TOP 10 | All the latest news from Waterstone’s Ballymena – Saturday 28 June 2025

Welcome to this week’s news, reviews, and ‘all-things-books’ latest from the team at Waterstone’s Ballymena!

This week’s Top 10 bestselling books…

1. World's Worst Superheroes by David Walliams

2. The Northern Bank Job by Glenn Patterson

3. Witness 8 by Steve Cavanagh

4. Midnight and Blue by Ian Rankin

5. The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

6. My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes

7. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

8. Long Island by Colm Toibin

9. The New Neighbours by Claire Douglas

10. The Drowned by John Banville

Weekend Storytime…

Our next Storytime sessions will be held on Saturday 5th July at 12pm and Sunday 6th July at 3pm.

We will be reading There is No Giant in this Story by Lou Carter and Deborah Allwright.

There be colouring in afterwards!

Waterstone’s Debut Fiction Prize Shortlist 2025…

We are delighted to announce the Shortlist for the fourth edition of our Debut Fiction Prize. The winner will be announced on Thursday 24th July 2025.

• Confessions by Catherine Airey

Mining girlhood, womanhood and the delicate spot in between with elegance and urgency, Airey's striking debut follows a teenager orphaned by the 9/11 attack as she comes in contact with her estranged family in small town Ireland.

• Sunstruck by William Rayfet Hunter

Sensual yet searing, Hunter's acutely observed novel mines themes of race, status and identity, as a working-class Black man attempts to navigate the opulent world of a wealthy family.

• Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal

Blending political satire with ecological parable, Gurnaik Johal's bold, capacious debut finds the lives of seven individuals transformed, as an ancient sacred river springs back to life in a rapidly changing contemporary India.

• Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin

Provocative, funny and mercilessly observant, Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin's striking debut novel mines the complexities of familial love and grief through richly layered characters who wrestle with questions of faith and belonging in present-day Ireland.

• When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén

A bestselling sensation in Ridzén's native Sweden ‘When the Cranes Fly South’ is a beautifully bittersweet novel about an ageing man desperate to mend his relationship with his son before it's too late.

• The Artist by Lucy Steeds

Richly evocative of a Provencal summer, Steeds' masterly 1920s-set character study focuses on an enigmatic painter, the young British journalist set on penning a piece on him and the artist's unworldly niece - who harbours an unexpected secret.