Lost Lambs

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 'If the Royal Tenenbaums were middle-class and likable, they'd be this madcap family.' The New York Times 'Manages to capture something we can all universally relate to: how normal it is to have a dysfunctional family' Sunday Times A National bestseller. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by Vulture, Bustle, Good Housekeeping, Playboy, The Times, Our Culture, Vol. 1 Brooklyn and Harper's Bazaar. Belletrist's January Book Club pick Review: Cash has managed to cram all the goof and melodrama of an action film/coming-of-age high-school romcom into crisp, polished prose... It's as if a Virago novel of the 1960s or '70s - sharp, characterful, gorgeously written - were laced with the pills, vape juice and shadowy plutocracies of 21st-century America... You finish the book with the kind of smile on your face that contemporary fiction rarely leaves you with. Lost Lambs is a perky, fiendishly readable debut. Cash's career is surely blossoming before her. * Financial Times * This type of slapstick satire is what makes Cash's novel so enjoyable... What is so appealing about this debut is that within her intelligent, funny writing, Cash manages to capture something we can all universally relate to: how normal it is to have a dysfunctional family. * Sunday Times * Cash's virtuosic wit allows her to warm hearts at the same time as satirising the world... in an age when the conspiracy theorists do indeed turn out to be disturbingly right as well as disturbingly wrong, and when old-fashioned tenderness and laughter are ever more required, Cash is a happy and energising new voice. * Guardian * Cash's wonderful debut walks a vertiginous path between conventional family dramedy and high-concept conspiracy caper... A technicolour reinvention of the classic American family novel. * Daily Mail * This sparkling debut is a true tour de force: unexpected, entertaining and genuinely funny... The most wildly original book of the year. * Harper's Bazaar * Warm, sharp and brilliantly observed * My Weekly * If Madeline Cash found herself at a cosmic cocktail party with Muriel Spark, the Coen brothers, Loren Bouchard and JD Salinger, nobody would need to be rescued... An instant classic and a comic novel about family you could recommend to just about anyone. * Shortlist * A wildly entertaining, sharply written novel that keeps you hooked throughout * Daily Mirror * A brilliantly bonkers, gut-busting novel. This talented young author has crafted a farce to be reckoned with. * Saga Magazine * Sharp, absurd and unexpectedly tender, Lost Lambs marries satirical wit with heartfelt reflection on dysfunction and belonging * London Standard * Among 2026's buzziest debuts... Combining a comic and wry tone with quirky characters that would be right at home in a Wes Anderson movie, it lives up to the hype. If you devoured Paul Murray's family saga, The Bee Sting, you'll love this similarly wacky and wonderful tale. * Independent, 'Best new books to read in 2026' * A rollicking read with vibrant wordplay, quirky characters and madcap scenarios. * Economist * A rich and abundant novel... In Lost Lambs, Cash deals with shocking and intense situations, but they never feel heavy. Anyone who enjoys quirky stories with flawed but lovable characters and a good deal of heart will lap up this debut novel. * Irish Examiner * This is laugh-out-loud funny and a brilliant debut novel... you can't help but fall in love with the Flynn family. * Sunday Life * Author Biography: Madeline Cash is the founder of Forever Magazine and the author of the story collection Earth Angel. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, The Baffler, The Sewanee Review, The Drift, and Bomb, among other publications. Lost Lambs is her debut novel.