Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2026 Shortlist Showcases Tremendous Energy, Poetic Precision And Spry Humour

• Over 750 booksellers read for the selection of the shortlist, championing exciting new literary talent they know readers will love.
   
• The Prize propels debuts into the bestseller charts and the literary mainstream.  Previous winners went on to receive further prestigious accolades, including Waterstones Book of the Year, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, the Authors’ Club First Novel Award, the National Book Award for Fiction, and Debut Book of the Year at The British Book Awards.
   
• The six-strong shortlist takes readers from a Thai island to a Korean mountainside, via 1950s Rome, British stately homes and American suburbs.
   
• The debuts explore themes including ecological disaster, grief, faith, and intergenerational connections, whilst also offering hope, humour and fresh spins on classic oeuvres.
   
• Two of the featured titles are beautiful novels written by poets (May We Feed the King and A Private Man).

Waterstones booksellers have always played a vital part in the discovery of inspiring new voices, helping to create bestsellers and establish enduring careers for debut authors. The Debut Fiction Prize is a manifestation of the power of word-of-mouth recommendation by booksellers.

Last year’s winner, The Artist by Lucy Steeds, went on to be our August Fiction Book of the Month and concluded 2025 being crowned Waterstones Book of the Year. The Artist’s impressive journey from unknown debut to bestseller chart, showcases the truly impactful platform the award provides.

Bea Carvalho, Waterstones Head of Books, says: “We are proud to present the shortlist for the 2026 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, signifying an exceptionally bright future for fiction.

This is a shortlist which showcases writing of tremendous energy, poetic precision, and spry humour, balancing nostalgia with innovation to stunning effect. It features genuinely vital global history and profound questions on the weight of faith and grief, while considering ecological change and the destruction of dynasties and legacies. Here booksellers have championed six bold and confident authors who celebrate the beauty, joy, and absurdity to be found in the every day.

There is pure magic and electricity in these pages: we cannot wait to share them with our customers, and to see what these exciting authors do next.”

This year’s shortlist takes us from a Thai island to the Korean mountainside, via 1950s Rome, British stately homes and an American suburb.

Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash is a hilarious and high-octane family caper full of energy, eccentricity and wonderful wordplay. Jiyoung Han’s sweeping Honey in the Wound spans ninety years of Korean history and is a spellbinding and devasting story about the impact of colonialism, interspersed with atmospheric magical realism. Deeply moving and quietly beautiful, Tara Menon’s Under Water is a story about grief, friendship, ecological change and the emotional aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia is a poetic, slow burn story of love, devotion and faith, where consequences ripple through generations. May We Feed the King, Rebecca Perry’s clever twist on the historical novel, moves artfully between a curator in the present day, and the medieval king whose rooms she is recreating. Completing the shortlist is The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski, an offbeat tale of faded family glory and a playful, original take on the English country house novel.

The winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2026 will be announced on Thursday, 16th July 2026.

Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash, Transworld, 9781529946123

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. 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, the youngest daughter,  whose obsession with Alabaster’s machinations sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy – one that may just, finally, bring them closer together.

Aoife from Waterstones Gateshead describes Lost Lambs as “hilariously engaging” and “full of unexpected twists”, and Bailey from Waterstones Warrington delights in the fact that this is a novel “with characters so flawed you can’t help but fall in love with them”, whilst Laura from Waterstones Ipswich calls it “clever and funny” and “a joy to read”.

Honey in the Wound by Jiyoung Han, Bonnier Books, 9781786588777

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.

Lara from Waterstones Plymouth says Honey in the Wound is “devastating yet profoundly tender” and Aija from Waterstones Edinburgh describes Jiyoung Han’s writing as “raw, visceral and beautiful”, whilst Beth from Waterstones Chesterfield calls it a “beautiful blend of magical realism and shocking historical events”.

Under Water by Tara Menon, Simon & Schuster, 9781398549159

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. 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. As the city prepares for a devastating storm, Marissa reflects on her past and learns how to sustain herself in a precarious world. Under Water is a story about friendship and grief, but also ecological change and natural disasters. It is a meditation on loss, a tribute to our dying oceans and forests, and a love letter to the disappearing coral reefs.

Steve from Waterstones Islington calls Under Water “superb nature writing and a breathtaking study of grief” and Rose from Waterstones in Weybridge praises that it is “exquisitely written” whilst Emily from Watersones Romsey summarises it as “utterly gripping and equally devastating”.

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry, Granta Books, 9781803513867

She is a curator who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to life. He is a reluctant ruler with no hunger for power, rushed to the throne after the untimely deaths of his older brothers. May We Feed the King dances between the lives of an historical subject who risks the future of his kingdom and a woman who turns to the past to hide from her present. Laced with desire and longing, it is a playful, stirring meditation on history and storytelling: on what makes a King ‘Great’, and a life meaningful.

Becky from Waterstones Wandsworth calls May We Feed the King a “small but mighty tale” and Katy from Waterstones Guildford compares reading the novel to “sinking into a cosy armchair that envelops you perfectly” and Charlotte from Waterstones in Manchester Trafford Centre concludes “can’t praise it enough, love love loved it!”

A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia, Pan Macmillan, 9781035052615

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. In London, Margaret is entangled in an impossible love affair. Committed to living on her own terms without sacrificing her faith, she becomes drawn to a women’s movement challenging the archaic rules of the Church. When their lives are thrown together at a Catholic college in a quiet village, an undeniable connection forms between them. And so begins a story of forbidden love, sacrifice and secrets, with consequences that will reverberate across the generations.

Paul from Waterstones Bristol Galleries describes A Private Man as “beautifully told” and “strikingly atmospheric”,  meanwhile Kiera from Waterstones Northampton “fell completely in love with the characters” and Dylan from Waterstones Bedford was impressed by the “ingenuity and considered weight” of the writing,  saying it is his “favourite book of the year so far”.

The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski, Penguin Books Ltd, 9780241757574

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 so-called 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.

Jen from Waterstones Harrogate describes reading The Infamous Gilberts “like going on a tour of a National Trust house with someone who used to know the family”, whilst Lucy from Waterstones Cirencester calls it “irreverent” and “drily comic” and Erika from Waterstones Coventry loves how the house is a “haunted emotional landscape: labyrinthine, decaying, packed with forgotten possessions and old injuries, and full of the sense that the past is never truly past”.