Booker 2023

Sunday lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the same house she has lived in all her life. She does things differently from other people, but mostly it works. On her "quiet days" she must eat only white foods. For social situations, she has her etiquette handbook, and for solace her beloved treasury of Sicilian folklore. But the one thing very much out of her control is Dolly, beautiful, headstrong Dolly, who is on the cusp of leaving home.Into this carefully ordered life step Vita and Rollo, a glamorous London couple who move in next door, disarm Sunday with their wit and charm, and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in her etiquette manual. Soon the two families are in and out of each other's houses, and Sunday feels loved and accepted like never before. But beneath Vita and Rollo's charm and wealth there is something else, something darker. And Sunday has something that Vita has always wanted for herself, a beautiful, clever daughter of her own.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's car business is going under, but instead of doing anything about it, he's out in the woods preparing for the actual end of the world. Meanwhile his wife Imelda is selling off her jewellery on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attentions of fast-talking local wrongun Big Mike. Their teenage daughter Cass, usually top of her class, seems determined to drink her way through the whole thing. And twelve year old PJ is spending more and more time on video game forums, where he's met a friendly boy named Ethan who never turns his camera on and wants PJ to run away from home.Digging down through layers of family history, the roots of this crisis stretch deep into the past. Meanwhile in the present, the fault lines keep spreading, ghosts slipping in through the cracks, and every step brings the Barneses closer to a fatal precipice. When the moment of reckoning finally arrives, all four of them must decide how far they're willing to go to save the family, and whether—if the story's already been written—there's still time to give it a happy ending...

Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a small village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother's love: the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood.As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother's disappearance and the secrets she's sure her father is keeping from her. Discovering a medieval poem called Pearl and trusting in its promise of consolation, Marianne sets out to make a visual illustration of it, a task that she returns to over and over but somehow never manages to complete.Tormented by an unmarked gravestone in an abandoned chapel and the tidal pull of the river, her childhood home begins to crumble as the past leads her down a path of self-destruction. But can art heal Marianne? And will her own future as a mother help her find peace?

A young woman moves from the place of her birth to the remote northern country of her forebears to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has recently left him.Soon after her arrival, a series of inexplicable events occurs — collective bovine hysteria; the demise of a ewe and her nearly born lamb; a local dog's phantom pregnancy; a potato blight. She notices that the local suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed with some intensity at her and she senses a mounting threat that lies 'just beyond the garden gate.' And as she feels the hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother's property, she fears that, should the rumblings in the town gather themselves into a more defined shape, who knows what might happen, what one might be capable of doing.With a sharp, lyrical voice, Sarah Bernstein powerfully explores questions of complicity and power, displacement and inheritance. Study for Obedience is a finely tuned, unsettling novel that confirms Bernstein as one of the most exciting voices of her generation.For readers of Shirley Jackson, Iain Reid, and Claire-Louise Bennett, a haunting, compressed masterwork from an extraordinary new voice in Canadian fiction.EndorsementsIncluded in Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2023

Tom Kettle, a retired policeman and widower, is settling into the quiet of his new home in Dalkey, overlooking the sea. His solitude is interrupted when two former colleagues turn up at his door to ask about a traumatic, decades-old case that Tom never quite came to terms with. His peace is further disturbed when his new neighbour, a mysterious young mother, asks for his help. A beautiful, haunting novel, in which nothing is quite as it seems, Old God's Time is an unforgettable exploration of family, loss and love. Endorsements Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023. The Sunday Times top ten bestseller. Twice winner of the Costa Book of the Year. "A masterpiece" — Sunday Times. "Stunning" — Liz Nugent. "Extraordinary" — Irish Times. "To borrow a word that recurs in its pages, it is stupendous, in the sense that it shocks and astonishes." — Irish Times. "Rare indeed are those novels worth cherishing and keeping close. Old God's Time is one of them." — Daily Telegraph. "So captivating... it will live long in the minds of its readers." — Independent.

Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as an escape from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the undersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology, travelling the globe to study ancient organisms. When a trench is discovered in the Atlantic Ocean, Leigh joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of the Earth's first life forms — what she instead finds calls into question everything we know about our own beginnings.Her discovery leads Leigh to the Mojave Desert and an ambitious new space agency. Drawn deeper into the agency's work, she learns that the Atlantic trench is only one of several related phenomena from across the world, each piece linking up to suggest a pattern beyond human understanding. Leigh knows that continuing with the agency will mean leaving behind her declining mother and younger sister, and she faces an impossible choice: to remain with her family, or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos.Exploring the natural world with the wonder and reverence we usually reserve for the stars, In Ascension is a compassionate, deeply inquisitive epic that reaches outward to confront the greatest questions of existence, looks inward to illuminate the smallest details of the human heart, and shows how — no matter how far away we might be and how much hope we have lost — we will always attempt to return to the people and places we call home.Endorsements'Monumental' — Telegraph'Magnificent' — Guardian'Transcendent' — New Scientist

On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland's newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling.How far will she go to save her family? And what — or who — is she willing to leave behind?Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality, offering a devastating vision of a country at war and a deeply human portrait of a mother's fight to hold her family together.The explosive literary sensation: a mother faces a terrible choice as Ireland slides into totalitarianism.Endorsements'If there was ever a crucial book for our current times, it's Paul Lynch's Prophet Song... Brilliantly haunting.' — Observer'A compassionate, propulsive and timely novel that forces the reader to imagine — what if this was me?' — FT

Ayobami Adebayo, the Women's Prize-shortlisted author of Stay With Me, unveils a dazzling story of modern Nigeria and two families caught in the riptides of wealth, power, romantic obsession and political corruption.Eniola is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. His father has lost his job, so Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers and begging, dreaming of a big future.Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. Now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice, she is beloved by Kunle, the volatile son of family friends.When a local politician takes an interest in Eniola and sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola and Eniola's lives become intertwined.In this breathtaking novel, Ayobami Adebayo shines her light on Nigeria, on the gaping divide between the haves and the have-nots, and the shared humanity that lives in between.EndorsementsLonglisted for the Booker Prize 2023Most anticipated book of 2023: the Observer, Guardian, Financial Times, Stylist, the Express and Oprah Daily

It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steely wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert's, comes to stay.Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of his day. But he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write. The more Lesley's friendship with Willie grows, the more clearly she sees him as he is — a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.As Willie prepares to leave and face his demons, Lesley confides secrets of her own, including how she came to know the charismatic Dr Sun Yat Sen, a revolutionary fighting to overthrow the imperial dynasty of China. And more scandalous still, she reveals her connection to the case of an Englishwoman charged with murder in the Kuala Lumpur courts — a tragedy drawn from fact, and worthy of fiction.The House of Doors is a masterful novel of public morality and private truth a century ago. Based on real events, it is a drama of love and betrayal under the shadow of Empire.EndorsementsMan Booker Prize–shortlisted Tan Twan Eng.

Jamie O'Neill loves the colour red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of many objects, books with dust jackets, cats, rivers and Edgar Allan Poe. At age 13 there are two things he especially wants in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother Noelle, who died when he was born. In his mind these things are intimately linked. And at his new school, where all else is disorientating and overwhelming, he finds two people who might just be able to help him.How to Build a Boat is the story of how one boy and his mission transforms the lives of his teachers, Tess and Tadhg, and brings together a community. Written with tenderness and verve, it's about love, family and connection, the power of imagination, and how our greatest adventures never happen alone.EndorsementsLonglisted for the Booker Prize 2023.Shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year 2023.As seen on BBC Between the Covers.'Heart-rending and delightful' — Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses'A gorgeous gift of a novel' — Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain'Beautifully rendered and imagined' — Anne Enright'A heart-stopping read' — Sinead Gleeson'Bursting with soul' — Lisa McInerney'I can't wait for readers to fall in love' — Jan Carson