A personal list from David Headley, a reader first, a collector always.
I read for discovery, obsession, and the joy of finding something I want to press into other people’s hands. Many of these titles I’ve read and adored; others I haven’t read yet, but I already know I’ll want them on my shelves. When a book is that exciting, that essential, you feel it in your gut.
Where possible, I’ll be creating Goldsboro exclusive editions, the kind of beautiful, thoughtful books we love to make. If not, I’ll be hunting down the best special editions publishers are producing. Because if you’re going to read something unforgettable, it should look unforgettable too.
There are “big book” lists every year. This isn’t one of those.
This is a list built the way I actually read: with curiosity first, obsession second, and that little collector’s twinge third, the one that says I’m going to want this on my shelves when the noise has moved on.
Some of these books will be everywhere. A few will sneak up on people. Several will become the ones you press into someone’s hands and say: just trust me.
1) John of John — Douglas Stuart
A homecoming to a remote Scottish island, where “belonging” isn’t a simple thing.
A book about love, selfhood, and what we carry back with us.
Stuart has that rare ability to make intimacy feel monumental. This sounds like a return to the emotional pressure-cooker he does so well, the kind of story where landscape isn’t backdrop, it’s fate.
2) Land — Maggie O’Farrell
Mapping a country can be an act of power — and an act of grief.
Father and son, walking the lines of Ireland after the Great Hunger.
O’Farrell writes history with pulse. This is one of those novels that makes the past physically present, mud-on-boots storytelling with big moral weather in the distance.
3) Nonesuch — Francis Spufford
The Blitz, but not as we know it, a history that slips sideways.
When fantasy collides with wartime London, nothing stays “safe.”
Spufford is brilliant at building an idea that should be impossible and making it feel inevitable. If you like your fiction clever and emotionally sharp, circle this one.
Awards are a possibility for this one.
4) The Mistral — Felix Mosse
A divine wind powers a kingdom… and it’s beginning to die.
High stakes, high magic, and the kind of trilogy opener readers devour.
A dying source of magic is a delicious premise when it’s done with conviction, especially with war on the horizon and characters forced into uneasy proximity. This novel is built for late-night “one more chapter” reading.
5) Lost Lambs — Madeline Cash
A family imploding in public, and somehow still funny enough to hurt.
Dysfunction, conspiracy, and that rare debut voice with proper bite.
This is chaos with heart, the kind of literary comedy that can flip, without warning, into something tender and alarming. Debuts like this are exactly the ones readers will discover early and then evangelise for years.
6) It’s Not What You Think — Clare Mackintosh
Jealousy, suspicion, certainty… and then the rug goes.
A domestic thriller that is designed to make you doubt everyone.
Mackintosh knows how to pace a book, so it feels like you’re sprinting downhill. If you want sharp tension and relentless momentum, this will be one of the year’s biggest page-turners. And with one or two twists you didn’t see coming.
7) A Far-flung Life — M. L. Stedman
Outback Australia: huge sky, hard land, and one decision that splits a family.
A novel about belonging, duty, love, and the price of doing the “right” thing.
Stedman writes emotional consequence like few others. This has the sweep of a classic, but the intimacy of a book that reads like a confession. Grab the tissues.
8) A Private Man — Stephanie Sy-Quia
Faith, desire, and the terrible beauty of restraint.
Forbidden love, slow burn, and secrets with long echoes.
This is one of those quietly devastating novels that builds heat by holding back. If you like books that take their time and then hit you, put it on the list.
9) The Barbecue at Number 9 — Jennie Godfrey
Live Aid on the telly, secrets in the garden, and a neighbourhood about to crack.
A day meant to feel celebratory… that turns into something else entirely.
I loved the premise: a communal moment, a pressured domestic setting, and the slow realisation that everyone is hiding something. Very readable, very human, very dangerous. It is an incredible novel which will stay with you.
10) Yesteryear — Caro Claire Burke
Perfect-living aesthetics… then reality glitches.
A sharp, dark, funny nightmare about womanhood and performance.
This has that “can’t-look-away” energy: glossy surface, rotten foundations, and the creeping fear that the world you’re in isn’t real or isn’t yours.
11) The Shock of the Light — Lori Inglis Hall
Twins, war, clandestine missions, and a secret that won’t stay buried.
A love story threaded through danger, loss, and moral wreckage.
This is historical fiction with real propulsion, not wallpaper history, but emotional history. The kind of debut that can convert people who “don’t usually read WWII novels.”
12) The Ballad of Ronan McCoy — Colin Morgan
Friendship as a lifeline, until the lifeline frays.
A coming-of-age story that promises laughter and heartbreak in the same breath.
These are the books that stay with you because they’re honest about adolescence: the comedy, the dread, the tenderness, the identity panic. A proper “remember where you were when you read it” sort of debut.
13) Offseason — Avigayl Sharp
A narrator so funny you trust her… until you shouldn’t.
Boarding school, spiralling mind, and a voice that won’t behave.
This is ferocious in the best way, a debut that breaks the rules and dares you to keep up. If you like fiction with teeth and velocity, this could be your 2026 obsession.
14) The Unicorn Hunters — Katherine Arden
A queen cornered by politics, pushed into myth. A forest where magic hides, and destiny doesn’t ask permission.
Arden is superb at atmosphere, and this setup is delicious: court intrigue, secret vows, and a hunt that becomes something else entirely. Fantasy for readers who like history in their magic.
15) The Wolves of War (Wisdom of Wolves #1) — John Gwynne
If you want battles, brotherhood, and relentless pace, this is your lane.
Gwynne does epic like a drumbeat. Gwynne’s track record is clear: big-hearted characters, brutal stakes, and the kind of series you sink into for weeks. One for the fantasy collectors who commit.
16) Honey — Imani Thompson
A darkly comic killer story that bites back at power.
Messy, addictive, and morally… complicated.
A debut with real swagger. This is the kind of book that provokes group chats and fierce opinions, and those are often the ones that travel the farthest.
17) The Rouse — China Meiville
A personal tragedy becomes a doorway into something much larger.
Decades, continents, conspiracy, and uncanny forces are watching.
This is big speculative storytelling: intimate grief colliding with the strange. A HUGE tome of a book and quite brilliant.
18) Catherine: A Retelling of Wuthering Heights — Essie Fox
Catherine, finally telling her own story, wild, hungry, haunted.
A gothic confession from beyond the grave. This is exactly the kind of retelling that can work: not “modernised,” but emotionally intensified. For readers who love the original, and for collectors who want a beautiful object tied to a classic obsession.
19) The Calamity Club — Kathryn Stockett
An orphan girl, the Depression, and a sisterhood built under pressure.
Warm, sharp, funny, with danger underneath. Big, accessible storytelling with heart and bite is Stockett’s strength. This is as good as The Help and is worth the wait.
20) Fellow Creatures — Emma Lowther
Drama school: glamour, hunger, rivalry, and a friendship that curdles.
Ambition is intoxicating… until it turns poisonous. If you like psychological tension in a rarefied world, this has all the ingredients: obsession, class, desire, and the slow slide into something irreversible.
21) The Summer We Lied — Rebecca Hardy
A conviction overturned, and the past starts demanding payment.
Three friends, one summer, and too many versions of the truth. This is such a strong thriller engine: certainty becomes doubt, memory becomes evidence, friendship becomes liability. The best kind of summer read, the one that makes you suspicious of everyone.
22) The Night Stairs — Erin Kelly
A convent school, old legends, and fainting girls, history repeating itself.
A place built on tradition… where the walls remember. Kelly is brilliant at atmosphere that feels slightly feverish, slightly wrong. This is a book that will pull readers into a world and then lock the door behind them.
23) Meet the Newmans — Jennifer Niven
America’s favourite TV family… while real life rots off-camera.
A limited edition with sprayed edges, and a premise built for readers. A smart cultural setup: performance vs truth, image vs reality, a woman trying to seize authorship of her own narrative. And yes, collectors, this is the kind of edition you grab early.
24) Unreliable Narrator — Araminta Hall
When someone sells your life as fiction, what do you do?
Truth, power, betrayal, and two competing versions of the same summer.
This is a delicious meta premise with serious psychological charge. Hall writes tension with elegance, and the “who controls the story?” question is pure catnip.
25) Exit Party — Emily St. John Mandel
A fractured America, one night, one party — and a reality that breaks.
Love, surveillance, art, survival… and the aftershock of a single moment. Mandel is one of the few writers who can make big ideas feel intimate. If this lands, it’ll be one of those novels people keep comparing everything else to.
26) Under Story — Chloe Benjamin
Antarctica, regret, and a strange phenomenon glowing across the ice.
A second chance story with science-fiction bones and a romantic ache.
This sounds built to wreck you gently: a life derailed, an impossible discovery, and the temptation to rewrite what’s already happened. If you like genre-defying novels with heart, watch this closely.
