Literary Fiction

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Turbulence

What happens when the life you carefully built begins to feel like a life you never chose? Dunya Dawood once dreamed of becoming a documentary filmmaker. Then she fell in love, married, and moved to the Middle East, where her ambitions gradually gave way to the demands of domestic life. A decade later, pregnant with her second child, she boards a flight to New York and finds herself unexpectedly separated from her husband and young son in business class. For the first time in years, Dunya has space to think. As the plane crosses continents, she revisits the decisions that brought her here, questioning the compromises she made between love, faith, family expectations, and her own ambitions. But when a shocking discovery triggers an unexpected crisis mid-flight, she faces a decision that could change everything. In Turbulence, Hafsa Lodi explores the complicated intersection of Muslim identity, feminism, marriage, and motherhood. Thoughtful and emotionally intimate, the novel asks whether women can challenge the expectations placed upon them without abandoning the people and beliefs they hold dear.

United Arab Emirates United States 2026

Ruins

Lily Brooks-Dalton

What if everything we believed about the origins of civilisation was wrong? Professor Ember Agni is an ambitious archaeologist whose career has stalled and whose marriage is quietly falling apart. For years, she has pursued evidence of a lost civilisation that the academic world refuses to acknowledge. Just as she begins to abandon her quest, a message arrives from a former student overseas: he may have discovered an extraordinary artefact that could rewrite humanity’s history. Determined to uncover the truth, Ember risks her reputation and personal life to embark on an expedition into a remote wilderness. But the deeper she ventures into the past, the more complicated her discoveries become. The civilisation she seeks may hold secrets that challenge not only established history, but also the beliefs on which her own world is built. Blending archaeological mystery, speculative fiction, and adventure, Ruins explores how societies construct their histories—and what happens when the stories we inherit begin to crumble. As Ember searches for the remnants of a forgotten world, she must confront the ruins of her own life and decide what truths are worth sacrificing everything to uncover.

United States 2026

The Strangling Fig

The Strangling Fig

Spanning generations and continents, The Strangling Fig explores the lasting impact of grief, family secrets, and inherited trauma on the lives of women in one Muslim family. Hyderabad, 1946: Ashraf is a young girl when her father is murdered on the eve of the Partition of British India. His death transforms her relationship with her mother, leaving Ashraf emotionally isolated and searching for the affection she can no longer find at home. As she grows older, the wounds of her childhood shape her choices in love, marriage, and motherhood, influencing her relationship with her own daughter. California, 2002: Sixteen-year-old Seher feels abandoned by her mother and struggles to find a place for herself. When she begins seeing the ghost of her grandmother, Ashraf, she finds the guidance and emotional connection she has been missing. But as Seher becomes increasingly dependent on this supernatural presence, she discovers that the bond offers comfort at a troubling cost. Moving between India and the United States, Musa weaves together the experiences of women separated by generations but connected by family history and unresolved pain. Blending family drama with elements of magical realism, the novel examines how loss and emotional wounds can be passed from mother to daughter—and whether understanding the past can help break the cycle.

India United States 2026

Abundance

Set in suburban Miami, Abundance follows the Bharwani family, a Muslim Indian American family navigating ambition, faith, sacrifice, and the complicated pursuit of the American Dream. Sixty-year-old Sakeena Bharwani co-owns a Dunkin’ franchise with her husband, Ramzan. Thirty years earlier, she left Rawalpindi, Pakistan, to build a new life in the United States. Over the years, she has made difficult compromises between her religious belief in naseeb—the idea of destiny—and her desire to shape her own future. Now facing a life-threatening liver condition, Sakeena refuses a potentially life-saving transplant, believing that she should accept her fate rather than intervene in what she sees as God’s plan. Desperate to save his wife, Ramzan tries to bring their adult children together. Their eldest daughter, Fareen, is consumed by her ambitions in the competitive world of finance, while their son, Adnan, is entangled in questionable international business dealings that prevent him from returning home. Their daughter Kawal, meanwhile, must navigate her own responsibilities and family expectations. As Sakeena’s condition deteriorates, the family is forced to confront years of compromises, unspoken resentments, and conflicting ideas about what makes a life meaningful. Through their struggles, Lakhani examines the tension between individual ambition and family duty, the immigrant experience, and the question of how much control people truly have over their destinies. With a nuanced portrayal of a multigenerational immigrant family, Abundance explores the costs of success and the sacrifices people make in pursuit of security, belonging, and happiness.

United States 2026

You Exist Too Much

You Exist Too Much

Caught between her Palestinian heritage, her queer identity, and an overwhelming hunger for love, an unnamed young woman struggles to find somewhere she truly belongs. When a painful breakup sends her spiralling, she enters an unconventional treatment centre for what is described as love addiction. Through fragmented memories spanning Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and the United States, she confronts her complicated relationship with her mother, the shame surrounding her sexuality, and the emotional wounds shaping her destructive romantic patterns. Intimate, provocative, and darkly funny, this novel explores the fine line between desire and obsession—and the difficult journey toward accepting yourself when you feel you are always too much for the world.

Palestine United States 2026

Every Story Is a Love Story

Every Story Is a Love Story

Three years after a car accident kills his pregnant wife, Wolo is slowly learning to live with his grief. Then a letter arrives from Victoria, the woman responsible for her death, asking to meet him. Against the wishes of his family, Wolo agrees, opening the door to an encounter that challenges everything he believes about guilt, forgiveness, and healing. A moving novel about the complicated ways love survives loss—and whether compassion can exist alongside unbearable pain.

United States 2026

The Radiance

The Radiance is a literary novel that explores spiritual awakening, personal identity, and the search for meaning in a fractured contemporary world. The story follows a writer whose life is transformed by a near-fatal hit-and-run accident on a country road. As he struggles to understand what happened, he experiences an unsettling spiritual awakening that blurs the boundary between revelation and madness. Drawn toward a brilliant colleague at a university, the narrator becomes entangled in an intense relationship and a scandal that threatens to destroy them both. As the investigation into his accident unfolds, buried family secrets emerge, forcing him to confront questions about memory, faith, desire, and his own understanding of reality. Moving between rural America and Europe, and exploring the intersections of Islam and Christianity, Akhtar examines the tensions between personal belief and public life. Blending psychological suspense with philosophical reflection, the novel asks whether moments of profound disruption can reveal something meaningful about existence, even when the truth remains uncertain.

United States 2026

Jaded

Summer 1986, at Kelsey College. Professors Sam and Vera Ward have been married for decades, but their relationship follows an unusual arrangement: each academic year, Sam may take one student as a lover, provided the affair ends within twelve months. Their carefully controlled tradition begins to unravel when they choose Jade, a mysterious and fiercely intelligent young woman who has plans of her own. As desire turns into obsession and manipulation, the boundaries between predator and prey begin to collapse. Secrets become weapons, loyalties shift, and the power dynamics that once held the Wards’ marriage together threaten to destroy them all. Seductive, unsettling, and sharply observed, Jaded explores sexual politics, complicity, ambition, and the dangerous games people play to maintain control.

United States 2027

Second Nature

Ling Ling Huang

In the isolated community of the Veil, Bodie grows up surrounded by his many mothers and devoted to a female God. His world seems peaceful, governed by ancient traditions and strict expectations. But as Bodie develops romantic feelings for his closest friend, Aster, he begins to question the rules that shape their lives. When he approaches a mysterious ritual marking the transition to adulthood, unsettling truths emerge about the society he has always trusted. To protect himself and the people he loves, Bodie must confront the one thing his community forbids: escape. Haunting and thought-provoking, this speculative novel explores faith, desire, survival, and the dangers of unquestioned traditions.

United States 2027

Eat Bitter, Anastasia

Eat Bitter, Anastasia

Soma Mei Sheng Frazier

Anastasia Ān Xiá Huang is in her twenties, living in Oakland’s Chinatown, and wondering whether the city she loves is also the place holding her back. Working at a modern art museum while her own artistic ambitions gather dust, she sees an unexpected inheritance—a rundown Victorian house left by her beloved uncle—as her chance to start over. But the house holds more than renovation projects: unsettling memories of her childhood begin resurfacing, forcing her to confront an absent father, a distant mother, and the family secrets that have shaped her. As Anastasia untangles the mysteries of her home and her past, she must decide what it means to belong somewhere and whether moving forward requires leaving something behind. A vivid, intimate novel about family, cultural identity, grief, and the complicated ties between people and places.

United States 2027

Swans

Claire Luchette

March 1970. With postal workers on strike, seventeen-year-old Sibby escapes a conversion camp and hits the road with a letter for the woman she loves. Along the way, she meets Lee, a woman transporting two swans to Ohio, and the pair begin delivering messages across the Midwest. As they invent stories about the people behind the letters, an unexpected love story begins to unfold between them. Funny, tender, and unconventional, Swans explores queer love, self-invention, and the freedom to imagine a different life.

United States 2027