This month in books: March 2026
Book events, new releases, and more for March.
Welcome to a new series, where we tell you not quite everything that’s going on in the UK book world.
New last month
The Hour of the Wolf by Fatima Bhutto
An absolutely stunning memoir about abuse, heartbreak, shattering loss… and family-making with the non-human world.
Holy Boy by Lee Heejoo, translated by Joheun Lee
Four obsessed fans kidnap their favourite K-Pop idol in this bloody, exhilarating English-language debut from Lee Heejoo, which The Times described as ‘a K-Pop version of Stephen King’.
A sparkling debut set in a British boy’s reform school, following 17-year-old Jean as he develops a relationship with a fellow pupil and wrestles with the causes and consequences of whatever is going on under his skin.
Come back later this month for the interview!
The hot book of 2026 so far, Lost Lambs is a dysfunctional family story with a conspiracy at its heart. For fans of: The Royal Tenenbaums.
Coming up this month
Celestial Lights by Cecile Pin
A love story on a cosmic scale, Cecile Pin’s second novel brings together themes of heartbreak, ambition, fate and sacrifice, all set against the backdrop of the billionaire space race.
My Lover, the Rabbi by Wayne Koestenbaum
Queer family-making, devotion and desire collide in this novel about a man maniacally obsessed with his lover – you know, the rabbi.
Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Another epic of fate and heartbreak, Almost Life follows two star-crossed lovers across continents and decades as the two women spin in and out of each other’s orbits, missing their moments again and again. But are they reaching towards the life they truly want?
A visceral, heartbreaking and horrifying novel about something rotten under the surface of a British girl’s boarding school, after its most beloved student plunges to her death.
Events
16 March - Something About Living: Lena Khalaf Tuffaha and So Mayer
(London, London Review Bookshop)
17 March - Book Launch: There is No Meant to Be by Jarred McGinnis
(London, Brick Lane Bookshop)
19 March – The Hour of the Wolf: Fatima Bhutto in conversation with Sonia Faleiro (London, Old School Rooms)
21 - 28 March - Deptford Literature Festival (London, various Deptford venues)
23 March - Isabel Waidner: As If (Edinburgh, The Portobello Bookshop)
24 March - Seeking Sexual Freedom: An evening with Sana Darkoa Sekyiamah (Edinburgh, Lighthouse Bookshop)
And also…
Newly-published Spoiled Milk author Avery Curran already has a second book. Mortal Passions, ‘a queer campus love story between a graduate student at a prestigious but failing university and the crisis manager hired by the college, who happens to be a centuries-old vampire set on draining the institution of its lifeblood’ will be out next year. Let’s the rest of us not take it too personally if we can’t also reach this level of productivity.
In further rights news, Confessions of the Fox author Jody Rosenberg’s second novel Night Night Fawn came out in the US last week but seems yet to publicly secure a UK publisher. Described as ‘part novel, part someone’s mother’s unauthorised memoir’, Night Night Fawn sees gossipy Barbara Rosenberg looking back on life from her deathbed, turning over her relationships with her estranged trans son and former best friend via Karl Marx and Jewish diaspora. Hopefully a UK release is in the works for this one somewhere, but in the meantime I feel like Jordy’s 2014 essay ‘Gender Trouble on Mother’s Day’ can give us a bit of the flavour.
Meanwhile, the International Booker Prize longlist has been announced, as have the shortlists for the British Book Awards (or, the ‘Nibbies' for those in the know). I’m not going to run through them all here, because the Booker longlist is long and the Nibbies have 15 categories, but it’s great to see indie publishers represented in both. I’d like to particularly draw your attention to the regional shortlists for BBA’s Small Press of the Year – small presses are home to incredible talent, underrepresented authors and experimental work the bigger publishers don’t take risks on, and we should celebrate them whenever possible.