Over the course of three instalments, Q&Q presents the titles we’re most excited about this spring. This week’s instalment features novels. Short fiction and poetry titles will be featured next week, with nonfiction to be featured on Jan. 28. 

Q&Q’s spring preview covers books published between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2026. All information (titles, publication dates) was supplied by publishers.

From romance to horror to new works from CanLit’s heavy hitters, this season’s slate of new novels includes something for everyone. 

Fresh works from established names include new works from Yann Martel, Don Gillmor, and Wayne Johnston, as well as the posthumously translated final instalment of Marie-Claire Blais’s Soifs series. 

Good Guys
Sharon Bala
McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada, Jan.

Soifs Cycle 10: Together by the Sea
Marie-Claire Blais and Katia Grubisic, trans.
Arachnide Editions/House of Anansi Press, Feb.

The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts
Kim Fu
HarperCollins Publishers, March

A grieving woman finds her model home flooding from heavy rains and reality is unmoored as she is haunted by the stories of her therapy clients and ghosts from her own life. Kim Fu’s third novel, following on the award-winning short story collection Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, combines psychological acuity with the speculative. 

Cherry Beach
Don Gillmor
Biblioasis, April

Son of Nobody
Yann Martel
Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada, March

The Novice of Holloway Hall
Wayne Johnston
Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada, April

Library of Brothel
Anakana Schofield
Knopf Canada/PRHC, May

From her Amazon Canada First Novel Award–winning Malarky, Anakana Schofield’s fiction has always demanded attention with its innovative structures and intellectual challenges. Her latest, Library of Brothel, is perhaps the most fabulist of all. In a library besieged by the outside world, the various rooms themselves jostle with each other for what is valued and how they can coexist.

Spring brings a fresh bumper crop of first novels that includes work from writers who have previously published nonfiction, short stories, poetry, and drama, including Lindsay Wong, Liz Johnston, and Daniel Zomparelli. 

Northern Bull
Michelle Swallow
Freehand Books, Jan.

Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies
Lindsay Wong
Penguin Canada/Penguin Random House Canada, Jan. 

The Unravelling of Ou
Hollay Ghadery
Palimpsest Press, Feb.

Little Spoons
Diedre J. Halbot
Breakwater Books, Feb.

In this first book from essayist and writer Diedre J. Halbot, protagonist Mary returns home to western Newfoundland after inheriting the property of her grandmother, who has died unexpectedly. She soon finds herself faced with stories of witchcraft and rumours of the supernatural as she works to piece together her family’s story.

Seven Heavens Away
Ashraf Zaghal
House of Anansi Press, Feb.

The Golden Boy
Patricia Finn
HarperCollins Publishers, March

Nightshade
Lynn Hutchinson Lee
Assembly Press, March

My Summer Vacation
Zeenat Nagree
Esplanade Books/Véhicule Press, April

The Fall-Down Effect
Liz Johnston
Book*hug Press, April

In Crow’s Field
Judith Thompson
Cormorant Books, April

Judith Thompson has tackled issues of violence and societal evils in her long career as a playwright. Her first novel, set in a U.S. college town in the mid-1960s and Kingston, Ontario, is the exploration of a girl’s coming of age, and the courage she achieves to confront the assault that led to the death of her childhood best friend.

Super Castle Fun Park
Daniel Zomparelli
Arsenal Pulp Press, April

New novels out this season also include Thomas Trofimuk’s story of a man whose wife disappears on the couple’s European vacation, while poet and novelist Lisa Robertson returns to fiction with a new book about a buried river in Paris.

Night Birds
Margaret Sweatman
Goose Lane Editions, Feb.

Wild People Quiet
Tara Gereaux
Scribner Canada/Simon & Schuster Canada, March

Florence has carefully constructed her life in small-town Saskatchewan in the 1940s to hide her Métis heritage – but everything changes when she notices a group of out-of-town Métis workers at a local diner, one of whom has a connection to her past and a simple request for her that blurs the line between her past and present lives.  

The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances
Glenn Dixon
HarperAvenue/HarperCollins Canada, April

In a smart house in the near-future, a robotic vacuum is inspired by hearing her owner, Harold, read To Kill a Mockingbird aloud to his dying wife, and renames herself Scout. When the Grid looks to remove Harold from his home, Scout and her fellow sentient appliances band together with a neighbourhood boy and Harold’s formerly estranged daughter to outwit the Grid and keep hold of all they hold dear. 

Saudade
Thomas Trofimuk
NeWest Press, April

County Road Six
Kevin Hardcastle
Bond Street Books/Penguin Random House Canada, May

Trillium Book Award winner Kevin Hardcastle turns again to the rural world of central Ontario in his sophomore novel, a family saga that reunites three sisters after the death of their vicious father as they deal with their inheritance, both of the family farm and the violence of a family secret.

Riverwork
Lisa Robertson
Coach House Books, May

At Sea in a Sieve
Cordelia Strube
ECW Press, June

Spring’s thriller and mystery titles include additions to series from bestselling authors Iona Whishaw and Sam Wiebe, as well as a new co-written work from Louise Penny and journalist Mellissa Fung.

Moonlight Murder: A Detective Aunty Novel
Uzma Jalaluddin
Harper Perennial/HarperCollins Canada, March

Bestselling author Uzma Jalaluddin returns with a second title in her cozy mystery Detective Aunty series. This title sees Kausar Khan investigating a second murder after a young man who was close with her granddaughter turns up dead in her neighbourhood – in a case that reminds her of the mysterious death of her own teenage son 20 years earlier. 

Guns Across the River: A Wakeland Novel
Sam Wiebe
Harbour Publishing, March

The Last Mandarin
Louise Penny and Mellissa Fung
Minotaur/Macmillan Publishers, May

A False and Fatal Claim: A Lane Winslow Mystery
Iona Whishaw
TouchWood Editions, April

Seldom Seen Road
John Degen
Latitude 46, May

The Case Study
Nicole Lundrigan
Viking/Penguin Random House Canada, May

Sinner’s Banquet
Randy Schroeder
NeWest Press, May

The Longest Death
Kevin Jagernauth
Spiderline/House of Anansi Press, June

This debut by culture critic Kevin Jagernauth combines noir with a gay love story as two men, a loner and a confidence man, fall in love, and plan a heist to escape their dead-end lives in postwar America. But their dream of living their true lives together is complicated by a number of figures with their own agendas and by violence that threatens to break their bond.

Perennial bestseller Carley Fortune returns with another romance title, new additions to horror fiction come from first-time novelists, and this spring marks award-winning author Anuja Varghese’s debut fantasy novel. 

Persona
Aoife Josie Clements
LittlePuss Press, Feb.

Afterbirth
Emma Cleary
HarperCollins Canada, March

Definitely Thriving
Kerry Clare
House of Anansi Press, March

Kerry Clare brings a humorous approach to a story of second chances as Clemence returns to her hometown after imploding her marriage with the intention of creating a sensible and substantial life. But she soon gets drawn into the community’s quirks and her family’s foibles, and discovers two possible romantic interests.

Our Perfect Storm
Carley Fortune
Viking/Penguin Random House Canada, May

A Kiss of Crimson Ash: Book One of the Games of the Goddess Series
Anuja Varghese
Viking/PRHC, May

Palaces of the Crow
Ray Nayler
Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Macmillan Publishers, May

In this speculative tale of survival, Hugo and Locus Award winner Nayler imagines a version of the Second World War in Eastern Europe as four young people bond while hiding in the forests to evade the Nazis, the Red Army, and various threats unleashed by the chaos of war – aided by a flock of intelligent crows.

Spring Preview: Picture Books