Motherhood by Sheila Heti

Motherhood treats one of the most consequential decisions of adulthood – whether or not to have children – with the intelligence, wit and originality that have won Sheila Heti international acclaim. Having reached an age when most of her peers are asking themselves when they will become mothers, Heti’s narrator considers, with the same urgency, whether she will do so at all. Over the course of several years, under the influence of her partner, body, family, friends, mysticism and chance, she struggles to make a moral and meaningful choice.

84K by Claire North

In her latest book, Claire North presents a dystopian vision of a world where money reigns supreme, and nothing is so precious that it can’t be bought. Theo Miller knows the value of human life to the very last penny. Working in the Criminal Audit Office, he assesses each crime that crosses his desk and makes sure the correct debt to society is paid in full. But then a case cross his desk that changes everything…

Small Wrongs by Kate Rossmanith

Our reviewer describes Small Wrongs as ‘a powerful consideration of remorse, and whether we can ever truly know it when we see it’, making it a timely book for today’s political climate. Ethnologist Kate Rossmanith was inspired by her own experience, as well as interviews with criminals, lawyers and judges, and her book is a thought-provoking blend of memoir and reportable.

Felix Culpa by Jeremy Gavron

Felix Culpa is a work of extraordinary literary alchemy: a novel made out of lines taken from a hundred great works of literature. The narrative follows a writer on the trail of a boy recently released from prison, who has been discovered dead in the cold north. In this uniquely compelling novel, Jeremy Gavron asks what happens when we lose the narrative of our own life, and fall into someone else’s.

On Michael Jackson by Margo Jefferson

Michael Jackson: provocateur, icon, enigma. Who was he, really? And how does his spectacular rise and catastrophic fall, reflect upon those who made him; those who broke him; and those who loved him? Almost ten years on from Jackson’s untimely death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Margo Jefferson takes on the legend and legacy of the King of Pop: a man admired for his music, his flair, his performances; and censured for his skin, his erratic behaviour, and, in his final years, for his relationships with children.

Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot

Terese Marie Mailhot survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest, only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder. As well as being her story, Heart Berries is a memorial for her mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father, who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.

We Are Not Most People by Tracy Ryan

Kurt Stocker enters a Swiss seminary to become a priest and make his parents proud, but he struggles to adapt. Instead, he marries Liesl and they eventually emigrate to Australia. Decades later, in small-town Australia, Terry Riley feels drawn to convent life, despite her parent’s objections. Once there, she is haunted by a strange sickness and knows she must return to a more conventional life. It is then she begins a relationship with the now divorced Kurt, who was once her high school teacher.

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

As an infant in southern Nigeria, Ada is a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents successfully prayed her into existence, but something must have gone awry, as the young Ada becomes a troubled child, prone to violent fits of anger and grief. It later transpires that she was born ‘with one foot on the other side’, leading her to develop separate selves which are further strengthened by a traumatic event at college in America and send her life spiralling dangerously out of control. Based in the author’s realities, this is an unsettling and heartwrenching debut.