Next year may, at first glance, lack the dazzle of literary celebrity. That said, there are new books from two Nobel winners. First, in February, We Do Not Part (Hamish Hamilton) by Han Kang – a complex and unsettling novel about two white women in Korea wrestling with the weight of history. Then there’s Abdulrazak Gurnah in March with Theft (Bloomsbury), a characteristically poised and elegant story about three young people growing up in present-day Tanzania. One more big hitter: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dream Count (4th Estate) is published in March – probably the major publication milestone of 2025. It’s embargoed, though, so I haven’t read it.

Of those I have read, what follows, month by month, are the books that stood out. As ever, I have left first novels to the Observer’s debut fiction feature.

Let’s start in February, with perhaps the novel I’ve looked forward to most this coming year: Adam Haslett’s Mothers and Sons (Hamish Hamilton). I’ve loved his writing since Union Atlantic and this book is his best yet. Peter is a crusading lawyer in New York. His mother, Ann, runs a women’s refuge. They are estranged after a terrible event decades ago drove a deep wedge between them. The echoes of the Russian greats in the title aren’t misplaced – this is an epic family saga that packs an extraordinary emotional punch.

If you haven’t yet read Michelle de Kretser, now is the time. Her latest, Theory & Practice (Sort of Books), is her most ambitious and experimental novel yet, a profoundly postmodern exploration of youth, sex and self-discovery. A young woman relocates to bohemian St Kilda in Melbourne to study “the Woolfmother” – Virginia Woolf – only to have her focus disrupted by an intoxicating relationship. A novel about writing a novel about writing a thesis on the work of a novelist who herself straddled the line between fact and fiction: it’s a riot.

Nicola Rayner’s two smart, Gone Girl-ish thrillers were enormous fun. With her third book, The Paris Dancer (Aria), she has stepped up a level. You’ll be swept away by the story of Annie, Esther and Miriam in a rich, moving and beautifully written piece of historical fiction.

The South (4th Estate) is the first in Tash Aw’s planned quartet of books about a family caught in the jaws of history. Jay and Chuan are young men from very different backgrounds who become lovers. It’s an exquisite, languorous novel about class and aspiration, family and growing up.

Finally for February, there’s Eimear McBride’s fourth novel, The City Changes Its Face (Faber). Set in the 90s, it’s the story of the affair between 19-year-old Eily and Stephen, an actor 20 years her senior. The prose is characteristically Beckettian, the formal experimentation as ambitious as ever.

In March, we have David Szalay’s Flesh (Jonathan Cape). It’s been a long time since I’ve been swallowed whole by a novel the way I was by this one. Flesh is the whole-life story of István, a Hungarian whom we meet as a teenager and leave decades later. There are such complex emotional and moral undercurrents in the novel, so much searing insight into the way we live now. It’s a masterpiece.

In 2021 Natasha Brown’s Assembly announced a bold new voice in fiction. She returns with Universality (Faber), a razor-sharp satire that opens with a Yorkshire farmer bludgeoned to death with a gold bar. Like Szalay, Brown seems to see deeply into the heart of the strangeness and hypocrisy of modern life.

The Mouthless Dead (Abacus) by Anthony Quinn is the gripping fictionalisation of a notorious 1930s murder case. It’s at once a compelling mystery and a profound meditation on the justice system.

Ben Markovits’s 12th novel, The Rest of Our Lives (Faber), begins with Tom Layward, an amiable everyman, finding out that his wife has had an affair. When, years later, he drops his daughter at college, he simply keeps on driving, rather than returning home. Moving, smart and, in the end, life-affirming, it’s a wonderful novel about family, hope and the obligations that make us human.

I’ve been giving everyone Colum McCann’s Apeirogon recently – it’s the most extraordinary (semi-)fictional treatment of Israel/Palestine. His latest, Twist (Bloomsbury), is a Graham Greene-ish thriller about the hunt for a missing sea captain off the coast of South Africa. It’s dark, moving and enormously entertaining.

Megan Hunter’s third novel, Days of Light (Picador), out in April, leaps across decades – think One Day written by (and starring) Virginia Woolf (she’s in the air this year). This is a lyrical and captivating book, dropping decade by decade into a single day in the life of the brilliant, headstrong Ivy, opening with a tragedy in 1938 and ending with her death in the 1990s.

Katie Kitamura’s Audition (Fern) begins with the narrator, an older actor, having lunch with a younger man. Her husband comes into the restaurant – does he see them? From here begins a strange and unnerving tale about love and art. Kitamura’s novels are short, sharp and deadly. I’m not sure there’s anyone better writing in America today.

Elaine Feeney’s first novel, As You Were, was stunningly good. Her third, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way (Harvill Secker), sees a woman return home to Ireland to care for her dying father. How she rebuilds her life, and the ways in which the past returns to haunt her, are conveyed with lyricism and longing.

Also in April, Lisa Harding’s third novel, The Wildelings (Bloomsbury), arrives to fill the Secret History-shaped hole in your lives. Wilde is an elite university in Dublin, full of bright young people who talk about poetry and arthouse cinema, act in plays and have turbulent affairs. Jessica and Linda, friends since childhood, are immediately swept up by the glamour and romance. But then Linda meets Mark, a darkly enigmatic figure, and soon tragedy strikes. Gothic and gloriously entertaining.

Sofka Zinovieff’s Putney was a darkly sexy retelling of Lolita. Her latest, Stealing Dad (Corsair), out in May, finds three very different siblings coming together in the wake of their father’s death. It’s funny, sad and full of beautiful writing.

One of the great pleasures of writing this column is discovering new authors and even new publishing houses. I received a number of novels from Sinoist Books, rapidly gaining a reputation for publishing the best Chinese novels in translation. Best among them was Old Kiln by Jia Pingwa, beautifully translated by the trio of Christopher Payne, Olivia Milburn and James Trapp. It’s a vast, sprawling and bewitching novel, full of memorable characters and wonderful set pieces.

Finally, in September there’s Damian Barr’s second novel. The Two Roberts (Canongate) begins on an Ayrshire hillside in 1934. Here we find the eponymous Roberts – Colquhoun and MacBryde – at the beginning of their lives as lovers and artists. Barr has rescued these two near-forgotten figures in a novel that brims over with generosity and warmth.

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