Literary Fiction

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The Original Daughter

The Original Daughter

In 1996 Singapore, eight-year-old Genevieve Yang has always been an only child. That changes when Arin, a girl from a secret second family her grandfather left behind in Malaysia, comes to live with them. Initially uncertain of each other, the girls gradually become inseparable, forging a sisterhood that helps them navigate life in a working-class household and a society where academic achievement is seen as the path to a better future. As they grow older, Gen and Arin pursue their ambitions in different ways. But in a rapidly modernising Singapore, where success can mean everything and failure feels unforgivable, their once-unbreakable bond begins to fracture. Jealousy, resentment, and betrayal complicate their relationship, forcing them to confront what they owe their family—and what they owe themselves. Spanning years of changing relationships and personal reinvention, The Original Daughter is an intimate portrait of sisterhood, ambition, and the complicated nature of love. Jemimah Wei captures the pressures of social mobility and the longing to be seen, asking whether we can become our own people without losing those who helped shape us.

The Museum Detective

The Museum Detective

Maha Khan Phillips

A mysterious mummy discovered in a remote Pakistani desert could rewrite history. But the closer archaeologist Gul Delani gets to the truth, the more dangerous her investigation becomes. Gul is a respected museum curator and one of Pakistan’s leading experts on ancient civilisations. For three years, she has also been haunted by the disappearance of her teenage niece, Mahnaz. When police summon Gul to examine a seemingly authentic mummy discovered during a drug raid, she hopes the unexpected assignment will offer a welcome distraction. Instead, the extraordinary artefact—with symbols linking it to the ancient Persian city of Persepolis—draws her into a world of antiquities smuggling, corruption, and powerful hidden interests. As the mummy disappears and threats close in, Gul begins to suspect that the archaeological mystery and her niece’s disappearance may be connected. Determined to uncover the truth, she must navigate Karachi’s criminal underworld while confronting painful questions about her own family. Blending archaeological intrigue with a gripping modern-day mystery, The Museum Detective explores the connections between history, power, and justice—and the lengths one woman will go to uncover what others want buried. Inspired by a real-life antiquities scandal in Pakistan, it launches a crime series featuring a compelling heroine.

Waseem

What does it mean to call a place home when the land you long for has always been out of reach? In a crowded Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Waseem lives with a disability that leaves him largely unable to speak or walk. Much of his world unfolds through a small window, until Ameena, his spirited childhood friend, brings books into his life. Their friendship grows into a deep bond shaped by shared dreams, unspoken affection, and a longing to visit their ancestral homeland, Palestine. As the years pass, Waseem must confront the limits imposed on him by his body, his circumstances, and a world that often underestimates him. Yet his story is not defined by hardship alone. Humour, tenderness, and an enduring hunger for knowledge illuminate the everyday lives of people whose hopes extend far beyond the confines of the camp. With warmth and emotional depth, Lilas Taha explores love, disability, exile, and the search for belonging. Waseem is a moving portrait of a young man determined to claim his own future while holding on to the homeland he has never known.

Lebanon Palestine 2025

The Ice Palace

Two girls. One unforgettable encounter. A frozen world hiding secrets that words cannot express. Eleven-year-old Siss is confident, outgoing, and well-liked by her classmates. Unn, who has recently arrived in their small Norwegian village to live with her aunt, is her opposite: withdrawn, mysterious, and burdened by a private grief. When the girls spend an evening together, they form an intense connection that neither can fully understand. But the following day, Unn disappears after venturing into a spectacular frozen waterfall known as the Ice Palace—a labyrinth of shimmering chambers sculpted by winter itself. As the village searches for Unn, Siss struggles with the loss of a friendship that had barely begun. Unable to explain what passed between them, she withdraws into silence, carrying Unn’s memory like a secret of her own. With hauntingly beautiful prose, Tarjei Vesaas transforms the Norwegian winter landscape into a reflection of loneliness, grief, and the mysteries of human connection. The Ice Palace is a quiet, deeply moving novel about childhood, loss, and the invisible bonds that can change us forever. It won the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1964.

The Book of I

In the year 825, a Viking raid leaves a remote Scottish island littered with the dead. Only three unlikely survivors remain: Martin, a young monk who escaped the massacre; Una, a beekeeper and mead maker freed from her abusive husband by the violence; and Grimur, an ageing Viking who survives being buried alive by his own companions. Stranded together on an island where trust seems impossible, the three begin building an unexpected life. Martin clings to his Christian faith, Una finds freedom in the rhythms of nature, and Grimur discovers that peace may offer something the battlefield never could. But can a fragile community survive when its members come from opposing worlds—and when the past refuses to stay buried? Set against the wild beauty of the Scottish coast, The Book of I blends brutal history with irreverent humour and surprising tenderness. David Greig explores faith, guilt, redemption, and the possibility of finding family in the most unlikely places. It is a story about what remains after destruction—and whether people who once stood on opposite sides can learn to live together.

United Kingdom 2025

The Original

A painting is burned to ashes. Years later, it mysteriously returns. And in a crumbling English country house, nothing—and no one—is quite what they seem. Oxfordshire, 1899. Grace Inderwick has spent most of her life as an unwanted guest in her wealthy uncle’s household. An outsider with a talent for copying paintings, she secretly turns her unusual skill into a way to earn money and imagine a life beyond the estate. But when her cousin Charles, presumed dead after disappearing at sea, suddenly returns, the family is thrown into turmoil. Some believe he is their long-lost relative; others suspect an impostor hoping to claim the family fortune. As Grace becomes entangled in the mystery, her own secrets threaten to surface. In a world where appearances can deceive and even love involves a kind of imitation, she must decide whom to trust—and who she wants to become. Atmospheric, witty, and full of Victorian intrigue, The Original explores the blurred boundaries between authenticity and deception, asking what makes a person truly original.

United Kingdom 2025

Happy Land

Dolen Perkins-Valdez

In Happy Land, Dolen Perkins-Valdez uncovers a remarkable chapter of African American history through the story of a family whose identity is deeply rooted in the legacy of a forgotten kingdom. Nikki Berry has been estranged from her grandmother, Mother Rita, for years. When her grandmother unexpectedly summons her to the mountains of western North Carolina, Nikki hopes to understand the family conflict that has separated generations. Instead, she discovers a story that transforms her understanding of her ancestry: her great-great-great-grandmother, Luella, was the queen of the Kingdom of the Happy Land, a real community established by formerly enslaved people after the American Civil War. As Nikki learns more about the kingdom and the lives of those who built it, she discovers how her ancestors created a place of independence and belonging in a society that continued to deny Black Americans equality. But the family’s connection to the land faces a new threat when outside interests seek to take it away. Nikki must confront both the secrets that have shaped her family and the responsibility of protecting its inheritance. Moving between Nikki’s present-day struggles and Luella’s nineteenth-century experiences, Perkins-Valdez weaves together two generations of women whose lives are shaped by the pursuit of freedom, dignity, and self-determination. The novel explores the importance of ancestral memory, the lasting consequences of racial injustice, and the deep connection between land and identity. Inspired by the historical Kingdom of the Happy Land, the novel celebrates the courage of people who dared to imagine a different future and asks what it means to preserve a legacy for generations to come.

United States 2025

Gulf

Set across the Arabian Gulf, Gulf follows five women from different backgrounds whose lives intersect in a region shaped by gender inequality, political conflict, economic disparity, and cultural divides. Dounia, a young Saudi woman, struggles with the restrictions of married life and the prospect of raising a daughter in a society where women’s freedom is limited. Flora, a Filipina domestic worker, leaves her surviving child behind after a devastating natural disaster forces her to seek work abroad. In Syria, Zeinah is pushed into marriage with an ISIS fighter, while Justine, an American museum curator in Abu Dhabi, confronts the contradictions between her progressive ideals and her own complicity in unequal power structures. Meanwhile, Eskedare, an Ethiopian teenager, fights to escape the circumstances that threaten to define her future. Through these interconnected stories, Ogrodnik explores the ways women navigate oppression, displacement, and moral compromise. Gulf is a powerful examination of survival, rebellion, and the struggle for agency in a world shaped by unequal power.

Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates 2025

Necessary Fiction

Necessary Fiction

Eloghosa Osunde

In Lagos, a vibrant cast of queer Nigerians navigate love, desire, family expectations, and the courage to live on their own terms. From artists and lovers to parents and friends, their lives intertwine as they confront the stories they have constructed to survive in a society that often refuses to accept them as they are. Through intimate relationships, unexpected connections, and moments of radical self-discovery, Eloghosa Osunde explores what it means to create a family beyond blood ties and to claim the freedom to define oneself. Tender, defiant, and deeply human, Necessary Fiction is a celebration of chosen family, queer identity, and the complicated fictions we sometimes need to survive.

Where You Go, I Will Go

Where You Go, I Will Go

Christina Fonthes

Two women, separated by a generation, struggle to reconcile love, family expectations, and the desire to live freely. In 1980s Kinshasa, teenage Mira falls in love with a poor singer, defying her ambitious family and setting in motion events that will shape her future across continents. Two decades later, in London, her daughter Bijoux hides her relationship with a woman behind the obedient persona expected of her by her strict Pentecostal aunt. As their stories intertwine, both women must confront inherited wounds, cultural traditions, and the meaning of home. Tender and emotionally powerful, this intergenerational family saga explores queer love, migration, motherhood, and the courage to break free from the past.

Congo, Democratic Republic 2025

Helen of Nowhere

Helen of Nowhere

Makenna Goodman

A disgraced English professor, separated from his wife and forced out of his job, visits an idyllic country house for sale, hoping to begin again. The realtor introduces him to the mysterious Helen, the former owner who built a life close to nature and outside conventional expectations. As the evening unfolds, the viewing becomes a surreal journey through the professor’s resentments, regrets, and carefully constructed sense of self. Philosophical, darkly humorous, and formally inventive, Helen of Nowhere questions the fantasies we build around happiness, freedom, and starting over—and what we must surrender to find a more meaningful life.

United States 2025

Ordinary Saints

Ordinary Saints

Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin

Jay has built a new life in London with her girlfriend, keeping her complicated past at a safe distance. But when she learns that her beloved older brother, who died in an accident, may be declared a Catholic saint, she is forced to confront the family and faith she left behind. Both tender and sharply funny, this novel explores queer identity, grief, and the complicated legacy of the Catholic Church in Ireland, asking who gets to decide how a life is remembered.

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