Illustrative image: Photos: Pan Macmillan / Simon & Schuster / Kwela Books) Why Am I Like This? by Qaanitah Hunter
It would be limiting to straightjacket Why Am I Like This? as “romance”. The book does far more than that. Farah Garda is in her twenties, living with her roommate in Cape Town, drifting. She cannot seem to find purpose. Or direction. Or, on some days, the will to get out of bed.
When her mother, a Struggle veteran now living in a retirement village in Johannesburg, falls ill, Farah boards a flight home to care of her. At the airport she meets “Chatty Airport Guy”, also known as Zaid. Farah has little interest in engaging. Zaid, however, is not easily deterred.
At its heart, this is a wrenching story about caring for an ageing parent and discovering yourself in the wake of grief and loss. In an era in which so many young people wrestle with self-worth and paralysis, the novel becomes a quietly powerful meditation on meaning, survival and the will to live and love.
I was especially struck by its reflections on embodiment, the intricate connection between mental health and how it manifests in the body. Farah struggles with being overweight and with the lethargy that accompanies depression. She wants to move but cannot summon the energy. Hunter writes this with skill, making it both compelling and deeply relatable.
Importantly, the book handles body and weight with care. In a culture that relentlessly tells women to shrink themselves, to eat less and take up less space, this story refuses easy fixes. It holds the complexity. The underlying concern is not thinness but health, dignity and care. And yes, there is romance. But it does not follow the predictable blueprint. It bends expectation in ways that feel enticing rather than formulaic.
Why Am I Like This? by Qaanitah Hunter was published in October 2025. Retail price: about R385.
My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney
Feeney’s latest thriller arrived a few weeks ago, and I’m still not entirely sure how to speak about it without sounding slightly unhinged. As far as psychological thrillers go, this one twists so hard and so often that you begin to question your own cognitive prowess. Are my brain cells ageing? Am I missing something obvious? Possibly both?
Yes, parts of it are a touch far-fetched. But that almost feels beside the point. This is a book that will keep you up at night. I read it in two sittings, propelled by something close to compulsion.
The novel opens with Eden Fox, an artist who has recently moved to a beautiful house in the seaside village of Hope Falls. She heads out for a run, mentally preparing for her first exhibition later that evening. When she returns, her key will not turn in the front door. A woman who looks eerily like her opens it and calmly claims to be Eden. Moments later, Eden’s husband appears and insists he has never seen her before. The woman inside is his wife. The woman outside is a stranger.
The story begins through Eden’s point of view, alternating with that of Birdy, a woman who has recently resigned from her job after discovering she is terminally ill. Structurally, things shift in ways I won’t spoil. You will need to trust me on that. What I can say is this: Eden sets out to prove that she is who she says she is and that the other Eden is an imposter. From there, the plot gathers speed and refuses to loosen its grip.
The narrative is tight. The pacing is relentless. The dialogue between Birdy and the local police officer in Hope Falls is sharp enough to cut glass. I laughed out loud more than once. It is fresh, gripping and deliciously entertaining. A word of advice: close the door, silence your phone, and stock up on provisions before you begin. You will not be available to the outside world for some time.
My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney was published in January 2026. Retail price: About R385.
Cape Fever by Nadia Davids
Every once in a while a book comes along that writes itself onto your soul. For me, Cape Fever is one of those books. Partly because it speaks so eloquently about the histories that shape us. Because of where I come from, it resonated deeply. I felt it in my body. It pulled me into the nostalgia of folklore, of food I know, of familiar scents and landscapes. But you do not need to have a personal history with this story for it to mark you. It does its work regardless.
Set in 1920s Cape Town, the novel follows Soraya Matas, who takes a job as a personal maid to support her family. She is employed by Mrs Hattingh, a woman from Cape Town’s gentry. Mrs Hattingh’s husband has died and her son has settled in the UK after World War 1.
Her once-grand house at Heron Place is slowly falling into decline and she no longer has the resources to maintain it or to live as she once did. For Soraya, this means she is the only hired help. The burden of cooking and cleaning fills her days. Heron Place is close to her home in the Muslim quarter, yet Mrs Hattingh is needy, selfish and reluctant to allow Soraya time with her own family.
Soraya is engaged to be married. Her beloved, Nour, works on a farm outside the city. Mrs Hattingh offers Soraya a way to communicate with him: she will write letters to Nour at Soraya’s dictation. And so begins a weekly ritual in which the two women sit together to write the letters.
From the outset, there is a strange and unsettling power play at work. Mrs Hattingh is able to live vicariously inside Soraya’s love story, placing pen to paper and shaping the words. Soraya, in turn, must allow a stranger into her most intimate relationship in order for her words to reach the man she loves.
Their interaction becomes an iteration of an age-old struggle: the woman who has very little and must give everything, and the woman who employs her, who holds control over her life. The tension between Mrs Hattingh and Soraya is rendered with skill and precision. Mrs Hattingh’s spite and cruelty, her sense of entitlement, the tinted lens through which she views the world, and her meanness when she does not get her way are all laid bare.
The novel also works beautifully with ideas of haunting and being haunted. Those who have passed on, and the lives they lived, linger in the pages, watching. Soraya moves easily between this world and another where things are not as they seem. Mysticism and folklore open a door to a sense of magic that feels almost lost.
And then there is the writing itself. Davids’s skill is rare. She is a wordsmith of note. Her sentences are lyrical and beautiful, pulling you in, washing over you, making you want more, even as you turn back to reread what has already passed.
Cape Fever by Nadia Davids was published in January 2026. Retail price: About R370.
Boss Your Money: Learn The Wealth Creation Formula by Nokuhle Kumalo
Kumalo is an accountant and personal finance content creator. In Boss Your Money, she brings her financial expertise into our homes and heads.
What I appreciated most is that she does not treat money as a purely technical issue. She reflects on the money habits we inherit from our parents, what she calls “intergenerational income persistence”, and the mistakes that flow from those inherited patterns. She then offers practical advice on how to confront and reshape them.
At its core, the book is a guide to thinking differently about wealth creation. It offers grounded, practical advice, including the idea of “living a rich life”: spending extravagantly on what truly matters to you and cutting back aggressively on what does not. Money, in this framing, is simply a means to an end. Wealth creation is a personal journey intended to bring peace, provide for what you want, and protect the people you love.
Kumalo walks readers through the mechanics of budgeting, controlling lifestyle costs such as renting or buying a home, managing debt and tax and creating multiple streams of income. She covers saving and investing, retirement funds, medical aid, funeral policies and life insurance. She also addresses calculated risk-taking, money in relationships, marriage and finances, the cost of raising children, divorce and estate planning.
Importantly, she situates this advice in the South African context. She understands that many professionals are supporting elders and extended family members, and that intergenerational poverty shapes financial choices in complex ways.
The tone is one of the book’s greatest strengths. Kumalo writes with clarity and confidence, but also warmth, drawing on her own experience. She makes complex financial concepts feel accessible without dumbing them down. You never feel talked at.
Mostly, the book left me thinking: this is not out of reach. This is not reserved for the financial elite. With the right tools and discipline, anyone can do this. It made me want to be more grown-up about money and to use the tools she lays out.
Boss Your Money by Nokuhle Kumalo was published in January 2026. Retail price: About R350. DM
Joy Watson is Daily Maverick’s book editor at large.