Whilst romance may be in the air for some in February, we have our hearts set on the gripping, twisted, hilarious and speculative fiction being released this month! Dive into our list of must-read books and discover the next page-turner that will have you falling in love…
I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY by Marni Appleton
The Indigo Press | 9781911648871 | PB | £12.99 | 20th February 2025
Announcing the arrival of a major talent, I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY is more a warning than a wish. With this collection of haunting and haunted stories, Marni Appleton immerses us in a world of fleeting encounters, empty couplings, break ups, bust ups, threesomes and ghosts, giving us a kaleidoscopic overview of twenty-first century life. Photos of women eating go viral, a cookie communicates a threat, and women working dead-end jobs become entangled in the performances around them. Everyday experiences of friendship, family, dating and desire catapult the reader into a creepy vortex of horror. Characters reveal themselves in slippery glimpses, through positive affirmations, social media accounts and secret appetites.
Human, Animal by Seth Insua
Verve Books | 9780857308894 | PB | £10.99 | 20th February 2025
Since the death of his brother, veteran dairy farmer George has been struggling to keep the family business afloat. His troubles only worsen when animal rights activists descend on his cowshed one morning, to film content for their social media. The fallout is unprecedented, especially as George’s youngest child appears to side with the activists. As the family navigate the real-world consequences of going viral, George’s elderly mother sleepwalks back to her youth, and a secret she has carried with her for decades one that could change everything for them all.
Darryl by Jackie Ess
Divided Publishing | 9781739516178 | PB | £11.99 | 3rd February 2025
Darryl Cook is a cuckold, and that’s exactly how he likes it. He has an inheritance that spares him from work, a manageable and seemingly consequence-free drug habit, and a lovely wife called Mindy who’s generally game for anything — and for as much of it as she can get. But after an accidental overdose and some serious over-sharing, Darryl’s world begins to crack up. Tormented by what seems to be the secret truth in sex, and less assured of that secret’s form, Darryl steps into what used to be called real life, as he embarks on a serious if stumbling assessment of himself, and the libertines, lovers and others who make up his world. Darryl is a disarmingly funny and unabashedly intelligent look at a community of people parsing masculinity, marriage, sex (and love) on their own terms.
Río Muerto by Ricardo Silva Romero
Translated by Victor Meadowcroft
World Editions | 9781642861457 | PB | £15.99 | 4th February 2025
On the outskirts of Belen del Chami, a town that has yet to appear on any map of Colombia, the mute Salomón Palacios is murdered a few steps away from his home. His widow, the courageous and foul-mouthed Hipolita Arenas, completely loses her sanity and confronts the paramilitaries and local politicians, challenging them to also kill her and her two fatherless sons. Yet as Hipolita faces her husband’s murderers on her desperate journey, she finds an unexpected calling to stay alive. This poetic and hypnotizing novel, told from the perspective of Salomón’s ghost, denounces the brutal killings of innocent citizens and at the same time celebrates the invisible: imagination, memories, hope, and the connection to afterlife.
I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both by Mariah Stovall
Influx Press | 9781914391446 | PB | £11.99 | 13th February 2025
Meet Khaki Oliver, a woman perennially trying to disappear: into a co-dependent friendship; an ill-advised boyfriend; the punk scene; or simply, the ether. These days, it’s a meaningless job and an empty apartment. Then, after a decade of estrangement, she receives a letter from her former best friend — Fiona’s throwing a party for her newly adopted daughter and wants Khaki to join the celebration.
One song at a time, from 1980s hardcore to 2010s emo, the shared and separate contours of each woman’s mind come into focus. Will listening to the same old songs on repeat doom Khaki to a lonely life of arrested development? Or will hindsight help her regain her sense of self and pave a healthy path for the future? Set in the suburbs of Los Angeles and New York City, I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both is a Black woman’s coming-of-age story, chronicling a life-changing friendship, the interplay between music fandom and identity, and the slipperiness of sanity.
On The Greenwich Line by Shady Lewis
Translated by Katharine Halls
Peirene Press | 9781908670953 | PB | £12.99 | 18th February 2025
In a run-down East London housing office, migrants and frustrated local government employees cross paths and try to work out what the latest policy means for them. As a favour to a friend, one man finds himself roped into organizing the funeral of Ghiyath, a young Syrian refugee.
It is not until his life collides with Ghiyath’s death that he realises just how much he has in common with those who’ve fallen through the cracks. Told with a wry cynicism and deadpan wit, On the Greenwich Line traces the absurdities of racism, austerity, and bureaucracy in contemporary England. This is a story about systemic failure and human courage, and about London and its many lost souls, full of insight, humour and profound humanity.
Penelope Unbound by Mary Morrissy
Banshee Press | 9781739397999 | PB | £10.99 | 20th February 2025
On their arrival in Trieste in 1904, James Joyce left Norah Barnacle outside a railway station while he went to scare up money. A penniless Norah was left alone for almost an entire day and night sitting on their suitcases at the station in a city where she knew no one and where she didn’t speak the language. In real life, Norah waited for him. This novel asks — what if she hadn’t? In Penelope Unbound, Mary Morrissy weaves a spellbinding speculative history. Sensual, inventive and uproariously funny, Penelope Unbound reimagines a Joycean heroine for the 21st century.
The Best Enemy by Sergio Olguín
Bitter Lemon Press | 9781916725096 | PB | £9.99 | 20th February 2025
Veronica Rosenthal’s former boss has just been shot. The Bueons Aires authorities claim a botched robbery. But investigative Journalist Veronica suspects not. There is only one way to find out… A former editor of Nuestro Tiempo magazine has been murdered, apparently during the course of a burglary gone wrong, but investigative reporter Veronica Rosenthal has her doubts. She becomes increasingly convinced that her old boss’s death was connected to his investigation of a high-level corruption scandal, a complex web of deceit and power. A gripping tale of intrigue, gradually revealing a scandal that involves influential Argentine businessmen connected to an Israeli war criminal. But it also has a compelling personal angle, as Veronica, now older and wiser, faces an unwanted pregnancy, marital woes and concerns about her father’s health.
Gloss by Kyra Wilder
Les Fugitives | 9781739778354 | PB | £12.99 | 24th February 2025
Ari, Eleni and Hesper meet one summer at Golden Apples Farm in rural California, where the charismatic Lee, an apple farmer and cook, runs an alternative therapy programme for young women suffering from eating disorders. A year later, they reunite to testify at his trial. Transposing the Greek myth of the Hesperides to Marin County at the turn of the millennium, Gloss is an unconventional psychological thriller with feminist bite. From the fragmented chorus of the girls’ voices emerges a surreal, kaleidoscopic picture of trauma and its aftermath: ambivalence, guilt, denial, lingering fascination, and the gaps left by things too difficult to speak aloud. Wilder paints desire and disgust alike in sensuous, delicate prose which captures the magnetic pull of forbidden fruit.
Living In Your Light by Abdellah Taïa
Translated by Emma Ramadan
Seven Stories Press UK | 9781911710189 | PB | £14.99 | 13th February 2025
Three moments in the life of Malika, a Moroccan countrywoman. From 1954 to 1999. From French colonization to the death of King Hassan II. It is her voice we hear in Abdellah Taia’s stunning new novel, translated by Emma Ramadan, who won the PEN Translation Prize for her translation of Taia’s last novel, A Country for Dying. Malika’s first husband was sent by the French to fight in Indochina. In the 1960s, in Rabat, she does everything possible to prevent her daughter Khadija from becoming a maid in a rich French woman’s villa. The day before the death of Hassan II, a young homosexual thief, Jaafar, enters her home and wants to kill her.
