Waterstones has announced their shortlisted titles for the Debut Fiction Prize 2026!
Celebrating debut fiction in all its forms, the prize highlights the importance of discovering and championing new talent and acts as an extension of the alchemy of bookseller word-of-mouth recommendation.
Want more suggested books? Take a look at our recommendations.
Lost Lambs
Madeline Cash
The Flynns are not alright. It’s been disastrous since Bud and Catherine opened up their marriage, and none of the Flynns can remember the last time a meal was cooked, a load of laundry done, or a social code abided by.
Their daughters spiral in their own chaotic orbits: Abigail, the eldest, is dating a man in his twenties nicknamed War Crime Wes; Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist; the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone – or something – is monitoring the town’s citizens.
Casting a shadow across their lives, and their small coastal town, 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.
Honey in the Wound
Jiyoung Gan
A sister disappears and returns as a tiger. A mother’s voice compels the truth from any tongue. A granddaughter divines secrets in others’ dreams.
Spanning ninety years as one family is displaced across Asia, this novel follows Young-Ja, who finds herself struggling to survive after her family is killed by Japanese soldiers. The magical gift that once brought her joy – the ability to infuse her cooking with her feelings: love, peace, delight – transforms into something more powerful as her sorrow and anger seeps into her confections.
When her talent is noticed by a Korean resistance fighter, she’s taken to Manchuria where she becomes enmeshed in a network of spies at a teahouse favoured by Japanese officials. Haunted at every turn by the spectre of Japanese soldiers, she endures horrors and brutality at the hands of the Imperial Army.
Under Water
Tara Menon
A stunning and deeply moving literary debut of grief, loss and female friendship, set against the backdrop of two cataclysmic natural events.
When six-year-old Marissa loses her mother, she is taken by her father to live on a small Thai island in the Andaman Sea. There, she forms a deep friendship with Arielle and together they explore the fragile wonders of its forests, reefs, and beaches. Holding their breath for minutes at a time, they learn to dive into the deep, as effortlessly synchronized as the manta rays they come to know by name.
Then, on Boxing Day 2004, when the Indian Ocean tsunami makes landfall, they are swept up by the first wave and separated. Eight years later, Marissa is living in New York. She spends her days wandering through the city and her nights seeking solace in the beds of strangers. As the city prepares for a devastating storm, Marissa reflects on her past and learns how to sustain herself in a precarious world.
May We Feed the King
Rebecca Perry
She is a curator, who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to life. But in the lush private quarters of a medieval palace, she finds herself so transfixed by the reign of an almost-forgotten King that the edges of her life begin to blur.
He is a reluctant ruler with no hunger for power, rushed to the throne after the untimely deaths of his older brothers. But it isn’t long before whispers begin to fly around the court. And with the growing belief that the King is not fit for the throne comes the idea that another might rule in his stead.
The Infamous Gilberts
Angela Tomaski
The crumbling Gothic mansion of Thornwalk, long-term home of the Gilbert family, is being handed over to a chain of luxury ‘historic’ hotels. Millions will be spent in its restoration.
But for every ‘improvement’, what will be lost? What value can there possibly be in a threadbare carpet, a tarnished spoon and a thousand empty jam jars?
Before the hotel people arrive, with their clipboards and their skips and their bottles of bleach, Maximus, loyal guardian of the Gilberts’ legacy, invites us on a final tour of the once-stately home, where each room holds a secret.
From the bolt on the blue room door to the tiny dents in the bars at the nursery window. These are the keys that will unlock the lives of the five fatherless Gilbert children.
A Private Man
Stephanie Sy-Quia
Rome, 1953. David is young, handsome, charismatic, and sworn to celibacy. He is freshly ordained, and about to return to England to begin life as a priest. Devotion to God is all he’s ever known, and all he thinks he ever will.
In London, Margaret is entangled in an impossible love affair. Increasingly drawn to the Church, she sets out to join the new revolutions of sex and faith. Decades later, she is being cared for by her grandson, who has just discovered the strange truth of his family history.
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