HPL 2026 Fiction Spotlight

After a breakup and the loss of her restaurant, chef Kit Roth travels to the Italian countryside to work with her friend's pasta-making nonna. What was meant to be a temporary escape becomes an immersive experience in food, community, and unexpected romance. As Kit adapts to the rhythms of small-town life and forms a connection with olive oil producer Nico Ruspoli, she must navigate the challenges of personal growth, love, and choices about her future....

Fern's dream of becoming a published author is finally coming true. After years of rejection, her debut novel has sold, and she's ready to join the supportive online community of fellow debuts. But when she discovers her high school bully, Haven, has landed a major book deal and will be debuting alongside her, old wounds reopen. As the pandemic forces everyone online, tensions escalate in their writing community. While Haven seems to succeed effortlessly,...

Set over one hot summer, a startlingly assured debut about the kinds of love that break us and make us whole. Seventeen–year–old Jean, a troubled Jewish boy caught in the countercultural swirl of 1970s London, arrives at Compton Manor, a rural alternative boarding school for boys with "problems." Dyslexic, antisocial, and prone to violent outbursts, Jean has never made friends easily and school has never been a place of safety or enjoyment. Compton...

Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva, 1816. The dark summer that birthed a monster. Eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley has fled London with her lover, Percy Shelley, and her sister, Claire. Tormented by Shelley's betrayals, haunted by the loss of their baby and suspicious of her sister's intentions, Mary seeks a refuge. But Lord Byron's villa, lying under ominous, ash-shrouded skies, feels more like a trap. When Byron suggests each guest write a supernatural tale,...

"A trans woman discovers pornography of herself she has no memory of making, only to find herself led to an unimaginably deeper evil. A feral shut-in discovers a disturbing internet porn video of what seems to be herself. A séance of coked-up artists summons unearthly forces in a studio apartment. The staircase of an exurban marketing company descends endlessly beneath the earth. In Aoife Josie Clements' electric, nightmarish, intricately layered...

"When Ingram is forced by overwhelming poverty and spiritual exhaustion to walk away from his home, he leaves behind a neglectful childhood on a dirt farm on a dead-end road. With no family, no resources, and no practical understanding of the world, Ingram's only compass is the daily fight to survive and the narrow dream of one day owning a truck. A picaresque novel set against the backdrop of working-class Texas, Ingram invites readers to see the...

"A thirty-two-year-old sex worker is shocked when she's approached by undercover government agents to aid them in a top-secret plot to assassinate a politician known as Meat Neck. But once the deed is done, she realizes what made her the perfect recruit: She's 100% disposable. Holed up in an off-the-grid cabin in the woods, she now has only two days, her wits, and a laptop to save her own life. Her best bet is to reach out to the wildly popular feminist...

"1843. Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After her parents and infant sister die, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Abandoned and desperate for a life at sea, Ishmaelle disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York. Nearly twenty years later, as the American Civil War breaks out, Ishmaelle boards the Nimrod, a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain...

"Wesley Batchelor is desperate for an image reboot--stat. A mysterious social media influencer keeps revealing his many reckless romantic liaisons, putting everything Wesley has worked so hard for at stake. Worse, he's in deep trouble with his grandmother and Batchelor Corporation boss, Joyce, his one and only true cheerleader. So he's stunned and relieved when his gorgeous ex, private detective Albany Keyes, is recruited to track down the leaker......

"I was his wife. His lover. His sworn enemy. The ice queen to Olympus's most hated king. *A scorchingly hot modern retelling of Hera and Zeus.* The barrier that's protected Olympus for generations has fallen. The enemy's breached the gates and the Thirteen are scrambling to protect themselves, their loved ones, and the city they've sworn to protect. At least they would be if they weren't at each others' throats instead. Hera has no intention of letting...