Fable, thriller, historical novel, noir, first works. The abundance of choice for any kind of reader in January is undeniable, a month rich like few others in high-level bookshop offerings. After a traditionally almost silent December, with the novels due out at the beginning of 2025 the main publishers are preparing to decisively reinvigorate the Italian literary panorama.

Einaudi proposes The stonecutterunpublished Cormac McCarthy dating back to the end of the 1980s: it is a drama in five acts which did not have the same success as his contemporary masterpieces and has never seen anything other than a partial stage representation. The prize for most awaited novel, however, goes to Katie by Michael McDowell, an author that Neri Pozza had the merit of making Italian readers discover: after Mary Love and Elinor Dammert of the very successful ‘Blackwater’ saga and the ferocious Lena Shanks of The togolden gheethe American author’s narrative corpus is enriched with an evil protagonist who alternates between divination sessions, cabaret shows and hammer blows.

Sabrina Zuccato with hers Nagyrév’s midwifepublished by Marsilio, deals with a news story that actually happened between the two World Wars, which shocked Europe due to the brutality of the crimes and an unprecedented reversal of roles: women kill men and take revenge. The disturbing point of view of a serial killer is instead the narrative choice of Butterflya novel published by Longanesi and currently being published in 15 countries, the first work by Finnish film critic Martta Kaukonen.

A little girl, a curse and an invisible friend are the protagonists of Edith Hollera modern fairy tale about theater and its power, but above all about the struggle of a young woman ready to do anything to save what she loves and make her dreams come true. It is the new novel by Edward Carey, eclectic author and visionary illustrator, in bookstores for The Ship of Theseus. Rizzoli bets on Do you remember Sarah Leroy? novel about a twenty-year secret, written by Marie Varreille, while Elliot is publishing Once you open your eyes you can’t sleep by Robert Bober, a work that skilfully crosses Truffaut, the Winter Velodrome Roundup and Paris in the Sixties.

Among the other proposals, we highlight: The years of plenty by Maria Costanza Boldrini, published by Nord, in which the women of a family in central Italy have a special power, and Erin – The Beast Player by the Japanese writer Nahoko Uehashi: Fazi brings to Italy the fantasy saga of one of the most read authors ever in the Land of the Rising Sun, a story of forces in conflict with each other, in which the protagonist is a girl with a power to be discovered. Finally, in There is a letter for you published by Garzanti, the Korean author Seungyeon Baek has collected some of the original letters sent by customers of the Geulwoll letter shop, which in Seoul created the pen pal service to create new bonds between people in an increasingly isolated and lonely world .

Butterfly (Longanesi)

(Martta Kaukonen; release date: January 10). Clarissa Virtanem is Finland’s most famous psychiatrist. He is a sort of celebrity who can boast an impeccable CV and highly followed television appearances. This is why Ira, a young twenty-year-old, decided to knock on the door of his studio. The reason is common: he has obsessive compulsive disorder that he can’t get rid of.

Clarissa agrees to treat her but, once the secrecy of the therapist-patient relationship is established, Ira confesses the truth: her real disorder is serial murder and she wants Clarissa to help her. But something in Ira’s words is off. The boundaries of the relationship between the two women blur and the levels of reality and that of lies come dangerously into contact.

Edith Holler (The Ship of Theseus)

(Edward Carey; release date: January 10). 1901 – Beloved Queen Victoria died and her elderly son took her place on the throne. In the city of Norwich, young Edith Holler spends her days among the noisy and picturesque inhabitants of the Holler Theatre, of which her father is director and owner. A brilliant and curious twelve-year-old, she is the victim of a dark prophecy according to which the theater is destined to collapse, and she to die, if she were to ever leave her rooms.

Fascinated by the tales of the city she knows only from afar and a voracious reader of its legends, she decides to write a play of her own: an adaptation of the legend of Mawther Meg, a woman who lived hundreds of years before and is said to have saved the city from an invasion of woodworms and created a delicacy which over time has become renowned throughout the country.

The Years of Plenty (North)

(Maria Costanza Boldrini; release date: January 10). The Continis are a family like many others in Valchiara, a small town in central Italy overlooking the sea. Well-liked and hard workers, they lead a poor but dignified existence. Then something changes when the young Beata, despite her mother’s protests, decides to get hired at the Royal Cigar Factory. Because a mysterious miracle occurs in her: it is her abundance… And after her, her daughter Clarice and granddaughter Antonia will also be blessed and cursed by this miracle, each in their own way.

The midwife of Nagyrév (Marsilio)

(Sabrina Zuccato; release date: January 14). Zsigmond Danielovitz is tasked with investigating the body of an elderly peasant woman. Behind the eyes of the inhabitants of Nagyrév, a small remote village in Hungary, it doesn’t take them long to see something sinister. Danielovitz soon realizes that the woman’s death is the link in a long chain of disappearances and accidents that have involved the small reality for some time.

A key figure in the narrative is the midwife Zsuzsanna, often labeled a ‘witch’ by her fellow citizens, an example of an emancipated woman to whom many ‘sisters’ ask for help in solving the problems they have at home.

Katie (Neri Pozza)

(Michael McDowell; release date: January 14). 1871. When the penniless and intrepid Philomela Drax receives a letter from her rich grandfather, in which the latter writes that he fears for her life because of an unscrupulous family, the Slapes, her granddaughter rushes to her rescue. But time is running out, because Katie Slape, a cruel woman with the gift of clairvoyance and a certain ability to deliver hammer blows, is about to prevail.

From the dusty streets of a New Jersey village to the glittering sidewalks of Saratoga and all the way to the docks of New York, Philo pursues Katie. Or is it the opposite? No one can escape Katie’s fury.

Do you remember Sarah Leroy? (Rizzoli)

(Marie Varreille; release date: January 14). In 2001, the disappearance of fifteen-year-old Sarah Leroy from Bouville-sour-Mer, a holiday resort in Normandy, kept the whole of France glued to the news, but the details of her disappearance were never clarified. Twenty years later Fanny, journalist and sister of Sarah’s former best friend, returns to Bouville to write a report on the drama that marked her youth and that of her friends. Thus reopening the case, like a wave arriving from afar.

Erin – The Beast Player (Fazi)

(Nahoko Uehashi; release date: January 14). In the guardian village of the Grand Duchy of Aruhan, Soyon is responsible for taking care of the fearsome water serpents of the Grand Duke’s army, the tōda. When some specimens mysteriously die, she is sentenced to death and, using a forbidden technique, manages to save her daughter Erin, who is welcomed by an old beekeeper who teaches her everything about bees and wild ōjū and gigantic winged creatures.

Contrary to the age-old rules and following her intuitions and knowledge, Erin will be the first human being to create, thanks also to the notes of a harp, a special bond with an ōjū puppy she takes care of. This bond guarantees her an important role but also involves her in political plots that endanger her, the people close to her and the winged creatures themselves.

There is a letter for you (Garzanti)

(Seungyeon Baek; release date: January 14). Anyone who sends a letter is a courageous person. The almost forgotten gesture of choosing words and writing them by hand comes from the desire to open one’s heart to someone. Young Hyoyoung knows this magic well. Therefore he decided to create a corner, in his stationery shop hidden between rows of trees, in which to leave a desk, pen and paper, and a rather special mailbox. There is only one rule for those who want to use it: don’t write the recipient’s name, post your letter and leave with another random pick.

Once you open your eyes you can no longer sleep (Elliot)

(Robert Bober; release date: January 17). Paris, 1960. Twenty-year-old Bernard Appelbaum meets by chance one of his former summer camp educators, Robert, who hires him as an extra on a set by François Truffaut, for whom he has recently become assistant. During filming, Bernard rediscovers his lost love, Laura, with whom it is easy to get confused between stage kisses and reality. When the film comes out, Bernard takes his mother to the cinema, proud that she recognizes him; but his part was cut. However, the mother doesn’t seem to mind because the plot is very similar to her backstory.

The stonecutter (Einaudi)

(Cormac McCarthy; release date: January 25). Ben Telfair is a black stonemason in his early thirties who abandoned his studies in psychology to dedicate himself to stoneworking like his grandfather, the over one hundred year old Papaw. What binds the two men is not just the art of building walls, what Ben has chosen to embrace is an entire system of values, characterized by rectitude and honesty.

The rest of the family has chosen differently: Ben’s wife, Maven, aspires to be a lawyer; his father, Big Ben, preferred concrete and the riches it is capable of producing to stone, while his nephew, Soldier, fatally repudiated one material like any other. Ben has strong roots and believes he can fix everything. But he can’t.