Some of the most anticipated books of 2026

What’s on the horizon for books in the new year? We asked the Penguin Random House Australia team what they’re looking forward to in 2026

Read on to learn about some of the books we’re looking forward to next year, and trust us when we say: you’re going to want to update your TBR list.

Most anticipated books of 2026

Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash

When is it out?

Lost Lambs comes out 3 February 2026.

Genre

Contemporary fiction/general and literary fiction

One-sentence summary

Lost Lambs follows the three chaotic Flynn sisters as their spiralling personal disasters pull them into their youngest sister Harper’s dangerous quest to expose a corrupt local billionaire who may be controlling their town.

Blurb

For the three Flynn daughters, it’s been disastrous since their parents opened up their marriage. Abigail, the eldest, is dating an ex-soldier several years her senior nicknamed ‘War Crimes Wes’. Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist. And the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to a wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone – or something – is monitoring the town’s citizens.

Casting a shadow across their lives is Paul Alabaster, a nefarious local billionaire. Rumours of corruption circulate, but no one dares dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with Alabaster’s machinations sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy – one that may just, finally, bring them closer together.

Rippling with humour, warmth and style, Lost Lambs turns family dysfunction into an art form.

Seed by Elisabeth Easther

When is it out?

Seed comes out 3 February 2026.

Genre

Contemporary fiction/general and literary fiction

One-sentence summary

Seed follows four women whose tangled pursuits of love, career and motherhood collide in a sharply funny, emotionally honest story about how far people will go to shape the lives they want.

Blurb

Hillary and her partner are eager for a baby, their sex life dictated by the automated texts from their fertility agency, MotherWorld.

Her best friend Maggie is a single mother living her best life, enjoying a healthy relationship with her ex, and a healthy appetite on the dating apps.

With her youngest now at school, Shelley is returning to the office, hoping to prove her value at the gold-star advertising agency she works for.

Meanwhile, midwife Virginia has made a career of helping other people have babies, but is suddenly yearning for one of her own. With no partner in sight, she cooks up an unhinged plan . . .

Hilarious and wise, this new novel from the publishers of Marian Keyes and Dolly Alderton asks the question: how far would you go to get a life?

A Far-flung Life by M.L. Stedman

When is it out?

A Far-flung life comes out 3 March 2026.

Genre

Contemporary fiction/general and literary fiction

One-sentence summary

A Far-flung Life traces how a devastating accident and an ensuing chain of consequences shatter the MacBride family on their remote Western Australian sheep station, culminating in a life-and-death sacrifice that forces youngest son Matt into an agonising choice between love and duty.

Blurb

Western Australia, 1958: here, for generations, the MacBrides have lived on a remote sheep station, Meredith Downs. A million acres, it’s an ocean of arid land.

On an ordinary day, on a lonely road, patriarch Phil MacBride swerves to avoid a kangaroo. In seconds, the lives of his entire family are shattered.

Then, instead of leaving them to heal, fate comes back for them in a twist of consequences that will cause one of them to lose their life, and another to sacrifice theirs for the sake of an innocent child. Matt, the youngest MacBride, is plunged into a moral and emotional journey for which there is no map, no guide, as he is forced to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness.

A Far-flung Life explores the lives of a handful of isolated souls and the secrets they shield in order to survive. A tale of family and belonging, of compassion and hope, it's about people trying to do their best, and each, for private reasons, seeking shelter from the storm of life.

Vow of Eternal Night by Lily Crozier

When is it out?

Vow of Eternal Night comes out 17 March 2026.

Genre

Romance/fantasy

One-sentence summary

Vow of Eternal Night is a gothic romantasy following Clara Wagner who is abducted into a forced betrothal with the vampiric Prince Raleigh of Rostenburg and given until the end of the year to break his curse or become his bride forever.

Blurb

Clara Wagner has always known that monsters are real, and that the worst of them is Prince Raleigh of Rostenburg. For years the prince has treated his people as livestock to sate his thirst for blood. But when he decides it’s time to marry, Clara inadvertently finds herself at the centre of his attention.

Abducted and forced into a betrothal against her will, Clara would do anything to escape her fate. And so she is given an ultimatum: lift Raleigh’s vampiric curse before the end of the year or become his bride for eternity.

Vow of Eternal Night is a gothic, slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romantasy inspired by 'Beauty and the Beast' about the lengths people will go to for love, and the many faces monsters can wear.

The Couples Retreat by Mercedes Mercier

When is it out?

The Couples Retreat comes out 14 April 2026.

Genre

Contemporary fiction/general and literary fiction

One-sentence summary

At a secluded Kangaroo Island mansion, three wealthy couples’ rivalries and secrets erupt into a murder that strands everyone during a storm while rookie police officer Emily Quinn investigates amid local mistrust and the resurfacing of her dangerous ex-boyfriend, which jeopardises both her new life and the case.

Blurb

There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who remembers who you used to be.At a secluded beachfront mansion on Kangaroo Island, three wealthy couples gather for a weekend of partying and luxury indulgence. But beneath the glitter and excess, deep rivalries and explosive secrets fester between the old friends.When they wake to a shocking murder scene, they are gripped first by fear, then by suspicion. With ferry services suspended due to a storm, the survivors and the killer remain trapped on the island together.Thrust into the biggest case of her fledgling career, rookie police officer Emily Quinn quickly discovers that the locals are mistrustful of outsiders. When her dangerous ex-boyfriend tracks her down, Quinn’s past and present collide in spectacular fashion, threatening not only her new life, but the investigation of the most gruesome crime in the island’s history.Set in one of Australia’s most beautiful locations, The Couples Retreat is a twisty, compulsive thriller that proves privilege cannot protect you from everything, and no one is as perfect as they seem.

The Thornbacks by Chloe Wilson

When is it out?

The Thornbacks comes out 5 May 2026.

Genre

Contemporary fiction/general and literary fiction

One-sentence summary

Morticians Gertie and Tabitha use bodies of the deceased as tools to coerce and control, leading readers to ask questions about appearance, autonomy and how humanity’s most overlooked can find a means to rebel.

Blurb

It’s Friday night, date night, and two women are getting ready to head out. But it isn’t them who Luka – lawyer, thirty-three – is coming to meet. It’s Poppy, an angelic blonde who has been dead for more than a year.Behind her profile are two morticians, Gertie and Tabitha. By day they pump the blood out of bodies, replacing it with formaldehyde, water, alcohol, and raspberry-coloured dye. They sculpt, sew, and paint on shades of Light Natural Tan and Warm Rose Bisque makeup until a face that is almost too perfect looks out of an open casket. They take their work very seriously, and treat their targets on the dating apps with the same scrupulous care. But as they swipe their way through Luka, Zeke, Joshua and Angus, their carefully constructed routine begins to fray.In The Thornbacks, bodies are objects of care and of violence, tools to coerce and control. As the two women work on bodies laid on the slab, and perched at the bar, we are left to ask: to what extent can we really shape our own lives? What does justice look like in a world of flesh, deception and desire? And how can humanity’s bycatch – its most overlooked, undervalued specimens – find a means to rebel?Told with a blistering wit, The Thornbacks is an exhilarating, acutely observed story of appearances and their subversion.

The Mortons by Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld

When is it out?

The Mortons comes out 21 July 2026.

Genre

Crime fiction

One-sentence summary

A gifted heir of a murderous old-money dynasty sees her world unravel after her first sanctioned kill exposes buried secrets and threatens everything she’s been raised to believe.

Blurb

The Mortons are a modern day, old-money dynasty with impeccable taste, from their exquisitely crafted cocktails to their expertly tailored vintage garments. They are also stone-cold killers. For the Mortons, homicide is heritage.They, along with the other legacy crime families, send their progeny to Helshire College, where the legacy kids strategically intermingle with ordinary students from wealthy families. Jessica Morton has always excelled at Helshire, secure in her knowledge that she is the prodigy of her generation. Now, having committed her first kill at her matriarch’s behest, it should be Jessica’s moment, her honour. But that kill will cut more ways than one, unknotting deep secrets that propel a series of revelations, spanning the Mortons’ country estate, the New York City art world, and Helshire itself.

What happens to Jessica when all of her dearly-held certainties face the axe?

Sharp and hypnotic, The Mortons is an epic novel of alliances and power, loyalty and kinship and the consequences of ruthless ambition.

I Love the Whole World! by Victoria Hannan

When is it out?

I Love the Whole World! comes out 11 August 2026.

Genre

Contemporary fiction/general and literary fiction

One-sentence summary

Leslie McDonald, a 43-year-old woman whose risk free life has become stagnant after divorce and growing distance from her adult daughter, travels alone on a prize trip to Las Vegas and unexpectedly embarks on a pilgrimage to rediscover beauty, remember who she wanted to be and recognise that her life still belongs to her.

Blurb

Leslie McDonald is a 43 year old woman who has lived a risk free life that became quieter and quieter. Now divorced from an ex-husband who had great posture and no warmth and becoming increasingly distant from her adult daughter for a reason that is exposed across the novel (and reminds her how she got into this unsatisfying situation), her life feels stagnant and joyless.

When, she wins an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas and her best-friend can't go with her, she makes the terrifying decision to go alone.

What starts as an absurd holiday ends up becoming a pilgrimage to look for beauty in the natural world and Leslie starts to remember who she wanted to be and who she can become again.

This is a novel about the people we become. The wonder of suddenly seeing your life not as something that has happened to you, but something that still, astonishingly, belongs to you.

I Love the Whole World! is a celebration, a beautifully observed novel about friendship, ageing and the extra/ordinary act of deciding to begin again.