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The Palm House

'This goes straight onto my list of favourite modern novels’ The Times

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From the Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of First Love, The Palm House is a sharply observed, slyly funny novel of enduring friendships and small mercies.

'This goes straight onto my list of favourite modern novels’ – The Times
'One of our finest novelists of constrained fury: nobody writes better' – The Observer
'Mesmerising . . . confirms Riley as one of Britain’s best' – The Telegraph
‘A slim, impeccably controlled story that contains multitudes’ – The Guardian

Laura and Putnam have been friends for a long time. Theirs is a happy meeting of minds, with long evenings spent huddled in an ancient pub by the Thames, where they share office gossip, reflect on their teenage passions, and lament the state of the world.

Recently, though, Putnam has been harder to reach: he has lost his father, and the magazine to which he has dedicated his life has been hijacked by an insufferable new editor, Simon ‘call me Shove’ Halfpenny.

Laura has her own problems: with a prickly mother and a tricky past, and in a beautiful and indifferent city, her day-to-day life is precarious. But as Putnam starts to sink into despondency, she must try to bring him back.

The Palm House offers us Gwendoline Riley’s trademark keen observation and wit, and leaves us - somehow - with a curious sense of possibility. It is a slender masterpiece from one of Britain’s finest prose stylists.

‘I love this book’ – Sarah Perry, award-winning author of The Essex Serpent

‘Outstandingly brilliant’ – Claire-Louise Bennett, award-winning author of Big Kiss, Bye-Bye

‘Riley’s prose is so electric, so alive with humour and insight and passion, that by the end you will want to stand up and cheer’ – Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting

Named a Most Anticipated Book for 2026 by: Financial Times, The Times, The Observer, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, New Statesman, Good Housekeeping, Country & Town House, Shortlist, The New York Times, Irish Times, Vulture, LitHub and BBC Culture.

 Amitié Fiction Roman féminin Vie de famille Vie en ville Vie urbaine

Commentaires

The Palm House might be my favourite novel of 2026 so far . . . It’s very funny and so full of pathos and horror . . . I wanted to go back to the beginning and start again (Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Times)
This pristine book confirms Riley's position among the finest novelists working today. Her sentences are crystalline and perfect, and her attention to the world is always acute and occasionally tender - I love this book, and am awed by Riley's accomplishment (Sarah Perry, award-winning author of The Essex Serpent and Death of an Ordinary Man)
Riley writes with a poet’s control, her prose so purely distilled that it appears artless . . . What is new is the gentle delicacy she brings to the deep and unshowy solace of friendship, moments of tenderness so exquisitely and exactly rendered that they are almost too intense to bear
This goes straight onto my list of favourite modern novels
The expres­sion “at the height of a nov­el­ist’s powers” is ban­died around too often, but it was the phrase that came to mind read­ing The Palm House. Here is a writer who has now worked for two dec­ades on hon­ing her work, and with uncom­prom­ising ambi­tion. As a res­ult, Riley has only got bet­ter and bet­ter – and I’m sure I won’t be the only one to say that The Palm House is her best novel yet
Outstandingly brilliant (Claire-Louise Bennett, award-winning author of Pond and Big Kiss, Bye-Bye )
The Palm House on almost any page will give you more delight than most other novels published this year (John Self, The Critic)
Sharp, funny and painfully precise, this is a quietly devastating portrait of modern life
Gwendoline Riley is one of my favourite contemporary writers and The Palm House is the book of hers I love the most (Sheila Heti, award-winning author of Pure Colour)
Fans of Gwendoline Riley's blunt observation and razor-sharp prose will be thrilled with her new book, The Palm House (Barry Pierce, Vogue)
Gwendoline Riley can draw character like nobody else . . . Her prose is so sharp you could cut yourself on it (Elizabeth Macneal author of The Burial Plot)
Achingly sad and subversively funny . . . I read My Phantoms with great pleasure. It's a wonderful combination of achingly sad and subversively funny, simultaneously sharp and tender, and always finely observed. The dialogue is pitch perfect. The relationships are agonising. It's a subtle book, with big themes lightly drawn and precisely rendered, about how to live and how to love (Monica Ali, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Brick Lane)
Mesmerizing . . . Structurally it’s fluid, but this is a narrative whose power derives from precision. The details and dialogue are witty, occasionally sinister, and redolent of possibility along with a pungently English melancholy
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