangle of intrigue and affection escalates the tension between the two men to breaking point. After a catastrophic volcanic eruption ignites the nation’s smouldering discontent into open revolution, Tom, his father and Carine find themselves questioning their loyalties to one another and their determination to salvage their way of life.

A Separation by Katie Kitamura 

A young woman has agreed with her faithless husband: it’s time for them to separate. For the moment it’s a private matter, a secret between the two of them. As she begins her new life, alone, she gets word that her ex-husband has gone missing in a remote region in the rugged southern Peloponnese. Reluctantly she agrees to go and search for him, still keeping their split to herself. In her heart, she’s not even sure if she wants to find him. Adrift in the wild and barren landscape, she traces the failure of their relationship, and finds that she understands less than she thought about the man she used to love.

A story of intimacy, infidelity and compassion, A Separation is about the gulf that divides us from the lives of others and the narratives we create to mask our true emotions. As the narrator reflects upon her love for a man who may never have been what he appeared, Kitamura propels us into the experience of a woman on the brink of catastrophe. A Separation is a riveting masterpiece of absence and presence that will leave the reader astonished, and transfixed.

We are over the moon to announce that Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal has been shortlisted for the 2025 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize! Thank you to all the amazing Waterstones booksellers who read, connected with, and pitched for Gurnaik’s spectacular debut to make it onto this prestigious list. Bookseller Saba at Waterstones Bournemouth Castle Point said,

‘Saraswati is what you cross your fingers for when you read a debut: fearless, ambitious and strikingly assured. Deeply rooted in the culture of Punjab, Johal weaves an intricate tale so immersive and expansive that you have to pause every few pages to let his words wash over you before diving back in … This book won my heart in a million ways’

Congratulations to Gurnaik and the other shortlisted authors! We’re counting down the days until next month’s awards ceremony. Get your signed copy through Waterstones here.

Read more about Saraswati below.

‘Saraswati most certainly delivers, darting thrillerishly around the world to fold chewy themes of empire, populism and global warming into a cross-generational epic centred on seven strangers’ OBSERVER, Best  New Novelists for 2025

‘Saraswati is a major achievement, and Johal a huge talent. This should be one of the biggest novels of the year’ Martin MacInnes, Booker-longlisted author of In Ascension

Centuries ago, the myths say, the holy river Saraswati flowed through what is now Northern India. But when Satnam arrives in his ancestral village for his grandmother’s funeral, he is astonished to find water in the long-dry well behind her house. The discovery sets in motion a contentious scheme to unearth the lost river and build a gleaming new city on its banks, and Satnam – adrift from his job, girlfriend and flat back in London – soon finds himself swept up in this ferment of Hindu nationalist pride.

As the river alters Satnam’s course, so it reveals buried ties to six distant relatives scattered across the globe – from an ambitious writer with her eye on legacy to a Kenyan archaeologist to a Bollywood stunt double – who are brought together in a rapidly changing India. Brimming with love, lush, violence and loss, Gurnaik Johal’s magisterial debut deftly animates the passions that bind us to our histories, our lands and each other.

It’s finally getting warmer outside and the days are feeling brighter, so we’ve put together a range of incredible books for you to enjoy in the spring sunshine. From sparkling debuts, to life-affirming memoirs, here’s a wonderful assortment of reading recommendations for your perfect bank holiday!

Which books do you plan on reading this spring? Let us know on Instagram @SerpentsTail, BlueSky @serpents-tail.bsky.social, or on X at @SerpentsTail.

Moving Stories

💗 This is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer

My Name Is Lucy Barton meets When Harry Met Sally in this witty, moving portrait of a long New York marriage.

‘Unapologetically romantic: complicated, colourful and includes many tales that tug at the heartstrings’ New York Times

🌿 Wild Ground by Emily Usher

A working-class Romeo & Juliet set in the beauty and squalor of the Yorkshire edgelands.

‘A glittering exploration of love’s many faces – Wild Ground aches with hard-won hope and bruised tenderness’ Colin Walsh, author of Kala

🌸 Shape of an Apostrophe by Uttama Kirit Patel

A bittersweet yet life-affirming debut revealing the intricacies of family life behind closed doors, Shape of an Apostrophe is a taboo-breaking exploration of motherhood, obedience, rebellion and the surprising persistence of love.

‘Patel has embraced her inner Jane Austen for this tale, which tackles the social mores of the wider Indian diaspora living in the UAE.’ Crack

Electrifying Must-Reads

🍷 Lush by Rochelle Dowden-Lord

A mysterious invitation to drink the oldest bottle of wine in the world – what could possibly go wrong?

‘Lush is a sparkling novel to savour and Dowden-Lord a generous and highly accomplished storyteller’ Lottie Hazell, author of Piglet

🦌 Stag Dance by Torrey Peters

Trans life past, present and future is explored in this kaleidoscopic follow-up to the Women’s Prize-nominated Detransition, Baby.

‘Boy did I love this. Hot, heartbreaking and thrillingly victorious’ Miranda July

🎊 Valencia by Michelle Tea

A fast-paced account of one year in San Francisco’s underground scene, filled with sex, drugs and the never-ending search for true love.

‘Michelle Tea is an intoxicating writer, delivering sentences that land with the snap and force of a punch’ Guardian

One-Sitting Wonders

⛷️ Eurotrash by Christian Kracht

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025, Eurotrash is a rambunctious, tragicomic absurd road trip novel about a wealthy Swiss-German mother and son.

‘Not only moving and uplifting, but strangely funny’ Guardian

🦟 Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva

The year is 2272. New York and Buenos Aires were submerged years ago and the Patagonian archipelagos are the only habitable lands on Earth. Here, Dengue Boy is a humanoid mosquito whose monstrous appearance repulses everyone, including his own mother. As the world spirals to its end, Dengue Boy searches for the meaning of his life and his true origins.

‘A rip-roaring satire of late capitalism and humanity’s unerring instinct for self-sabotage’ Irish Times

🪦 Dealing with the Dead by Alain Mabanckou

From one of Africa’s most celebrated novelists: a ghostly reckoning with Congolese history for readers of Lincoln in the Bardo.

‘Sharp and entertaining’ Times Literary Supplement

Enthralling Narratives

🚲 The Assault by Harry Mulisch

The classic that sold over 200,000 copies in the Netherlands: a richly crafted novel of post-war innocence and guilt.

‘Fuelled with energy, drama and emotional weight, combined with a light touch and a fast-moving story. Grab it while you can’ Times

📦 Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

Clock in for a night shift – and for a moving multi-perspective novel that explores life in the gig economy.

‘Help Wanted is like a great nineteenth-century novel about now, at once an effervescent workplace comedy and an exploration of the psychic toll exacted by the labour market’ Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot

🌊 Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal

As a holy river returns, seven lives change course in this masterpiece debut for fans of David Mitchell, Zadie Smith and Eleanor Catton.

‘Saraswati most certainly delivers, darting thrillerishly around the world to fold chewy themes of empire, populism and global warming into a cross-generational epic centred on seven strangers’ Observer, Best New Novelists for 2025

Lina never wanted children, but now there are two lines on the test. Where does she go from here?

Lina Solanki is pregnant and newly orphaned, living with her in-laws in their opulent Dubai villa. While her husband fails to make concrete plans to find their own place and tensions in their marriage grow, Lina’s boisterous mother-in-law interferes with every aspect of the pregnancy. Then, when proof of a horrifying family secret arrives from Mumbai, Lina realises that she has a choice when it comes to her baby, her marriage and her place in the world – but is it a choice she wants to make?

A bittersweet yet life-affirming debut revealing the intricacies of family life behind closed doors, Shape of an Apostrophe is a taboo-breaking exploration of motherhood, obedience, rebellion and the surprising persistence of love.

‘Very powerful – a wonderfully thought-provoking, very moving novel that gets to the heart of what it is to be a woman in a world run by men’ Marian Keyes

‘A darkly funny tale about the Indian diaspora’ Avni Doshi

Read an extract from Uttama Kirit Patel’s powerful debut below.

Available from: Waterstones | Bookshop.org | Amazon

A Note

There are two ways to read a story, just as there are two ways to swim.

At the surface, easy, clear, air accessible, known terrains. Or beneath, within, darker but deeper, breath held, unseen spaces wound tight in the chest. As this is a story about volition, the choice is yours. What transpires remains the same. What you take with you may be drastically altered.

Much awaits.

…

‘Wait 3 minutes to confirm a “Not Pregnant” result,’ the leaflet read.

The day’s last prayer call ended in her first minute there, sung from the neighbourhood mosque between sunset and midnight. In the second, Lina started on Papa’s study. Mourning had come with an instruction manual. Daughters must not light the funeral pyre. Colour, absolutely not; only white garments in grief. Cremation fumes should be washed out of the hair. Twice, with shampoo.

Typical, Lina complained to her father, to have such decorum in death and ignore its aftermath. For that, she’d been left alone to clear out the anarchy of Papa’s belongings. Would it kill you to get a bit organised?

‘Sorry,’ she said to the urn in front of where she sat on the floor.

On her right, a Yes pile held Papa’s treasures: a miniature barquentine carved in real gold, his Visconti fountain pen, a bottle of midnight-blue ink. In the No pile lay yesterday’s First Response box, Barbie pink in colour, a woman’s silhouette lurking inside an oversized numeric digit. Was she pregnant or just standing there naked? The branding shouted in caps lock: ‘CAN TELL YOU 6 DAYS SOONER. No brand is MORE accurate.’

For today’s test, Lina had chosen Clearblue, a landscape and logo colour she trusted.

In the third minute, she placed the stick between the Yes and No piles, and waited for blue lines to appear in the tiny windows labelled ‘Control’ and ‘Result’, the irony of which had evaded a whole corporation. When the lines came into view, they were two this time, at a crossroads – a presumption of pregnancy as a plus.

Lina tried jamming the test into the First Response box with the other ‘Not Pregnant’, wishing it were so. How careless of that mother, Nature herself, to allow such an invasion without warning. No baby should begin as a battle.

We are over the moon that that Eurotrash by Christian Kracht, translated by Daniel Bowles, has been longlisted for the prestigious International Booker Prize. The judges have said,

‘Eurotrash is the auto-fictional account of a writer contemplating his unpleasant and abusive childhood, his morally repugnant ancestry and his toxic financial inheritance as he drives his crotchety, alcoholic, senile mother through the landscape outside Zurich. This doesn’t sound like much fun! But this book is one of the most entertaining and ultimately moving stories we read. It is brilliantly, bitterly funny, even as it documents a vicious and tarnished emotional universe. This book is immaculately and wittily translated; on every page its sentences sparkle and surprise like guilty-legacy gold.’

We could not be prouder of this tragicomic novel and the way in which it has captivated readers. Congratulations to Christian, Daniel, and all the other longlisted authors and translators. The shortlist will be announced on 8th April.

Read more about Eurotrash below:

‘Odd and evocative, a frolicking rumination’ TIMES CRITICS’ BEST BOOK OF 2024

‘Hilarious, unsettling and unexpectedly moving’  FINANCIAL TIMES BEST TRANSLATED BOOK OF 2024

‘Resonant and spiky’ DAILY MAIL

‘Brilliantly caustic’ i PAPER

Realising he and she are the very worst kind of people, a middle-aged man embarks on a dubious road trip through Switzerland with his eighty-year-old mother, recently discharged from a mental institution. Traversing the country in a hired cab, they attempt to give away the wealth she has amassed from investing in the arms industry, but a fortune of such immensity is surprisingly hard to squander. Haunted in different ways by the figure of her father, an ardent supporter of Nazism, mother and son can no longer avoid delving into the darkest truths about their past.

Eurotrash is a bitterly funny, vertiginous mirror-cabinet of familial and historical reckoning. The pair’s tragicomic quest is punctuated by the tenderness and spite meted out between two people who cannot escape one another. Intensely personal and unsparingly critical, Eurotrash is a disorientingly brilliant novel by a writer at the pinnacle of his powers.

‘Sharp and entertaining’ Times Literary Supplement
‘Exuberant … Dealing with the Dead is often damning, frequently hilarious and always compassionate’ Financial Times

From one of Africa’s most celebrated novelists: a ghostly reckoning with Congolese history.

Abruptly deceased at the age of twenty-four and trapped forever in flared purple trousers, Liwa Ekimakingaï encounters the other residents of Frère Lachaise cemetery, all of whom have their own complex stories of life and death.

Unwilling to relinquish their tender bond, Liwa makes his way back home to Pointe-Noire to see his devoted grandmother one last time, against all spectral advice. But disturbing rumours swirl together with Liwa’s jumbled memories of his last night on earth, leading him to pursue the riddle of his own untimely demise. A phantasmagorical tale of ambition, community and forces beyond human control, Dealing with the Dead is a scathing satire on corruption and political violence by one of the foremost chroniclers of modern Central Africa.

Available from: Waterstones | Bookshop.org | Amazon

Refreshed by your wave of euphoria, you finally decide to get up. It’s the first time you’ve stood upright since you emerged from the tomb. Supporting yourself on the wooden cross, you manage somehow to straighten up without breaking it. You ignore the creaking of your elbow joints as you shake the reddish earth from your clothes. You’re wearing an orange crepe jacket with wide lapels, a fluorescent-green shirt with a large collar, three buttons and round musketeer cuffs. Your white bow tie is a little askew, so you adjust it, remembering how Mâ Lembé hated it when you wore it off-centre to church. You seem to have got a bit wet here and there; your shirt is a little damp in the armpits, down the back, round your belly. You must have been sweating back there in your casket, you think. You cast an admiring look at your purple flares, also of crepe, and your shiny red white-laced Salamanders. And since they might restrict your movement, you resolve to slip off your shoes and toss them from your grave, goggling at those elevator heels – after all, you’re not exactly lacking in the height department. You have to admit it: these shoes were a quick sell from some trader near where you work at the Victory Palace. It’s a French hotel, close by the Lumumba roundabout, and not far from there is the Grand Marché, where every day Pontenegrins fall upon the bundles of clothes and boxes of shoes that have been shipped out from France, mostly from Marseille, Bordeaux or Le Havre. Young people have a word for these hand-me-downs – sola, which means ‘choose’ in Munukutuba. The clothes arrive in Pointe-Noire packed tight, wrapped in plastic and sealed against theft. The shoes come in tough cloth bags, again tightly sealed. The big-time traders (Lebanese, Senegalese and Maghreb) buy them in bulk and pass them on to the little traders (the Pontenegrins) to sell at retail. Once the bales and bags have been opened and unpacked, the traders place the shoes and clothes in piles on squares of canvas spread out on the ground in the centre of the marketplace. The customers sniff at them like dogs, and try them on, heedless of the people watching them strip off in public. They put their selection to one side, or between their legs, and proceed to payment only after haggling for a considerable reduction, especially if they’ve found a hanging thread, a missing button, a loose label or a microscopic stain. Who cares if only the buyer can see them; the customer is always right, what matters is what he sees. No price is set in stone, it’s all ‘negotiable’.

As well as a whiff of sola – from the clothes bundles or, a more likely hypothesis, from the shop of your favourite Grand Marché trader, Abdoulaye Walaye – you pick up a stronger smell, of Mananas, a kind of eau de toilette sold in Lebanese shops and often sprinkled on corpses. No one would ever use Mananas in Pointe-Noire, people would think they were a ghost or that they worked in the cemetery or the morgue. You don’t recall quite when your clothes began to smell like this. But you do know you haven’t changed your outfit for close on five days now, which means these are the clothes you were buried in…

Whether you’re trick-or-treating, carving pumpkins or heading to the big screen/sofa for a deliciously spooky film, no Halloween is complete without the perfect Halloween read to curl up with when the night is done. No matter your genre of choice, whether you’re looking for mind-bending twists, a gothic tale with chilling atmosphere, uncanny and insightful stories, a good mystery from the mists of time, or to be scared out of your wits, we’ve got the seasonal read for you this Halloween.

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

This is the story of a murderer. A stolen child. Revenge. This is the story of Ted, who lives with his young daughter Lauren and his cat Olivia in an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street. All these things are true. And yet some of them are lies. ‘I haven’t read anything this exciting since Gone Girl’ Stephen King

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

In a windswept cottage overlooking the sea, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of his childhood companions and the shadowy figure of the Daggerman, who stalked their New England town. ‘So beautiful, so dark and so vivid’ Jennifer Saint

Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine

Anna Alcott is desperate to have a family. When she finally gets pregnant the doctor tells her she’s lost the baby. Despite her grief, Anna ignores them because she can still feel the baby moving, can see the toll it’s taking on her body. Leading her to wonder, what exactly is growing inside her? ‘A timely, terrifying, heartfelt thriller’ Chris Whitacker

The Underhistory by Kaaron Warren

Fyneshade by Kate Griffin

All is not well at Fyneshade, an ancient and crumbling house in the wilds of Derbyshire. When Marta arrives as a governess she is met with silent servants, an abscent owner, and a son forbidden from entering the house. But Marta is no innocent. Guided by the dark gifts taught to her by her grandmother, she has made her own plans. ‘Marta is Jane Eyre’s black-hearted alter ego’ The Times

Melmoth by Sarah Perry

One winter night in Prague, Helen Franklin meets her friend Karel on the street. Agitated and enthralled, he tells her he has come into possession of a mysterious old manuscript, filled with personal testimonies from the 17th to 20th century. All of them tell of being followed by a tall, silent woman in black, bearing an unforgettable message. ‘Perry’s masterly piece of postmodern gothic is one of the great achievements of our century’ The Observer

Begars Abbey by V.L. Valentine

Winter 1954, Sam Cooper discovers a stack of hidden letters in her mother’s things, telling of an inheritance and a family that she never knew she had. Begars Abbey is a crumbling pile, inhabited only by Lady Cooper, Sam’s ailing grandmother. Her grandmother cannot speak, and a shadowy woman moves along the corridors at night… ‘A dark gothic delight’ Janice Hallett

A Good House for Children by Kate Collins

The Reeve stands on the edge of the Dorset cliffs, awaiting its next inhabitants. Two women’s stories, separated by 40 years, tell of a house where nothing is as it seems. The longer they stay in the house, the more deadly certain their need to keep the children safe from whatever lurks inside it… ‘A deliciously chilling atmosphere that fans of Shirley Jackson will love’ Francine Toone

The Green Man of Eshwood Hall by Jacob Kerr

Eshwood Hall is a great English house surrounded by sprawling woods. It is 1962 and Izzy is thirteen, living in the servants’ quarters and finding freedom exploring the forest and the village beyond. The more she explores, the stranger her surroundings become. The most tantalising of which is the Green Man in the woods who seems to know all about her and her deeply buried secrets. ‘Recalls M. R. James at his nastiest’ Daily Telegraphy

The Plague Letters by V.L. Valentine

London, 1665. Hidden within the growing pile of corpses in his churchyard, Rector Symon Patrick discovers a victim of the pestilence unlike any he has seen before. Someone is performing terrible experiments upon the dying, hiding their bodies amongst the hundreds that fill the death carts. Whoever it is will not stop, and has no mercy… ‘A riotous delve into the dark medical world of Restoration London’ S.G. MacLean

The Bells of Westminster by Leonora Nattrass

London, 1774. Susan Bell spends her days within the confines of Westminster Abbey, one of many who live in the grounds of the ancient building. Life at the abbey is uneventful, until a letter from the king arrives, demanding to open the tomb of Edward I. A ghostly figure, a murder and a missing corpse soon cause panic at the abbey, and Susan has no choice but to investigate. ‘A wonderfully clever historical novelist’ Daily Telegraph

The Resident by David Jackson

There’s a serial killer on the run and he’s hiding in your house. The one thing that Thomas enjoys even more than killing is playing games with his victims – the lonely old woman, the bickering couple, the tempting young newlyweds. And his new neighbours have more than enough dark secrets to make this game his best one yet… ‘A seriously creepy thriller’ Mark Billingham

You’d Look Better as a Ghost by Joanna Wallace

It’s not sensible to tangle with a serial killer, even one who is distracted by attending a weekly bereavement support group and trying to get her art career off the ground. Claire will do anything to keep her secret hidden. Let the games begin… ‘Utterly unique, an absolute rollercoaster of a read’ Daily Mail

Flowers From the Void by Gianni Washington

Addictively strange and disturbing, Flowers From the Void is a collection of 13 delectably uncanny tales. A reaper readies herself for her next gruesome assignment and a bereaved African witch prepares for a showdown with a rigidly traditional white Salem coven while an outcast teenage boy is lured into a pact with a schoolfriend that will cost him far more than he ever imagined. ‘Brilliantly unsettling and unsettlingly brilliant’ Ellery Lloyd

Her Body & Other Parties Carmen Maria Machado

In her provocative debut collection, Carmen Maria Machado demolishes the borders between magical realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. A wife refuses her husband’s entreaties to remove the mysterious green ribbon from around her neck. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery about a store’s dresses. One woman’s surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted house guest. A dark, shimmering slice into womanhood, both wicked and exquisite. ‘It’s a wild thing, this book, covered in sequins and scales, blazing’ The New York Times