FICTION

 

Debuts

 

 

Good People

by Patmeena Sabit

 

Good People (February) by Patmeena Sabit is a debut novel we believe everyone will be talking about next year. When eighteen-year-old Zorah, the daughter of a seemingly model immigrant family, dies in a tragic accident, everyone thinks they know what happened. What’s the truth? Depends who you ask. There’s a veritable wall of praise building for the book and we can’t wait for you to read it in February.

‘Thought-provoking and utterly addictive’ PAULA HAWKINS

‘What a spectacular triumph. This is the Afghan novel I have been eagerly waiting for’ KHALED HOSSEINI

‘Thrilling. I’ll be recommending this book to everyone’ ANN PATCHETT

‘Brilliant. The best debut I’ve read in a very long time’ MONICA ALI

 

 

Westward Women

by Alice Martin

 

Westward Women (March) by Alice Martin is an eerie, hypnotic literary debut which unflinchingly explores women’s rage, desire and agency in a world bent on controlling their bodies. Joyce Carol Oates says that it’s ‘an audacious first novel to set beside Margaret Atwood’ and we think it’s the launch of an exciting career.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Kindness of Strangers

by Emma Garman

 

The Kindness of Strangers (April) by Emma Garman is a rollicking, character-led literary mystery for fans of Kate Atkinson and The Housekeepers, about a boarding house thrown into chaos when a stranger arrives and threatens to expose the truth about their landlady. We just received an early endorsement from Kate Kemp, author of The Grapevine, who said, ‘Intricate, compelling and intriguing . . . I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. A triumph of a debut novel’. The perfect dark yet cozy read!

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Leg On Earth

by ‘Pemi Aguda

 

One Leg on Earth (May) is the eagerly awaited debut novel by a literary star in the making: a vivid, mesmerising story about modern Lagos – and the darkness that swirls beneath it. ’Pemi Aguda’s collection of horror-tinged short stories, Ghostroots, was nominated for multiple awards when it was published in 2024, including the National Book Award, the Caine Prize for African Writing and the Pen Faulkner Award, and we believe there is more success to come for her first novel.

 

 

Triumphant returns

This year we publish two novelists who have had a ten-year gap since their last book was published – and are now returning with a bang.

 

 

Good Good Loving

by Yvette Edwards

 

Good Good Loving (March) by Yvette Edwards is a warm, funny and vibrant story of a multi-generational British-Caribbean family across five decades, beginning with the family matriarch on her deathbed and told backwards as the story unfolds. Yvette’s debut novel, A Cupboard Full of Coats, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and this book has been garnering huge praise, including Bernardine Evaristo describing it as ‘massively entertaining, scorching, brilliant, witty, shocking’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Natural Disaster

by Lisa Owens

 

Unfolding across twenty-four hours, Natural Disaster (June) by Lisa Owens is a propulsive, darkly funny and sharply observed novel about a woman trying to construct the perfect day for her and her children. It’s been ten years since Lisa Owens published her hugely beloved debut, Not Working, and her second novel is already incredibly buzzy, with Stylist choosing it as one of their best books for 2026 and Monica Ali describing it as ‘hilarious, brilliant, utterly exhilarating’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lovers XXX

by Allie Rowbottom

 

Lovers XXX (June) will be the first book by Allie Rowbottom published by Virago and we’re delighted to have her on our list. This thrilling novel is about female friendship, feminism and love, set in the shocking and glamorous world of adult entertainment, and has already been praised by Coco Mellors, who said it ‘tackles the sticky subjects of female sexuality, objectification and desire with a smoothness that appears effortless’.

 

 

Our Summer of Sigrid

 

Sigrid Nunez, the great American novelist beloved by everyone from Anne Enright (‘Once you discover Sigrid Nunez, you don’t look back’) to Caroline O’Donoghue to Natalie Portman (‘One of my favourite authors’), is having a moment – and long may it continue! She won the National Book Award five years ago with The Friend, which was then made into a movie starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray. Pedro Almodovar also made her novel What Are You Going Through into a movie called The Room Next Door, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. And next year we will publish her first collection of short stories, It Will Come Back to You (July), which takes us from an inappropriate teenage crush to a therapist’s second chance at love.

 

It Will Come Back To You

by Sigrid Nunez

 

Sigrid Nunez, the great American novelist beloved by everyone from Anne Enright (‘Once you discover Sigrid Nunez, you don’t look back’) to Caroline O’Donoghue to Natalie Portman (‘One of my favourite authors’), is having a moment – and long may it continue! She won the National Book Award five years ago with The Friend, which was then made into a movie starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray. Pedro Almodovar also made her novel What Are You Going Through into a movie called The Room Next Door, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. And next year we will publish her first collection of short stories, It Will Come Back to You (July), which takes us from an inappropriate teenage crush to a therapist’s second chance at love.

 

At the same time we will publish three of her previous novels which have never been available in the UK before: Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury (a fictional biography of the pet monkey belonging to Virginia and Leonard Woolf), Naked Sleeper (an existential love triangle) and For Rouenna (the story of an extraordinary friendship ranging from a New York childhood to the battlefields of Vietnam).

 

A Halloween Haunting

 

Ghosts in my House (October) is the graphic fiction debut by Eleanor Crewes, author of the graphic memoir The Times I Knew I was Gay, which was praised by Alice Oseman (‘Funny and super relatable’) and Sarah Waters (‘Candid, authentic and utterly charming’). Her new book is a spinetingling graphic novel which follows four occupants of the same house over a century, and the ghosts that haunt them all.

 

 

NON-FICTION

 

Politics

 

Defiance

by Loubna Mrie

 

Defiance (February) by Loubna Mrie is a stunning memoir of personal rebellion and political awakening from a young woman raised to be loyal to a brutal regime – and the unimaginable cost of choosing freedom. Jeanette Walls, author of the bestselling memoir The Glass Castle, said, ‘Loubna Mrie’s story takes my breath away. Defiance is a nail-biting tale of astonishing courage, a coming-of-age story in which one woman risks everything to fight for what she believes’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feminism for a World on Fire

by Natasha Walter

 

In her timely, galvanising and beautifully written new book, Feminism for a World on Fire (May), writer and activist Natasha Walter does not shy away from the challenges facing women in an age of misogyny, conflict and climate breakdown. But with clarity and courage she finds a thread of real hope in the dark. This is a book very close to our hearts at Virago.

 

 

 

Unpeace: Inside Russia (August) is the latest book from Åsne Seierstad, the investigate reporter and bestselling author of The Bookseller of Kabul. An illuminating and expansive portrait of a much-mythologised and little-understood country through one soldier’s incredible story: Andrey Medvedev, a young soldier who defected from the Wagner group and sought asylum in Norway in 2023.

 

Life-changing stories

 

How Korean Corn Dogs Changed My Life

by Alice Amelia

 

How Korean Corn Dogs Changed My Life (April) by Alice Amelia is an addictive, tell-all memoir which is also a love letter to Korea: the story of a young British K-drama fan who moved to Seoul and unexpectedly became part of the booming Korean entertainment industry she had idolised from afar. It’s a story of what happens when you try to make your dreams come true, a fascinating look at an intensely competitive world, and a heart-wrenching love story. What more could you want?!

 

 

 

Living With Freddie (August) is New Yorker writer and animal behavioural science student Anna Heyward’s extraordinary memoir about learning to see the world through a dog’s eyes – for readers of Raising Hare, H Is for Hawk and My Beloved Monster. This is a beautiful, heart-wrenching portrait of the relationship between a human and a dog. And at the end of Freddie’s story, you, too, may find yourself changed. (Reader, I am a cat person and I love this book!)

 

Biography

 

In Look Now: A Personal History of the du Mauriers (September), Paul de Zulueta, the eldest living grandson of Daphne du Maurier, draws on memories, family lore and private letters to give us an intimate, revelatory glimpse into one of Britain’s most incredible artistic dynasties: Daphne’s grandfather (a bestselling Victorian novelist), her father (a famous Edwardian actor-manager) and of course Daphne herself, who lived a fascinating life full of contradictions.

 

Before Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Abbey Lincoln, Miriam Makeba, and Nina Simone became household names, they needed a place to plot, plan, and practice. That place was the Village Gate nightclub. In Freedom’s Gate (November), Georgetown Professor Soyica Diggs Colbert gives us a fascinating group biography of five Black women artists in the late 1950s and early 1960s, showing how their friendships shaped their politics and art.

 

VIRAGO MODERN CLASSICS

 

2025 was a vintage year for Daphne du Maurier, one of the most beloved (including by Taylor Swift, no less), influential and bestselling authors on our modern classics list. We issued new editions with stunning new covers of her most iconic novels, including Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, and published After Midnight, thirteen deliciously uncanny du Maurier stories, brought together in a new hardback collection for the first time and introduced by Stephen King. 2026 will see new designs for more of her masterful novels, in two groups – uncanny thrillers and luscious historical.

 

Travel Light

by Naomi Mitchison

 

Travel Light (March) is a rediscovered mid-century fantasy classic for fans of Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip Pullman – the story of a king’s daughter saved by bears, raised by dragons and learning how to ‘travel light’ through the world. This new edition is introduced by bestseller Samantha Shannon, and I can’t say it better than Ursula K. Le Guin did: ‘Read it now.’