Next year I can't wait to read...
1) The new Curtis Sittenfeld, Sisterland.
She is just my favourite current writer. Prep and American Wife are fantastic, shrewd, sharp-eyed women's fiction. The new one looks like it's cut from a different cloth - about twins with a form of ESP, which seems to mark a step into a form of fantasy writing. For me she can do no wrong and so I can't wait for this book. Out June.
2) Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer
I devoured Bauer's previous three thrillers. Blacklands is particularly gripping but all are excellent (perhaps excepting the twist at the end of Darkside, which I wasn't entirely convinced by). Rubbernecker is about an anatomy student uncovering dark secrets from the past. Sounds good to me. Out January.
3) The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
This has got summer hit written all over it. A smart thriller about a serial killer ranging over decades in America - looks delicious. Out May
4) The Quickening by Julie Myerson
I find Julie Myerson a quirky and challenging author. This is a novella which sees her writing a horror story set in Antigua under the Hammer imprint. I think horror is the next genre fiction to make the crossover into the literary mainstream (cf fantasy and historical fiction), and I'd love it if this were a part of it. I'm looking forward to seeing how Myerson tackles the genre...Out March
Sophie Hannah is also bringing out one of these Hammer novellas called The Orphan Choir in May. Needless to say I can't wait for this one either! I like Hannah's psychological thrillers about the horrible intruding into everyday life, which makes me think I will love this story of a woman who moves to the country and is tormented by the sound of a neighbour's music...
5) The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
I've had this on my wish list for a long time. The Emperor's Children, Messud' s fabulous novel about young Manhattanites and 9/11, is one of my favourite reads of the decade. Her new novel follows a young teacher in Massachusetts who gets drawn into the life of the family of one of her pupils. Out May
6) The Chessmen by Peter May
What crime fan isn't practically frothing at the mouth to read the final of the Lewis trilogy? I love the wild atmosphere of these books and the sense of the isolated community that May develops. Along with the fantastic mystery, of course. Out January!
7) Life after Life by Kate Atkinson
I can't imagine there are many readers who don't love Kate Atkinson. Her funny, gripping novels are touching and unique. Her latest isn't one of the Jackson Brodie novels she's been writing over the past few years, instead it's a novel about a woman born into the blitz. Possibly with a fantasy element, this looks customarily unique from Atkinson.
If by the end of 2013 these novels turn out to have been half as good as I'm anticipating I will be a very happy reader indeed!
As an addendum, books published this year that I'm looking forward to reading in paperback include...
Gold by Chris Cleave
Reservation Road by John Burnham Shwartz
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
The Small Hours by Susie Boyt
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Cold Hands by John Niven
A Question of Identity by Susan Hill
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