The Strangers

Brought to you by Penguin. The highly-anticipated audacious new novel from the Women's Prize-winning author of The Power. ‘Alderman has gone from promising young author to publishing phenomenon, a writer gifted with the double Midas touch of commercial success and literary prestige' Sunday Times 'It is the genius of Naomi Alderman to embed a smart and thought-provoking meditation inside a page-turner of a book' Karen Joy-Fowler on The Future Over the year following the death of her mother, a woman grapples with the rawness of her new pain and with the older - but no less powerful - grief for the babies she lost in the preceding decades. At the same time, a new kind of animal begins to appear, first in the UK and then gradually across the world. A little like a badger, a little like a cat, but with a long snout that leads to the nickname 'mimmoth', it's a creature both baffling and unsettling, provoking speculation, fear, rage and even devotion in the humans in which it appears to show little interest. For the narrator, the connection she feels to the mimmoths is a solace, but maybe also a kind of madness. As the impact of the creatures begins to be felt in many different (possibly dangerous) ways she is pulled into the cross currents of conspiracy theories and global power struggles. © Naomi Alderman 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026