You need to add these 10 books to your reading list immediately

We've tried to whittle down the new releases coming in 2026 to just 10, which has felt like an impossible feat, but here are 10 books we're most excited about in 2026.

There are hundreds of new releases coming our way next year, but these are the ones we're itching to read.

Esther is Now Following You by Tanya Sweeney (January 15th)

Esther first sees Ted walking in a park in London. They lock eyes, and for a fraction of a second, she feels something she’s never felt before.

She starts by reading up about his life in Canada and his work as an actor. Then she watches every interview with him online. It isn’t long before she’s joined Ted’s fan site online, where she and the ‘Tedettes’ stalk his every move.

When Ted gets a new celebrity girlfriend, Esther decides that things have gone far enough. She leaves her husband, takes all their savings, and buys a one-way ticket to Canada.

After all, Ted might not know it yet, but they are meant to be together – he just needs a little bit of persuading.

Pre-order here.

Nothing Good Happens After 2am by Niamh Hargan (January 29th)

Behind the unmarked door of Love and Death, a tiny speakeasy in East London, Robbie Saunders and El Tippett are cocktail-making stars on the rise.

As London's bar scene explodes around them, Robbie and El circle each other, connected by passion and competitive spirit. From Hackney to Soho in the small hours, as the city transforms itself, nothing – and no one – has ever felt so alive.

But when it all comes crashing down, something indefinable keeps drawing Robbie and El back into each other's orbit. Over the years that follow, in bars around the world, one unexpected, ill-advised, and utterly glorious late night after another, can they put aside professional betrayals to build something brand new?

Pre-order here.

The Lies Between Us by Jen Bray (February 26th)

The warring Brown sisters. Lucy. Susannah. Tara. Each is haunted by disgrace (Lucy), vanity (Susannah) and envy (Tara). Most of all, they are haunted by secrets.

Just before a dinner at their mother’s idyllic holiday cottage, Susannah disappears. That same night, a young woman is killed violently on a nearby beach.

Amid the confusion the next morning, Lucy discovers a link between Susannah and the murder victim. Lucy must summon all she knows from her short-lived policing career to figure out the connection and find her sister.

But tracking down Susannah means Lucy confronting her own shame. It also means resurrecting ghosts that Susannah, Tara, and their mother desperately want to keep buried.

Even if Lucy finds Susannah, will the truth destroy them all?

Pre-order here.

Saoirse by Charleen Hurtubise (February 26th)

In the wilds of Donegal, Ireland, 1999, Saoirse is an artist living an outwardly idyllic life. Her tender husband Daithí and two beloved daughters are regular subjects for her work, and in them she has found the safe home that she has always longed for. She tends not to talk about her past, and those who love her have learned to accept that the full story is too painful for her to disclose.

When her Dublin exhibition unexpectedly wins a prestigious award that invites a swarm of publicity, Saoirse is left panic-stricken. The unanticipated recognition threatens to expose a decade's worth of buried memories and past crimes. Because what her family and friends don't know is that Saoirse has been on the run since she was seventeen, she has stolen an identity to survive, and whilst Ireland might now be her home, it wasn't her first - and now her past life is poised to reclaim her.

The novel weaves between flashbacks to a complicated childhood in Michigan and Saoirse's journey to and in Ireland to forge safety for herself.

Pre-order here.

The Truth About Ruby Cooper by Liz Nugent (March 12)

If my sister hadn't been beautiful, none of it would have happened. Ruby Cooper and her sister, Erin, live an idyllic life in their close-knit church community in Boston. But when Ruby is sixteen, she is involved in an incident that causes her family's world to implode. Across decades, the fallout leaves a wake of destruction behind Ruby in Dublin and Erin in Boston. Not that Ruby wants to think about the past. But it can't stay a secret forever.

Pre-order here.

Hungry by Katriona O'Sullivan (April 23rd)

Raised in a home marked by poverty, addiction and abuse, Katriona defied the odds: from teenage motherhood, struggling with her own addictions, to becoming a university professor and successful author. But beneath the achievements lay a more private struggle - with her body, her worth, and the unrelenting drive to be enough. In this fiercely honest memoir, she interrogates how trauma, class and gender shape the way women see themselves - and how society teaches them to measure their value.

Pre-order here.

Everything That Is Beautiful by Louise Nealon (April 2nd)

For Niamh Ryan, the Foleys are family. Her childhood flew by on their farm, playing with her best friend Peter and his sister Kate - all the while being doted on by their mother Helen and coached by their father Liam, a legendary former hurling player. Now, following a distressing series of events, the family ties are strained. Niamh receives drunken phone calls and messages from Peter, who can't understand what derailed their burgeoning relationship three years ago. Meanwhile, Helen Foley is trying her best to escape her life by checking into guesthouses under the names of women she went to school with. In her life in Belfast, Kate is attempting to hold down a job and a relationship while carrying the weight of the family's secrets and feeling like she is the one to blame. As a family wedding looms, and the women find themselves face to face, the knotty love that still binds Niamh, Helen, and Kate might just bring them back together again.

Pre-order here.

Whatever Happened to Madeleine Stone? by Louise O'Neill (April 9)

2002.

Twin sisters Madeline and Chelsea Stone are joint stars of the AtomicKids sitcom Double Trouble, but everyone knows it’s Maddie who shines most brightly. Until Chelsea beats her sister out for the role of a lifetime and is catapulted into the spotlight. And just as Chelsea’s star reaches impossible new heights, Maddie disappears.

2025.

Chelsea Stone retired from acting after her sister’s disappearance – but living life under the radar is easier said than done when you’re the most famous woman of your generation.

When a storage locker is found containing heartbreaking truths about the year Maddie went missing, Chelsea feels a flicker of hope for the first time in twenty years. This is her chance to discover what really happened to her twin, but to follow the trail she’ll have to face the past and step back into the spotlight.

Pre-order here.

Love Scene by Anna Carey (Mat 7th)

Writing for an iconic soap opera was supposed to be a dream come true. But Annie's boss is a tyrant, the actors are out of control, and there are rumours that Northside will soon be cancelled. The worst part of all of it: Annie has to share an office with her nemesis, Art Sullivan. Talented-and-he-knows-it Art was once the Next Big Thing with a promising Hollywood career. So why is he back in town, writing for a show he's never seen a single episode of? Annie tries to ignore Art, who still knows exactly how to push her buttons - and is still distractingly hot. But when she suspects someone's sabotaging Northside, she realises she'll need Art's help to stop them. If they can quit arguing long enough to work together, there might just be another plot twist ahead...

Pre-order here.

Our Deadly Summer by Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen (May 21st)

Laura and Dee haven’t spoken since the day they buried a body together. It was supposed to be the best summer of their lives. A break from university, from parents, from wasting their time on Irish boys with farmer’s tans. They’d imagined flirting with Ryan Phillippe on a New York rooftop. Instead, with summer jobs waitressing at a country club on Long Island, pickings are slim. Mikey is a bully. Marco is off limits. Jose is angry. Mr Haight is a sleaze. Josh is too keen. And Other Josh… he’s something else entirely. It’s a miracle only one of them ends up dead. Dee is pretty sure she didn’t mean to kill him. Laura, to her credit, never asked. Not until she sends an email, out of the blue, more than twenty years later. It’s finally time to mend the biggest heartbreak of that summer; Laura wants her best friend back.

Pre-order here.