Lost Lambs

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2026 ‘EXTREMELY SMART, IMPOSSIBLY FUNNY, AND JUST PLAIN FUN TO READ’ CARO CLAIRE BURKE, AUTHOR OF YESTERYEAR ‘A VOICE LIKE NO OTHER’ LENA DUNHAM Think your family is dysfunctional? Meet the Flynns. For the three Flynn daughters, it’s been disastrous since their parents opened up their marriage. Abigail, the eldest, is dating an ex-soldier several years her senior nicknamed ‘War Crimes Wes’. Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist. And the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to a wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone – or something – is monitoring the town’s citizens. Casting a shadow across their lives is Paul Alabaster, a nefarious local billionaire. Rumours of corruption circulate, but no one dares dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with Alabaster’s machinations sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy – one that may just, finally, bring them closer together. The instant Sunday Times bestseller ‘THE MOST WILDLY ORIGINAL BOOK OF THE YEAR’ HARPER’S BAZAAR ‘THE DEBUT NOVEL FOR 2026 THAT HAS UNDOUBTEDLY BEEN THE MOST SHOUTED ABOUT’ THE SUNDAY TIMES STYLE ‘A DARKLY FUNNY FAMILY SAGA’ BUSTLE ‘AN INSTANT CLASSIC’ SHORTLIST Readers love LOST LAMBS ‘What a ROMP!’ ? ? ? ? ? ‘The hype is real!’ ? ? ? ? ? ‘Hilarious, weird, original and addictive!’ ? ? ? ? ? ‘If Wes Anderson wrote Little Women.’ ? ? ? ? ? ‘I’m shouting it from every rooftop: THIS IS THE BOOK OF THE YEAR!’ ? ? ? ? ? ‘Perhaps the funniest book I’ve ever read.’ ? ? ? ? ? As sincere as it is funny (and it’s very funny)’** Ramona Ausubel, bestselling author of The Last Animal ‘A great, great American novel’ Samantha Hunt, Women’s Prize longlisted author of The Seas ‘A dazzling and singular new voice in literary fiction… Loud, hilarious, shocking, and sensitive’ Megan Nolan, award-winning author of Ordinary Human Failings ‘With a big surge of energy, Lost Lambs splits the nucleus of the American family’ Tony Tulathimutte, author of Rejection – National Book Award Finalist ‘Madeline Cash is a humourist in the darkly humanist tradition of George Saunders and Lorrie Moore, of Vonnegut and Twain’ Tim Kreider, author of We Learn Nothing ‘Immersive and propulsive and I never wanted it to end. I can’t remember the last time a novel made me laugh so hard or feel so much tenderness for its characters… I loved it. I devoured it’ Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters