Summer catch-up: The 20 best fiction books of the year so far

Looking for a holiday read? Richard Fitzpatrick offers suggestions from the fiction titles published in the first half of 2026

Best fiction books of the first half of 2026.

1. Kin by Tayari Jones 

Kin is a kind of modern-day retelling of Steinbeck’s East of Eden fable — in Tayari Jones’s story, which is a bestseller in the United States, the action is set in the American Deep South. It follows the travails of two childhood friends, both young motherless girls, as they deal with the contrasting fates that life throws at them.

2. Yesteryear by Caro Claire  Burke

Caro Claire Burke’s debut is a New York Times bestselling satirical novel that hinges on an ingenious plot device: a “tradwife” influencer (you know the kind: with the perfect, rustic traditional family lifestyle, including six gorgeous kids and a handsome cowboy husband) wakes up in an alternate universe — toiling as a farmer’s wife in 1855. She needs to escape this savage nightmare — and fast.

3. Land by Maggie O’Farrell

In a story that recalls Brian Friel’s Translations, Maggie O’Farrell, following on from the hoopla surrounding the film adaptation of her novel Hamnet, returns to the land of her birth, Ireland, for a family saga set in the 1860s about cartography, colonisation and Celtic magic realism.

4. A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello 

Mary Costello has an uncanny ability to capture the unthinking cruelty of people in relationships, prose which she peppers with subtle philosophical musings. In her latest novel, the protagonist Anna experiences two troubled love affairs — one with an older, colder man and, after marriage breakdown, she falls for a gentle Algerian man, a romantic entanglement which takes an unexpected turn.

5. Transcription by Ben Lerner 

Ben Learner writes novels of great philosophical depth and nuance. In Transcription, a middle-aged narrator travels to interview his 90-year-old mentor and the father of his friend Max, an encounter that opens up a Pandora’s box of troubles for the triumvirate, as well as providing meditations on technology, rivalry, fatherhood and the dystopian turn the world has taken.

6. The Midnight Train by Matt Haig

In a story reminiscent of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, Wilbur, 81, on the verge of death, is given a golden ticket to ride: the chance to travel back in time and revisit the pivotal moments of his life in a wistful, uplifting story from the multi-million copy bestselling science fiction writer.

7. Other People's Lives by Kathleen MacMahon 

Kathleen MacMahon is a deft novelist. In Other People’s Lives, Justine and Iseult are childhood friends. Justine is married to Iseult’s brother. Iseult has been unlucky in love, for reasons undisclosed. Immersing herself in her daughter’s wedding plans, Justine begins to question her daughter’s marriage decision — and herself and Iseult’s romantic choices.

8. Departure(s) by Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes won the Booker Prize in 2011 with a fiendishly clever novel, The Sense of an Ending, about love and the tricks memory can play. In what is his final novel, he revisits that slippery beast memory in a playful, quasi-autobiographical story about a love affair between two college friends from the 1960s.

9. The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

In The Things We Never Say, the peerless Elizabeth Strout introduces us to Artie Dam, a depressed middle-aged, middle-of-the-road history teacher in coastal Massachusetts whose life is turned upside down when he discovers a secret at the heart of his family life.

10. Rituals by Danielle McLaughlin 

The Stinging Fly only publishes one book a year and it’s always a zinger. So, the Cork writer Danielle McLaughlin’s novel Rituals comes with huge fanfare. In it, Joan, a 50-something civil servant on an unexpected career break, takes in a male UCC student as a lodger, which leads to funny, unpredictable happenings.

11. The News from Dublin by Colm Tóibín

A new fiction release from Colm Tóibín is always good news. In The News from Dublin, he’s gathered together nine short stories — albeit one, The Catalan Girls, is effectively a novella — that hop across the globe, including Ireland, Argentina and the United States.

12. Getting the Electric by Louise Hegart

Following on from the success of her dazzling hit novel Fair Play last year, the Glanmire author Louise Hegarty’s short story collection, which features axe-wielding trolls and strange noises in the family basement, has been acclaimed for its wit, devilment and inventive storytelling techniques.

13. Look What You Made Me Do by John Lanchester

John Lanchester’s novels are always a delight. In his latest satire, Kate and John have been married for 30 years. They’re part of the North London bourgeoise set. Into their lives comes Phoebe, a screenwriter for a hit TV show about intergenerational adultery. It’s only after Jack dies that Kate discovers a possibly unwelcome betrayal.

14. An Arrow in Flight by Mary Lavin 

Mary Lavin is one of Ireland’s finest 20th-century writers and a long-time contributor to the New Yorker. Penguin Books have gathered together 16 of her best short stories, set in Dublin and rural Ireland. A must-read collection.

15. My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney 

Alice Feeney is known far and wide for the Netflix adaptation of His & Hers. Her eighth novel is a “marriage thriller”: Eden Fox, an artist on the cusp of her first art exhibition, returns home one day to find that a woman, weirdly similar to her, answers their front door, and a husband who insists the stranger is his wife.

Crime Fiction Highlights 

1. Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden 

Freida McFadden is the queen of popcorn thrillers, books which sell copies in their gazillions. In Dear Debbie, she unleashes an agony aunt — whose life hits a sudden series of setbacks personally and professionally — on paths of vengeance.

2. The Truth About Ruby Cooper by Liz Nugent 

Liz Nugent is one of Ireland’s most gifted writers. In her latest psychological thriller, she flits between Boston and Dublin, examining the decades-long fallout from an incident that happened in 1999, which threw the lives of two privileged teenage sisters, Ruby and Erin Cooper, into disarray.

3. In Glass Houses by Edel Coffey 

Edel Coffey has the Midas touch. She’s followed up two No. 1 books on the Irish bestseller lists with a third acclaimed thriller set amongst Manhattan’s filthy rich in which Eddie, a female journalist, revisits a 20-year-old murder case in which they got the wrong man.

4. Ironwood by Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly, a one-time Florida crime reporter, has sold around 100 million copies of his crime fiction books. In Ironwood, Detective Sergeant Stilwell tussles with a drugs cartel and an unresolved case in which it seems his superiors don’t want him to crack.

5. The Keeper by Tana French 

The Keeper is the final book in the international bestselling Cal Hooper trilogy. Ardnakelty is a remote Irish fishing village. The townland is split in two when the girlfriend of the local big wheel is found dead in a river. Cal Hooper, a grizzled, retired Chicago detective, who’s more than a blow in, must take sides in the feud and get to the bottom of a sordid murder case.