What to read in April - the best new books this month
From a Hungarian prodigy to a British dame, our pick of the best new books to read in April 2026.
From a Hungarian prodigy to a British dame, our pick of the best new books to read in April 2026.
(RRP £16.99, MacLehose Press)
Along with the Habsburgs, the Lázár barony is in its dying days, clinging to the past in an ancient manor house beside a menacing forest.
Here, the fragile Lajos von Lázár is raised in fear of his tyrannical (supposed) father, and grows into a better man, although one compromised by history, as war follows war.
Magic glints and mystery drifts like smoke through this epic story of a dynasty stripped of wealth and dignity, spanning a tumultuous era to the 1956 Hungarian uprising so brutally crushed by the Soviets.
The author (born in 2003 of Hungarian nobility) mines his own family history, leaving us, finally, looking to the future of a third generation. A deserved international sensation.
(RRP £20, Tinder Press)
Betrayed and coerced into selling his Saskatchewan prairie farm, gentle, stoic Harry Cane travels to postwar England to the home of his estranged daughter.
As grizzled ‘Cowboy Grandpa’, he touches the lives of all the family, but the fantasy of a happy reunion cannot survive reality, and he is exiled again.
An achingly tender, subtle sequel to A Place Called Winter, infused with love in all its messy forms.
(RRP £20, Headline Review)
When an old adversary/work contact calls in a favour, Koomson’s profiler and therapist Dr Kez Lanyon once more puts herself in harm’s way.
While counselling pupils at a boarding school, she investigates the death of a staffer and the disappearance of several ‘runaways’, among them the sparky Fredi, who is on a high-risk mission of her own.
Who are the ‘Quiet Girls’ behind these events, bound by a code of omertà? A tense read.
(RRP £18.99, Doubleday)
Carson imagines a past in which an archipelago ("the Ark") in drained Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland has for 50 years – through The Troubles – provided a refuge.
Now the basin is to be flooded, and Marion Connolly and her cussed brother must leave their Utopia to start afresh on the mainland.
But, like their charismatic late father, it seems, Utopia was never all it was cracked up to be, and the islands are soon to render up their murky secrets.
(RRP £18.99, Canongate Books)
From the Sheffield of her childhood and fishing for codling for high tea in 1940s Filey, to correcting proofs in her cabin on a Saga cruise and working in the British Library, this collection of essays and stories finds the author in retrospective mood.
It may be more than 60 years since her debut novel A Summer Bird-Cage was published, but, despite dwelling on old age, Margaret Drabble DBE is still in a very good place.
Hero image credit: Getty
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Dame Prue Leith talks about her secret to staying young and why she’s finally slowing down at 86.
TV’s Dr Hilary Jones on why he wants sweeping reform to modern healthcare.
The actor bids farewell to Downton and looks forward to his starring role in a new West End show.
The TV historian on overcoming a difficult childhood and what it was like to appear on Celebrity Traitors.
The wildlife filmmaker on his close call with a polar bear and why hanging out with lions is less scary than driving in the UK.
The Irish author, 62, on escaping the news through writing, staying sober and scrolling the internet for pretty things.
The actress opens up to Jenni Murray on Saga's podcast Experience is Everything.
