It's been another vintage year for fiction. As book sales continue to soar, Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn talks us through her personal highlights: the best new novels to be released in 2021. Her recommendations include a workplace comedy that unfolds through the medium of Slack, a "darkly sardonic" story of a 17th-century witch trial, and a witty novel-of-ideas examining trans parenthood.

Foreign holidays are still looking unlikely for most of us this summer, but that doesn't mean we won't be able to find a spot in a park or garden to relax in the sun with a good book. Here, author and Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn highlights some of the most notable new novels of summer 2021 to help you narrow down your reading options.