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The 10 best fiction books to read this summer

From thought-provoking fables to gripping thrillers, add these novels to the very top of your reading list

best new fiction books

Now that summer has well and truly arrived, you'll most likely be looking for a fresh stack of fiction in which to bury yourself – whether you're lazing on a sun lounger on holiday with a cocktail in one hand, a tome in the other; or indulging in a moment of escapism closer to home.

There is also a dazzling list of debut authors to discover, including Rachel Eliza Griffiths, whose first novel, Promise , is a meaningful tale of heartbreak, courage and resistance. And if it's prize-winning writing you're after, look no further than Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead , which scored this year's Women's Prize for Fiction.

Wherever your summer takes you, be sure to have one of these novels stashed in your bag...

The top 10 fiction books to read this summer

Bobby palmer, 'isaac and the egg'.

Bobby Palmer, 'Isaac and the Egg'

The first book on this list almost defies classification: Isaac and the Egg is so unusual, so unique, that it can only be a stand-out choice. A beautiful, modern-day fable about loss, hope and the magic of the everyday, it tells the story of a broken man's transformative journey through a wood – and will stay with you long after you've turned the final page. A totally original novel, this gets to the core of what it means to be human.

Emma Cline, 'The Guest'

Emma Cline, 'The Guest'

Cline's 2016 debut, The Girls , the story of a lost teenager who falls into a Manson-style cult in the heady days of the hippie movement in California, won worldwide praise. This year, Cline is back with The Guest , about a young drifter and the dark recesses of the rich and famous she discovers on Long Island. If you enjoyed The Girls , expect more of Cline's carefully measured prose in this eerie, masterfully written book, which will have you bookmarking perfect phrases every few pages.

Rachel Eliza Griffiths, 'Promise'

Rachel Eliza Griffiths, 'Promise'

A luminous story of a two sisters and their journey into adulthood amid the escalating tensions, violence and prejudice of 1950s America, Promise is the first novel from writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths (the wife of Salman Rushdie). Set in 1957, as the news from distant parts of the country fills with calls for freedom, equality and justice for Black Americans, this is a powerful take on racism and resistance, told by one of the most talented writers working today. This is a book that will break your heart, then rebuild it all over again.

Louise Kennedy, 'Trespasses'

Louise Kennedy, 'Trespasses'

There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub her family owns, but the encounter will change both of their lives forever. Set in the time of the Troubles – a world of car bombs, rubber bullets and people killed, beaten or left for dead – this is a vivid portrait of love and loss. It is bold in its scope, taking in topics from the Protestant/Catholic divide to politics, but Kennedy handles everything she touches with a deft ease, resulting in this passionate, tense thriller.

R.F. Kuang, 'Yellowface'

R.F. Kuang, 'Yellowface'

There's no doubt you'll have heard of Yellowface already, or at least seen its bright yellow cover in the hands of every second person on the tube. It's a surprise they don't all miss their stop, so gripping and witty is this biting satire of the publishing industry. The book tells the story of June Hayward, who steals the unpublished manuscript of literary darling, Athena Liu, and publishes it as her own. Deadly consequences ensue, as Hayward is determined to keep what she thinks she deserves. For a high-end beach read you'll practically devour, you can't do better.

Freya Berry, 'The Birdcage Library'

Freya Berry, 'The Birdcage Library'

An outstanding new book from the best-selling Freya Berry, The Birdcage Library is a transporting, 1930s-set mystery that follows the endeavours of adventuress Emily Blackwood, as she attempts to locate a mysterious artefact hidden in a crumbling Scottish castle. A noticeable departure in theme from Berry's first book ( The Dictator's Wife , which won prizes and plaudits across the board) this new novel still has Berry's signature way of drawing a reader in, and keeping hold of them until the very last page. Lovers of crime, mystery and intrigue should order this immediately.

Megan Nolan, 'Ordinary Human Failings'

Megan Nolan, 'Ordinary Human Failings'

The subject of much hype even before its publication, Megan Nolan's second novel is a tour-de-force: taking place in 1990s London, it follows a reporter who begins to investigate an Irish family implicated in an atrocious crime, and the stories behind the headlines. A searing exposé of prejudice and privilege, this is at once a social commentary and a dramatic thriller. In short? Nolan fully deserves all the praise you'll have heard for this electric novel.

Barbara Kingsolver, 'Demon Copperhead'

Barbara Kingsolver, 'Demon Copperhead'

Winner of this year's Women's Prize for Fiction, Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead is a remarkable reimagining of the Dickens classic, David Copperfield . Like the original, this is an immersive bildungsroman rich with character and an evocative sense of place. Set in Appalachia against the backdrop of the opioid epidemic, this is a sobering examination of poverty in America told with great charm, voice and intelligence.

Yomi Adegoke, 'The List'

Yomi Adegoke, 'The List'

Fun and thought-provoking in equal measure, The List is the latest from Yomi Adegoke, who is now as much a cultural icon and commentator as she is a writer, so on-the-money are her views. Clever and intricately plotted, The List examines the dark side of social media and its influence on even the closest of our personal relationships. Weaving in anonymous allegations and the way they call into question our responsibility and loyalty, this is a book that's just right for our times.

waterstone Naoise Dolan, 'The Happy Couple'

Naoise Dolan, 'The Happy Couple'

Charting the lives of the soon-to-be-married couple, the best man, the bridesmaid and a guest for an approaching wedding, this comedy of errors from the bestselling author of Exciting Times is entertaining, clever and excoriating. Naoise Dolan has a way with sparse prose, which says everything in just a few words. A different take on whether marriage really leads to a happy-ever-after, this is one you'll want to lend to friends, just so you can discuss it non-stop.

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Upcoming Book Releases

The Most-Anticipated Upcoming Book Releases

Take a look ahead at all the upcoming book releases this year. Find out what the most-anticipated upcoming book releases are in the coming months.

What is it about a new book release that gets my heart pumping?

I may have a to-read list as tall as a mountain and a bookshelf already overflowing with books, but I still simply can’t resist upcoming book releases.

Instead of fighting my desire to read all the new books out, I’m embracing my penchant for finding the next great book.

If you love new book releases as much as I do, enjoy this list of all the upcoming book releases that have caught my eye. This upcoming book releases list is constantly updating, so be sure to come back and check again soon.

Every month, I update this list, removing books already published and adding upcoming book releases that catch my eye. Don’t worry, if you are looking for books already published this year, I’ve still got you covered with my list of 2024 book releases .

Have a book that belongs on my list?

If you are an author or publisher with a book you feel belongs on my list, find out how to work with me . Be sure to read my review policy before submitting your request.

Are you just reader excited about a book coming out? I’d love to hear from you, too! You can also contact me to suggest any upcoming book releases you think I would love.

Don’t Miss a Thing

February 2024 Upcoming Book Releases

book cover The Women by Kristin Hannah

The Women by Kristin Hannah

Historical Fiction February 6, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A female nursing student impulsively joins the Army Nurse Corps to serve in the Vietnam War like her brother.

book cover Fourteen Days by Margaret Atwood

Fourteen Days by Margaret Atwood

Literary Fiction February 6, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A collection of stories about residents of an apartment building during the pandemic with each character’s story written by a different famous author.

book cover A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams

Romance February 6, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A misfit Atlanta socialite moves to Harlem and embarks on a romance with a mysterious and passionate artist that will change them forever.

book cover The Teacher by Freida McFadden

The Teacher by Freida McFadden

Mystery & Thriller February 6, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A math teacher is nervous when the student at the center of last year’s scandal is placed in her class.

book cover Redwood Court by DeLana R. A. Dameron

Redwood Court by DéLana R. A. Dameron

A series of vignettes about a Black working class family in South Carolina as the youngest daughter comes of age.

book cover The Resort by Sara Ochs

The Resort by Sara Ochs

Mysterious deaths start stacking up with ties to a group of expats living in Thailand who are all outrunning their pasts.

book cover Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead by Jenny Hollander

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead  by Jenny Hollander

The survivor of a massacre finds her newly rebuilt life threatened when a fellow survivor announces they are creating a movie about that night.

Book Cover Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Paranormal Romance February 6, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The daughter of a powerful Vampyre, Misery Lark is promised in marriage to their mortal enemies, the Weres, as a peacekeeping measure.

book cover The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang

The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang

Historical Fiction February 13, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Two women must solve the mystery of an ancient Chinese relic that disappeared during the San Francisco Earthquake only to turn up years later in Paris.

book cover The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

Historical Fantasy February 13, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

In 1908, a woman seeking justice for her son and a detective travel from China to Japan searching for truth while navigating the truths and myths about fox spirits.

book cover Ready or Not by Cara Bastone

Ready or Not by Cara Bastone

Romance February 13, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

An accidental pregnancy leaves a woman to rethink her life in this friends-to-lovers romance.

book cover The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

Skeptical after her brother’s death in WWI, Laurie volunteers as a nurse in Belgium and hears rumors of a man who can make soldiers forget.

book cover End of Story by A. J. Finn

End of Story by A. J. Finn

Mystery & Thriller February 20, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A woman is invited to write the life story of a reclusive mystery writer who might have been involved in the disappearance of his wife and son decades earlier.

book cover Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli

Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli

Fantasy February 20, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A witch and a witch hunter using each other for information accidentally fall in love.

book cover Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

Nonfiction February 20, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Using the power of storytelling, Duhigg teaches you become more adept at recognizing and navigating any conversation you find yourself in.

book cover Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

Literary Fiction February 27, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

In the 1800s, two children attend a school that tries to strip them of their Native Identity while in 2018, a descendant tries to hold her family together after a school shooting.

Book Cover Brooklyn by Tracy Brown

Brooklyn by Tracy Brown

Contemporary Fiction February 27, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

During her dying moments, a woman contemplates what led her to become the cold calculating manipulator that everyone wanted dead.

book cover Normal Women by Philippa Gregory

Normal Women by Philippa Gregory

Nonfiction February 27, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A retelling of British history with the contributions of ordinary women at the forefront.

Explore More February Releases

Save for Later

The Best Upcoming Book Releases 2024

March 2024 Upcoming Book Releases

Book Cover Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle

Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle

Romance March 5, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Every time she dates a new man, Daphne receives a paper telling how long the relationship will last until she goes on a blind date without an expiration date.

book cover The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez

The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez

Historical Fiction March 5, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A look at the building of the Panama Canal and the ups and downs of the people who lived nearby and worked on its construction.

book cover The Hunter by Tana French

The Hunter by Tana French

Mystery & Thriller March 5, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Sequel to The Searcher . When Trey’s long-lost father appears searching for gold, former detective Cal Hooper must protect everything he’s built in Ireland.

book cover Murder Road by Simone St. James

Murder Road by Simone St. James

After picking up an injured hitchhiker who dies, a newlywed couple investigates a series of murders along a deserted stretch of road.

book cover The Prisoner's Throne by Holly Black

The Prisoner’s Throne by Holly Black

Fantasy March 5, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Sequel to The Stolen Heir . The battle for Elhame concludes. Can the imprisoned prince defeat the vengeful queen?

Book Cover The New Couple in 5B by Lisa Unger

The New Couple in 5B by Lisa Unger

A couple inherits a luxury apartment in New York City only to discover that something darker is happening behind the perfectly constructed facade.

book cover Maktub by Paulo Coelho

Maktub by Paulo Coelho

Literary Fiction March 5, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The first English translation of a collection of Coelho’s stories that highlight the human experience.

book cover Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner

Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner

Mystery & Thriller March 12, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Frankie Elkin goes undercover on a remote Pacific island to solve the long-ago disappearance of a convicted serial killer’s sister before her execution date.

Book Cover After Annie by Anna Quindlen

After Annie by Anna Quindlen

Contemporary Fiction March 12, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

When Annie Brown dies, her husband, four children and best friend are all left reeling and must find themselves again.

book cover Good Half Gone by Tarryn Fisher

Good Half Gone by Tarryn Fisher

Mystery & Thriller March 19, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

A woman goes undercover at an isolated insane asylum to solve her sister’s long-ago disappearance.

book cover The Truth About the Devlins by Lisa Scottoline

The Truth About the Devlins by Lisa Scottoline

Mystery & Thriller March 26, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The black sheep in a family of lawyers tries to save the family firm after his older brother murders a client accused of embezzlement.

Explore More March Releases

April 2024 Upcoming Book Releases

book cover Table for Two by Amor Towles

Table for Two by Amor Towles

Literary Fiction April 2, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Six short stories about the delicate nature of modern marriage and a novella about Evelyn Ross from Rules of Civility rebuilding a life in the Golden Age of Hollywood.

book cover The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

A writer tries to bury her unfinished manuscripts, but the characters have a life of their own and their narratives inspire the local townspeople.

Book Cover Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

Romance April 2, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A man cursed that every woman he dates goes on to find true love after they breakup dates a woman with the same curse … just for the summer.

book cover Daughter of Mine by Megan Miranda

Daughter of Mine by Megan Miranda

Mystery & Thriller April 9, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The daughter of a local detective returns to her hometown to find that the drought has revealed clues to her mother’s disappearance hidden in the lake bed.

book cover The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

Historical Fantasy April 9, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

During Spain’s Golden Age, a maid finds herself caught up in politics when the King’s disgraced former secretary learns she can do magic.

book cover A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci

A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci

Mystery & Thriller April 16, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

In Southern Virginia in 1968, a white male lawyer and a Black female lawyer work together save an innocent man from the electric chair.

book cover An Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin

An Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Nonfiction April 16, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Weaving together American history and her personal life, historian Goodwin gives an intimate look at the 1960s from her and her husband’s time working with the political leaders of the day.

book cover Funny Story by Emily Henry

Funny Story by Emily Henry

Romance April 23, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

When her fiancé leaves her, Daphne becomes roommates with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex.

book cover Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

Mystery & Thriller April 23, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

When a body is discovered on the farm where they grew up, three foster sisters find themselves the prime witnesses, and possibly suspects.

book cover A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh

A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh

In the Welsh mountains, DC Ffion Morgan investigates a group of reality stars, each with an alibi and a reason to kill.

book cover The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson

The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson

Nonfiction April 30, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The tumultuous five months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the firing on Fort Sumter.

book cover Miss Morgan's Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles

Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles

Historical Fiction April 30, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A New York public librarian becomes intrigued with the story of an American librarian who created librarians in France during World War I.

Explore More April Releases

May 2024 Upcoming Book Releases

book cover The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean

The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean

Mystery & Thriller May 7, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

When a missing teenager reappears after two years, a detective must figure out what she’s hiding and who is is protecting.

book cover This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune

This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune

Romance May 7, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

After years of having summer flings together, a woman returns to Prince Edward Island to find his flirty behavior has changed and so has her heart.

book cover Lovers and Liars by Amanda Eyre Ward

Lovers and Liars by Amanda Eyre Ward

Contemporary Fiction May 14, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Three sisters reunite for a destination wedding at an English castle and must learn to make new choices to find joy in one another again.

book cover One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware

One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware

Mystery & Thriller May 21, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Five couples competing on a reality television show are trapped on a remote island during a storm with life and death stakes.

book cover Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

Contemporary Fiction May 21, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A future earl must decide whether to marry a rich wife to save the family’s debts or follow his heart in a globetrotting romantic comedy.

book cover The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton

On an idyllic island, the last of humanity’s survivors have 92 hours to solve the murder of one of their scientists, except their memories have been wiped.

book cover Better Left Unsent by Lia Louis

Better Left Unsent by Lia Louis

Romance May 21, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

For years, Millie has vented her true feelings into unsent emails which throws her life into crisis when they all accidentally get sent.

book cover You Like It Darker by Stephen King

You Like It Darker by Stephen King

Horror May 21, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A collection of twelve short stories that delve into the darker side of life.

book cover The Guncle Abroad by Steven Rowley

The Guncle Abroad by Steven Rowley

Sequel to The Guncle . Gay Uncle Patrick once again steps in to help his niece and nephew, hoping to teach them about love as their father is set to remarry.

book cover Goddess of the River by Vaishnavi Patel

Goddess of the River by Vaishnavi Patel

Fantasy May 21, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A retelling of the story of Ganga, goddess of the river, who was cursed to become mortal. Marrying a queen, Ganga escapes her curse but leaves her son behind leading to tragedy.

book cover Camino Ghosts by John Grisham

Camino Ghosts by John Grisham

Mystery & Thriller May 28, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Bookstore owner Bruce Cable reunites with Mercer Mann for another island mystery.

book cover Southern Man by Greg Iles

Southern Man by Greg Iles

Fifteen years after the Natchez Burning trilogy, Penn Cage must a billionaire Presidential candidate who would tear the country apart.

Explore More May Releases

June 2024 Upcoming Book Releases

book cover Eruption by Michael Crichton and James Patterson

Eruption by Michael Crichton and James Patterson

Mystery & Thriller June 3, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A deadly volcanic eruption is about to burst on the Big Island of Hawaii forcing a terrifying military secret to come to light.

book cover Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate

Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate

Historical Fiction June 4, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A park ranger deals with a missing teen and a burial site that might be connected to two young girls journeying through the Oklahoma wilderness in 1909.

book cover The Unwedding by Ally Condie

The Unwedding by Ally Condie

Mystery & Thriller June 4, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Post-divorce, a planned anniversary trip becomes a solo trip where a killer stalks the guests at a luxury resort cut off by a mudslide.

book cover Birds Aren't Real by Peter McIndoe and Connor Gaydos

Birds Aren’t Real by Peter McIndoe and Connor Gaydos

Humor June 4, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The “true” story behind the government conspiracy that has replaced all birds with surveillance drones for the last several decades.

book cover Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand

Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand

Contemporary Fiction June 11, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Nantucket’s Chief of Police must postpone his retirement when a multi-million dollar mansion burns to the ground and his daughter’s best friend goes missing.

book cover The Housemaid is Watching by Freida McFadden

The Housemaid is Watching by Freida McFadden

Mystery & Thriller June 11, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Housemaid finally settles down to a life in the suburbs with her family but becomes suspicious of her new neighbors.

book cover Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

Romance June 11, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A biotech engineer falls into a steamy affair with the businessman in charge of orchestrating a hostile takeover of her startup food science company.

book cover The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

An unknown screenwriter gets to rewrite a rom-com with her idol but it turns out he doesn’t believe in love.

book cover The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

In 1975, the daughter of a wealthy summer camp owner goes missing from her camp bed just like her older brother did fourteen years ago.

book cover One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon

One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon

A woman moves her family to a planned Black utopian suburban only to find everyone obsessed with the community wellness center.

book cover Middle of the Night by Riley Sager

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager

Mystery & Thriller June 18, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Thirty years after his childhood friend disappeared while they were camping in his backyard, a man returns home to find answers.

book cover The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

A locked-room mystery at the opening weekend of The Manor, a luxury resort in an ancient forest.

book cover The Next Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

The Next Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

Sequel to The Last Mrs. Parrish . With Jackson Parrish’s release from prison imminent, his new wife Amber and his ex-wife Daphne get caught in a cat-and-mouse game.

book cover Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

Contemporary Fiction June 18, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A long-lasting marriage is threaten by their children’s struggles and the reemergence of a past flame.

book cover A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston

A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston

Romance June 25, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

When her car breaks down, a woman finds herself in the town of her favorite romance book series.

book cover Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams

Husbands and Lovers by Beatriz Williams

Historical Fiction June 25, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A mother whose son needs a kidney transplant must face two long-held secrets: her summer love affair with a famous singer and her mother’s adoption from an Irish orphanage

book cover Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi

Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi

Fantasy June 25, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Legacy of Orïsha Book 3. Zelie must rescue her people from the King of the Skulls who is desperate to harness her power for his own.

Explore More June Releases

July 2024 Upcoming Book Releases

book cover The Same Bright Stars by Ethan Joella

Same Bright Stars by Ethan Joella

Contemporary Fiction July 2, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

The lonely owner of a family-owned beachfront restaurant in Delaware whether to sell to a major developer.

book cover Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight

Mystery & Thriller July 9, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

When her mother disappears, Cleo learns her corporate lawyer mother was her firm’s fixer, willing to stop at nothing to protect Cleo.

book cover The Great Hemisphere by Mateo Askaripour

The Great Hemisphere by Mateo Askaripour

Science Fiction July 9, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

An invisible woman sets off to find her missing brother who is the chief suspect in a high-profile political murder.

book cover The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

Historical Fiction July 9, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

A mysterious widow at a 1950s women’s boardinghouse in Washington, D.C., creates powerful female friendship but holds a devastating secret.

book cover The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

Fantasy July 16, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

Childhood best friends must return to a magical realm to find the long-lost sister they knew when living there.

book cover The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

After King Arthur’s death, a young knight and a ragtag band of leftovers from the fellowship try to rebuild Camelot.

book cover The Wilds by Sarah Pearse

The Wilds by Sarah Pearse

Mystery & Thriller July 16, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

While on vacation in Portugal with her brother, Detective Elin Warner comes across a disturbing map left behind by a missing woman.

book cover Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

Contemporary Fiction July 23, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

Inseparable high school friends reconnect years after she went to college and he joined the Navy, trying to figure out where the friendship went wrong.

book cover What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena

What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena

Mystery & Thriller July 30, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

A popular teen found dead in a hayfield leaves a small-town on edge, knowing that someone among them is a killer.

book cover Such Charming Liars by Karen M. McManus

Such Charming Liars by Karen M. McManus

Young Adult Mystery & Thriller July 30, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

Kat tags along with her mother for one last jewel heist that turns dangerously deadly after two men from their past arrive.

Explore More July Book Releases

Upcoming Book Releases 2024

book cover And So I Roar by Abi Dare

And So I Roar by Abi Daré

Contemporary Fiction August 6, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

Sequel to The Girl with the Louding Voice . Tia is forced to make a choice between protecting Adunni or learning the truth her mother has hidden from her.

book cover House of Glass by Sarah Pekkanen

House of Glass by Sarah Pekkanen

Mystery & Thriller August 6, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

A child advocate must work with a young girl who witnessed her nanny’s possible murder during her parent’s bitter divorce but refuses to speak.

book cover The Housekeeper's Secret by Iona Grey

The Housekeeper’s Secret by Iona Grey

Historical Fiction August 13, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

In 1911, a Northern England housekeeper with a secret past has a intensely forbidden love affair with a  mysterious new footman.

book cover By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

Historical Fiction August 20, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

While researching the life of the women who penned Shakespeare’s play, Melina Green must decide whether to give credit for her work to a man.

book cover Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

Fantasy September 10, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

Sequel The House in the Cerulean Sea . Arthur Parnassus’s hope of adopting the six magical children is threatened by a revelation from his past.

book cover Counting Miracles by Nicholas Sparks

Counting Miracles by Nicholas Sparks

Contemporary Fiction September 24, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

An Army Ranger set out to find meet the father he never knew falls in love with a doctor who is a single mom.

book cover The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin

The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin

Middle Grade Historical Fiction October 8, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

Two teenagers living among the WWII codebreaking factory at Bletchley Park try to unravel the mystery of their mother’s death.

book cover The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny

The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny

Mystery & Thriller October 29, 2024 Amazon | Goodreads

In the 19th book of the series, Québécois Inspector Armand Gamache is faced with a complex case where friends seem like enemies and enemies act like friends.

What upcoming book releases are you most excited to read?

Rachael

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The best new novels of 2023

The best books coming in 2023, from literary heavyweights to thrilling debuts.

new fiction books by popular authors

A new year means new starts, and for bookworms, not just new books but a whole tranche of new authors to discover and enjoy. From new titles from established literary heavyweights to debut authors with books that might just change your life, 2023 has plenty to offer in the world of fiction.

Love stories

Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood (January)

A book that will resonate with anyone who has felt they are spinning more than their fair share of plates, this debut from Fran Littlewood will be devoured by those women who have been tempted to give it all up for a moment’s peace. Littlewood is a journalist-turned-author, and the mother of three teenage daughters, who firmly believes that there needs to be change in how we talk about women as they age. Amazing Grace Adams attempts to do that and with aplomb, a novel rooted in motherhood, marriage and female rage that isn’t afraid to delve into the female hormones of adult womanhood. 

Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm by Laura Warrell (February)

For American author Laura Warrell, writing Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm has been a labour of love. Warrell, who is 51, decided a few years ago to give up on love, having survived a marriage, a divorce, and a string of relationships with men who failed to commit to her. She channeled her experience into her debut novel, a swirling modern classic that brings together a cacophony of women’s voices who all have the same man in common: mixed-race jazz trumpeter Circus Palmer. Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm interrogates love – and its absence – from deep within these decade-spanning relationships, resulting in a book that is varied, insightful and beautiful.

The Three of Us by Ore Agbaje-Williams (May) 

Debut author Ore Abgaje-Williams wrote a first draft of The Three of Us during NaNoWriMo, in lockdown, and is set to be one of the annual writing challenge's greatest successes yet: the novel won a six-book auction to get a deal. The Three of Us twists domestic noir into one tight, tense and darkly funny day while exploring an uncomfortably familiar question: what happens when your spouse and your best friend hate one another? The Three of Us has won comparisons to I May Destroy You by Michaela Coel, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer and Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan. 

The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor (June)

Brandon Taylor’s third offering, after the Booker Prize-shortlisted Real Life and bestseller Filthy Animals is The Late Americans , a novel that places the endless intricacies of friendships, lovers and chosen family centre stage. Set in Iowa City around a potent friendship group of dancers, amateur pornographers, poets, landlords, meat-packing workers and mathematicians who occupy the city’s many facets, The Late Americans culminates in a reckoning that will change all of these young people’s lives.

Talking at Night by Claire Daverley (July)

Some love stories are so engrossing you can’t believe they’re not quite real. Claire Daverley’s debut novel is dedicated to Will and Rosie, who met as teenagers and, quite by accident, became one another’s great love story. But when tragedy strikes, obliterating any chance of their being together, the couple are drawn into an existence which neither can inhabit nor escape. Talking at Night is their captivating, heartbreaking tale.

Books you won’t want to put down

The Cloisters by Katy Hays (January)

A must-read for fans of The Secret History , The Cloisters is an intriguing and mysterious novel with murder at its heart. Art historian and author Katy Hays was inspired by a real Tarot deck and the fascinating medieval history of the occult to create this gripping novel of class, academia, secrets and future-telling. You’ll never look at Tarot in the same way again.

I Will Find You by Harlan Coben (March)

International bestselling author Harlan Coben has been a tearaway on Netflix since his show Stay Close launched this summer, but it’s on the page that his stories are the most compelling – and his forthcoming novel is no different. In I Will Find You , the worst tragedy strikes a family of three when their toddler goes missing – and all evidence points to his father, Will, having killed him. So when his sister-in-law arrives five years later with a life-changing bombshell, Will is set on a mission to clear his name – and find his son.

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson (April)

Book editors often make excellent novelists (think Harriet Evans or Abigail Dean) and Jenny Jackson pours twenty years of experience into Pineapple Street , her debut. Gabrielle Zevin , Emily St. John Mandel, Katherine Heiny and Kevin Kwan are among the stellar names on Jackson's roster (Kwan told the New York Times , “It was like finding out your spouse is an Olympic equestrian”) but the story and style are all hers. This is a glossy family drama about a colossally wealthy family navigating the challenges from the choices each of the now-adult Stockton children have made with family finances. Cord married outsider Sasha without a pre-nup. Darley rebelled against the family wealth to raise her children on a 'normal' budget, and young Georgiana is out of her depth working at a non-profit organisation. This is a beach read only in the sense that you need to be somewhere you can inhale this in one go. No surprise that it's been optioned for a TV series.

The Trial by Rob Rinder (June) 

As fans of Judge Rinder will know, Rob Rinder has seen enough courtroom trials in his career to know that truth can be stranger than fiction. No wonder, then, that his debut novel takes all of the drama he brings to proceedings and boils it down into a powerful thriller. Transporting the reader from the murky world of Chambers to the grandeur of the Old Bailey, Rinder’s character Adam Green, a trainee barrister who doesn’t quite fit in, is one to stick with. 

The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop (May)

Summer romances are the stuff of many a novel, but debut author and seasoned backpacker Katie Bishop twists this familiar scene on its head in her debut. Don’t let the title fool you: The Girls of Summer tackles dark subjects such as rape, suicide and trafficking through a dual-history narrative – one set in the London of today, the other on a Greek island 16 years ago. When Rachel thinks back on the first love she believed changed her life as an adult, she realises just how far she had fallen. 

Feel-good reads

We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman (January)

Children’s and non-fiction author Catherine Newman turns her experienced hand to fiction for this delightful read about long-term friendship and what happens when the unimaginable occurs. Edi and Ash have been best friends for over 40 years, sticking side-by-side through first loves, teenage shenanigans, marriage, loss, fertility troubles, and children. So when Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ash sticks by her then, too. What unfolds is a novel that joyfully celebrates making the best out of life’s littlest things. 

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld (April) 

Ever since she exploded onto the bestseller charts with Prep in 2005, author Curtis Sittenfeld has demonstrated a keen eye for satire and the ability to deliver a razor-sharp line. After nearly two decades of writing brilliant, witty and well-observed novels about high society, Sittenfeld is back with Romantic Comedy , about a loveless TV writer and her unlikely romance with a pop idol. After all, if average-looking men can bag beautiful, successful female dates, why can’t it work the other way around? 

The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks (May)

Yes, that Tom Hanks. This isn’t, however, a memoir, but the first novel from the beloved two-time Oscar winner. Hanks made his literary debut in 2017 with a collection of short stories that demonstrated the breadth and depth of the human condition. Now he’s back long-form with a novel that proves Hanks is as serious a writer as he is an actor. The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece spans eight decades as a host of characters come together in an attempt to make Hollywood magic – with the priceless pedigree of an insider’s knowledge.

Go As a River by Shelley Read (April)

A read that’s as transportive as it is beautiful, Go As a River offers a story of female resilience and power against a breathtaking landscape. Five generations of author Shelley Read’s family have lived in the Elk Mountains of the Western Slope of Colorado, and it’s this deep heritage that has inspired the bold story at the heart of her novel. Victoria Nash, her 17-year-old heroine, has her life turned upside down after a chance encounter with a mysterious drifter. When she follows, she risks losing everything she holds most dear.

Historical fiction

The New Life by Tom Crewe (January) 

As an editor at the London Review of Books , Tom Crewe knows a thing or two about what to read. He also knew about what he wanted to write before A New Life came on the scene: “This is the book I knew I wanted to write long before I actually wrote it,” he explains. Crewe’s intention was to “reveal to readers an unfamiliar Victorian England that will surprise and provoke”. A New Life follows two men and the queer relationships they are trying to make a better world for – even if it throws their lives into danger in the process.

Siblings by Brigitte Reimann (February)

Brigitte Reimann was one of East Germany’s most daring authors, whose life imitated that of her fearless fictional heroines. In Siblings , she takes the reader back to 1960, where the border between East and West Germany has closed, and with it relationships within one family. While the young painter Elisabeth sees the GDR as her generation’s chance to build a brave new future, her brother Uli sees it as a place of oppression. Fear and opportunity collide in this groundbreaking classic of post-war East German literature. 

Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati (March)

Modern retellings of Greek myths are having a moment, and into the arena enters Clytemnestra , debut novelist Costanza Casati’s passionate and poised retelling of the story of Greek mythology’s most notorious heroine. Casati studied Ancient Greek and Ancient Greek literature in Italy for five years, so she brings deep expertise to Clytemnestra , which is told from the vengeful queen’s perspective. Power, prophecies, hatred and love all combine in this fiery novel.

Secrets of Hartwood Hall by Katie Lumsden (March) 

As those familiar with her YouTube channel, Books and Things, may know, Katie Lumsden has been a fan of Victorian fiction for decades. Now, she’s written her own take on 19th-century gothic: Secrets of Hartwood Hall . A must-read for fans of Dickens, Austen, and the Bronte sisters, Lumsden’s debut is a gripping and full-bloodied manor-house mystery. Young widow Margaret Lennox takes a governess position at the titular hall in 1852, but rather than having the chance to leave her past behind, she finds even more secrets, some of which threaten her very being.

Our Hideous Progeny by C. E. McGill (May) 

C. E. McGill took inspiration from one of the greatest novels of all time for this sumptuous gothic horror story. At its heart is Mary, great-niece of Victor Frankenstein, who knows of her uncle’s disappearance in the Arctic but not much more. Along with her husband, Mary is trying to find fame as a paleontologist, but neither have the connections or cash needed in 1850s London for such a feat. When Mary goes rummaging in some family papers, she discovers what her great-uncle really got up to: but will this knowledge be the couple’s meal ticket, or their demise?

Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald (July) 

TikTok star Bea Fitzgerald has won a devoted audience for her Greek myth parody videos over on @chaosonolympus , and now she’s taking to the page with YA novel Girl, Goddess, Queen . Taking the conventional telling of the Persephone story and having an absolute riot with it, Fitzgerald’s debut novel re-imagines one of the best-known myths as a love quest in which Persephone actively pursues Hades. It’s a plan that will shake Mount Olympus to its very core.

Otherworldly stories

Now She Is Witch by Kirsty Logan (Jan)

Kirsty Logan has made a name for herself as a purveyor of chilling stories, and Now She Is Witch is no different. A witch story unlike any other, Logan entwines the narratives of two searingly drawn female characters: Lux and Else, who are united in their mission to avenge a man who wronged them. Fearless, cunning and familiar with the art of poisoning, these are two women not to be underestimated. 

Victory City by Salman Rushdie (February) 

The acclaimed novelist has tackled the epic form for this immersive saga of love, adventure and myth. Set in 14th-century southern India, Victory City recreates the foundations of a utopian society from the mind of one remarkable child: nine-year-old Pampa Kampana. Grief-stricken after witnessing the death of her mother, Pampa becomes a vessel for the goddess Parvati, who challenges her to make the impossible real: a world of gender equality. In her quest, civilisation shifts, with wild consequences. 

This Other Eden by Paul Harding (February) 

Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Harding is back with this extraordinary novel that imagines the final days of a once-thriving racial utopia. This Other Eden tells the stories of the Apple Islanders, a civilisation born of race and science, and in particular Ethan Honey, a man spared destruction because of his artistic skills and fair skin. Harding challenges us to consider mercy and tolerance in this visionary and shimmering novel, as otherworldly as the landscape it imagines.

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs (July) 

In Emma Torzs’s world, magic exists – and that’s exactly why it needs to be protected. Ink Blood Sister Scribe is the story of a woman left behind with the heritage and heavy debt of the magic that formed – and destroyed – her family. Joanna Kalotay has been upholding her family’s reputation as the librarians of books capable of doing dark magic, but when her estranged sister returns to the family home, the pair must fix their relationship to stop devastating harm from taking place. 

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42 standout books from 2023, from romances to wrenching historical novels

2023 came and went, and we read all year long. We’re looking back on a few of our favorite books from this year.

The year kicked off with Prince Harry’s anticipated memoir “Spare ,” the first of many headline-making memoirs. From there came romances by the likes of Emily Henry and Carley Fortune; memoirs from memoirs from Latinx authors ; uplifting literary novels and ones that were unforgettably daring. Plus, there were all of those Read With Jenna picks. 

Here are a few of the standout books from 2023.

'We Must Not Think of Ourselves' by Lauren Grodstein

'We Must Not Think of Ourselves'

'We Must Not Think of Ourselves'

The wrenching final Read With Jenna pick of the year is set in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII, and follows the real-life efforts of residents to archive their lives there.

'The Sun Sets in Singapore' by Kehinde Fadipe

'The Sun Sets in Singapore'

'The Sun Sets in Singapore'

Think of it as “Sex and the City” but in Singapore. Actor and novelist Kehinde Fadipe’s debut centers on three Nigerian expats who help each other through career crossroads and dating challenges, all in a different country.

'How to Say Babylon' by Safiya Sinclair

'How to Say Babylon'

'How to Say Babylon'

Raised by an authoritarian Rastafari father, Safiya Sinclair details her unique coming-of-age story, and how she learned to find her own voice.

'The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store' by James McBride

"The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store"

"The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store"

'amazing grace adams' by fran littlewood.

'Amazing Grace Adams'

'Amazing Grace Adams'

Grace Adams doesn’t feel all that amazing. Her daughter won’t speak to her and her marriage has fallen apart. This voicey, hilarious book is her attempt at a redemption. She looks back at her past and tries to find the key to fixing the future.

'Banyan Moon' by Thao Thai

Banyan Moon: A Read with Jenna Pick

'Banyan Moon'

A mom. A daughter. A ghost grandmother, watching them both. “Banyan Moon” isn’t a ghost story so much as it is a story about how decisions ripple through generations, as does trauma — in this case, the trauma of the Vietnam War.

'Tom Lake' by Ann Patchett

'Tom Lake'

'Tom Lake'

Ann Patchett’s latest is a love song to mothers and daughters; to the way the past can remain present; and to summers by a lake (or a cherry orchard). In it, a mother tells the defining story of her youth to her daughters: Her love story with a man who would go on to become very, very famous.

'Absolution' by Alice McDermott

'Absolution'

'Absolution'

Alice McDermott’s new book focuses on a part of history not often covered: The women of the Vietnam War. Absolution is about four wives who were in Saigon in the ‘70s.

'Sam' by Allegra Goodman

Sam by Allegra Goodman

Sam by Allegra Goodman

The first Read With Jenna pick of the year , "Sam" is a coming-of-age story with language that reflects its protagonist's growing up, evolving as Sam does. Describing the book to TODAY.com, Jenna Bush Hager says, "It explores what happens when one girl loses the wonder of childhood — the innocence of her early years only to reclaim her power and hope."

'Age of Vice' by Deepti Kapoor

Age of Vice

Age of Vice

An epic in every sense of the world, "Age of Vice" will take you on a years-long whirlwind in a character's life ... and then back again, to show the same events from a different character's perspective. As the picture comes into focus, and all the elements of greed, loss, pleasure and love fueling the New Delhi-set story, you'll feel heartbreak for the characters and thrill at the capacity of Kapoor's mind.

'The Survivalists' by Kashana Cauley

The Survivalists

The Survivalists

Aretha knows she can't prepare for every tragedy, especially in the wake of her mother's death. But there are some she can plan for "The Survivalists" follows one lawyer's detour into an underground world of people who believe the apocalypse is coming and are trying to get ahead of it.

'Spare' by Prince Harry

Spare

Prince Harry's anticipated memoir is billed as being an "honest and captivated personal portrait " of a person the public has seen grown up, but is only recently getting to know on an intimate level. Poised to tell his story "at last," the memoir is expected to cover the death of his mother, Diana, and why he left royal life behind with his wife Meghan Markle.

'Hell Bent' by Leigh Bardugo

Hell Bent

The second installment in her Alex Stern series, "Hell Bent" returns to a magic-infused Yale University campus, where secret societies cast magic and unleash monsters. Alex Stern was brought from California to the cloistered Ivy League school to keep a watchful eye on them. And in book two, she has to venture to hell to rescue her partner. Read a preview here .

The Faraway World' by Patricia Engel

The Faraway World: Stories

The Faraway World: Stories

In 2021, "Infinite Country," Engel’s latest novel, hit the New York Times bestseller list and took a strong hold over book clubs everywhere. Any fan of Engel’s work will tell you to prepare yourself for unique and intimate layered storytelling. You'll find that and so much more in this new short story collection exploring themes of community, regret and migration.

— Lupita Aquino

'Central Places' by Delia Cai

Central Places: A Novel

Central Places: A Novel

It's "Meet the Parents" for a new generation. Since moving away from the central Illinois town she grew up in, Audrey Zhou has gotten a high-powered job and found the perfect man. Now, she's bringing her fiancé back to meet her Chinese immigrant parents. There, her past and present collide, as do her parents' expectations for her and her hopes for herself.

'Love, Pamela' by Pamela Anderson

Love, Pamela

Love, Pamela

After a life in the headlines, you might think you know Pamela Anderson. In this revealing memoir, Anderson describes what it was like to be in her shoes during her ascent to fame and scrutiny, and how she found herself.

'Maame' by Jessica George

Maame

"Maame" is a coming-of-adulthood with an unforgettable narrative voice. By page one, you'll be invested in Maame's journey as she navigates caring for her ailing father and living at home in her mid 20s; her mother's nosy phone calls from Ghana that can't make up for her absence; her friendships; disappointing work interactions; and more.

'The People Who Report More Stress' by Alejandro Valero

The People Who Report More Stress: Stories

The People Who Report More Stress: Stories

Valero's debut novel "The Town of Babylon" came out in 2022, and this forthcoming short story collection, full of memorable personalities, explores similar themes: community, relationships, modern queer life, racism and parenthood.

'I Have Some Questions for You' by Rebecca Makkai

I Have Some Questions for You

I Have Some Questions for You

Imagine if your life was the stuff of a true crime documentary. Bodie Kane has tried to move on past the 1995 murder of her boarding school roommate. When she returns to the boarding school as an adult, Bodie realizes there are still lingering mysteries about how the case was wrapped up and justice was served.

'Black Candle Women' by Diana Marie Brown

Black Candle Women (Original)

Black Candle Women (Original)

If you watched "True Blood" or "Practical Magic," you're sure to enjoy this family saga about a group of women with magic in their blood and secrets in their past. Augusta, the family matriarch, can't speak due to aphasia, but her daughter, grand-daughters and great-granddaughter are living with the ramifications of a decision she made and the powers she passed onto them.

'What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez' by Claire Jimenez

What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez

What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez

The Ramirez sisters were a tight-knit trio until the sudden disappearance of Ruthy, the middle child, shattered the family. Years after her disappearance, Ruthy seems to reappear in a reality TV show using the name Ruby. This debut novel is a funny and heartbreaking examination of sisterhood, generational trauma and the bonds that hold families together.

'The Mimicking of Known Successes' by Malka Older

The Mimicking of Known Successes

The Mimicking of Known Successes

Exploring communities in conflict and the loss of ecosystems, this science fiction novella — part sapphic romance, part murder mystery — imagines what life would be like in a human colony on Jupiter.

'Hello Beautiful' by Ann Napolitano

Hello Beautiful

Hello Beautiful

Read With Jenna author Ann Napolitano's follow-up to "Dear Edward " is centered on a lonely basketball player and the warm family of four sisters (think "Little Women") that he marries into. Read a preview of the redemptive novel here .

'Take What You Need' by Idra Novey

Take What You Need: A Novel

Take What You Need: A Novel

Leah returns to her home in the Allegheny Mountains to clean house after her estranged stepmother's death. Upon arriving, Leah learns that her stepmother had a secret: an inner artist who left behind large, mysterious sculptures out of scrap material. Idra Novey created the portrait of an artist, seen through the eyes of someone who only knew her as a flawed stepmother.

'The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts' by Soraya Palmer

The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts

The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts

This debut coming-of-age story weaves in folktales and spirits through the lens of two Jamaican-Trinidad sisters who struggle to understand each other, exploring the power of storytelling and complexities of sisterhood.

' White Cat, Black Dog' by Kelly Link

White Cat, Black Dog: Stories

White Cat, Black Dog: Stories

Kelly Link is the master of the modern fairy tale. This collection of short stories is deceptively easy to read – you'll be turning the pages of strange events quickly, but the stories and their strange events are liable to linger in your mind.

'Above Ground: Poems' by Clint Smith

Above Ground

Above Ground

In this new collection of poems, Smith examines the ways in which parenthood has altered his view on life. He now tries to see the world through his children's eyes. Expressive and intimate, this collection flawlessly captures the vulnerability of the human experience on the page.

'Camp Zero' by Michelle Min Sterling

Camp Zero

The climate apocalypse happens — and people keep going. This inventive novel follows the people after the world as we know it has been changed irrevocably, living in the far north.

'Carmen and Grace' by Melissa Coss Aquino

Carmen and Grace

Carmen and Grace

Cousins Carmen and Grace share a traumatic childhood that has bonded them together tightly. That is, until they meet a sisterhood of women known as the D.O.D, who are guided by a leader of an underground drug empire, Doña Durka. This plot-driven novel explores the bonds of found family and the ways into which power and ambition can sever relationships.

'Homecoming' by Kate Morton

Homecoming

The author of "The Clockmaker's Daughter" returns with her first book in four years. Another epic, "Homecoming" follows the decades-long reverberations of a crime in South Australia for one family.

'Chain Gang All Stars' by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

"Chain-Gang All Stars"

"Chain-Gang All Stars"

Jenna Bush Hager says her May 2023 book club pick is "not like anything I’ve read before."

Two women prisoners become gladiators, battling each other for their lives and their freedom, in this dystopian novel.

'A Living Remedy' by Nicole Chung

A Living Remedy: A Memoir

A Living Remedy: A Memoir

This riveting and tender memoir is a stunning meditation on grief and guilt, driven by the ways in which the U.S. healthcare system, one of the highest costs of healthcare in the world, fails those that cannot afford it. Detailing her father's inability to access healthcare and his premature death, Chung illuminates the hardships many Americans face caring for aging parents and loved ones in a broken system.

— L.A.— L.A.

'Meet Me at the Lake' by Carley Fortune

Meet Me at the Lake

Meet Me at the Lake

Like Carley Fortune's hit debut novel "Every Summer After", "Meet Me at the Lake" is a lake-set romance. After an intense, 24-hour meeting a decade ago, Fern and Will meet up again in the lakeside town where she inherited her mother's inn. Read a preview here .

'In Vitro: On Longing and Transformation' by Isabel Zapata

In Vitro: On Longing and Transformation

In Vitro: On Longing and Transformation

In this essay-like collection, Zapata examines in vitro fertilization and the narratives that drive societal expectations and pressures in conception and pregnancy. Unveiling a nuanced view of motherhood and fertility treatment, "In Vitro" will illuminate aspects of pregnancy not often discussed.

'Quietly Hostile: Essays' by Samantha Irby

Quietly Hostile: Essays

Quietly Hostile: Essays

Blogger-turned-bestselling author Samantha Irby is back with a new and hilariously relatable essay collection. The essays depict what it's like to balance writing for hit shows like HBO’s reboot of "Sex and City" with the reality of living in a human body. Irby will have you crying and laughing as she writes about exploring therapy, reiki and much more.

'Yellowface' by R. F. Kuang

Yellowface

R. F. Kuang is the creator of intricate fantasy novels like "Babel" and the Poppy War series. In "Yellowface," she tells the story of two competitive authors, Athena Liu and June Hayward, whose careers take off at the same time — but only one's star rises. When Athena dies in a freak accident, June takes her chance to steal her manuscript about Chinese laborers during WWII and pass it off as her own.

'The Late Americans' by Brandon Taylor

The Late Americans

The Late Americans

Previously listed as a nominee for the Booker Prize longlist with his debut novel, "Real Life", Taylor’s sophomore novel "The Late Americans" follows a group of friends as they challenge each other to find themselves.

'The Celebrants' by Steven Rowley

The Celebrants

The Celebrants

The author of "The Guncle" is back with a big-hearted saga about friendship and what makes a life worth living. A group of college friends decide to throw funerals for each other.

'Girls and Their Horses' by Eliza Jane Brazier

Girls and Their Horses

Girls and Their Horses

The author of "Good Rich People" returns with a novel set in the cloistered world of the wealthy — this time, among competitive show jumpers, where big wallets tend to outweigh talent. After coming into a fortune, Heather Parker wants her daughters to have the chances she didn't to become horse-riding stars. Someone winds up dead in the barn — but who?

'When The Hibiscus Falls' by M. Evelina Galang

When the Hibiscus Falls

When the Hibiscus Falls

Centering the lives of Filipino American women in seventeen stories, Galanga explores the complexities of ancestry, identity, and community, resulting in a collection that honors the deep connections that exist between descendants and ancestors.

'Save What's Left' by Elizabeth Castellano

Save What's Left: A Novel

Save What's Left: A Novel

When her husband Tom leaves her without warning to go on an around-the-world cruise, Kathleen is left with a gaping hole — and a chance to reinvent herself. So she decides to move to a small beachside town across the country and becomes pulled into its ecosystem. Laugh-out-loud funny, "Save What's Left" is a novel about life in a town that makes the perfect escape.

'Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration' by Alejandra Oliva

Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration

Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration

Alejandra Oliva, a translator and advocate for Latin American migrants seeking asylum and citizenship, reflects on the different physical spaces migrants encounter as they navigate the immigration system. Illuminating the difficulties and gaps within the system, she poses crucial questions about American citizenship and the need for radical empathy.

'Family Lore: A Novel' by Elizabeth Acevedo

Family lore.

In 2018, Acevedo received the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for her novel-in-verse "The Poet X," which also became a New York Times bestseller. "Family Lore" is Acevedo's first novel for adults and it tells the story of a Dominican-American family exploring their shared history as they approach the wake of one of its members.

Elena Nicolaou is a senior entertainment editor at Today.com, where she covers the latest in TV, pop culture, movies and all things streaming. Previously, she covered culture at Refinery29 and Oprah Daily. Her superpower is matching people up with the perfect book, which she does on her podcast, Blind Date With a Book.

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The 25 Most Anticipated Books of 2024

new fiction books by popular authors

These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser.

From Drag Race host RuPaul’s memoir to a posthumous novel from Nobel Prize–winning author Gabriel García Márquez , the 2024 books lineup offers something for every reader.

In Funny Story , romance novelist and #BookTok darling Emily Henry serves up a feel-good pairing of polar opposites. In The Demon of Unrest , best-selling historical nonfiction writer Erik Larson chronicles the turbulent months leading up to the start of the American Civil War. Also on the way: buzzy releases from established fiction favorites including Tana French , Kristin Hannah, and Kevin Kwan .

Here, the 25 most anticipated books of 2024.

Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar (Jan. 23)

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In poet Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel, a newly sober Iranian immigrant befriends a terminally ill painter living in a museum. The former shares some traits with the author—Akbar was born in Tehran and is also in recovery. Martyr! captures the bond between the unlikely duo, punctuated by Akbar’s lyrical prose.

Buy Now : Martyr! on Bookshop | Amazon

Come and Get It, Kiley Reid (Jan. 30)

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Kiley Reid’s 2019 debut novel Such a Fun Age , which was longlisted for a Booker Prize, centered on the relationship between a babysitter and her wealthy employer. In her follow-up, Reid draws on similar themes, again focusing on a young woman struggling to make ends meet who comes to rely on an older woman with more resources. This time, it’s a resident assistant carrying out questionable tasks for a visiting professor at the University of Arkansas. As their relationship grows more complicated, Reid unveils another twisty narrative full of observations about class and power.

Buy Now: Come and Get It on Bookshop | Amazon

The Women , Kristin Hannah (Feb. 6)

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In 2015, Kristin Hannah’s best-selling novel The Nightingale explored the myriad ways that French women both played a role in and were deeply impacted by World War II. In The Women , she delves into how the lives of young American women who volunteered to serve in Vietnam were shaped by the conflict. The historical fiction epic centers on Frances “Frankie” McGrath, a 20-year-old nursing student who enlists in the Army Nursing Corps in 1965 right before her older brother Finley is killed overseas. Hannah’s latest is both a coming-of-age story and an examination of a turbulent and divisive era.

Buy Now: The Women on Bookshop | Amazon

The Book of Love , Kelly Link (Feb. 13)

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In her highly anticipated debut novel, Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link takes readers on a surreal journey to a fictional coastal town in Massachusetts. It’s been nearly a year since teenagers Laura, Daniel, and Mo disappeared and were later presumed dead—leaving Laura’s sister Susannah grieving and alone. But then the impossible happens: the trio, alongside another older spirit, are resurrected by a mystical being the kids previously knew as their high-school music teacher. The four formerly deceased characters are forced to compete in a series of high-stakes magical challenges. The winners get to stay alive—and the losers will be sent back to the realm of the dead. Link weaves together elements of horror, fantasy, and magical realism in a twisting, turning, and often whimsical tale.

Buy Now: The Book of Love on Bookshop | Amazon

Supercommunicators , Charles Duhigg (Feb. 20)

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Through deep reporting and scientific research, Charles Duhigg , the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Power of Habit , breaks down his tools for becoming someone with the ability to effectively communicate in any scenario, otherwise known as a “supercommunicator.” Duhigg argues there are three types of conversations—practical, emotional, and social—and supercommunicators can recognize which they are having and understand how to adapt accordingly. Drawing on exchanges ranging from a jury deliberation to a surgeon advising a patient, Duhigg provides a framework for having more empathetic and productive interactions.

Buy Now: Supercommunicators on Bookshop | Amazon

Splinters , Leslie Jamison (Feb. 20)

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In a memoir that centers the trials and triumphs of motherhood, Leslie Jamison, the best-selling author of The Recovering and The Empathy Exams , recounts the disintegration of her marriage in the months after her daughter was born. Through piercing prose, Jamison delivers an intimate account of her relationships with men, her parents, her child, and herself as she investigates, in her own words, the “difference between the story of love and the texture of living it.”

Buy Now: Splinters on Bookshop | Amazon

Grief Is for People , Sloane Crosley (Feb. 27)

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From the author of the 2022 novel Cult Classic and the 2008 best-selling essay collection I Was Told There'd Be Cake comes a memoir about friendship, love, and death. Shortly after Sloane Crosley's New York apartment was burglarized, one of her closest friends, book publicist Russell Perreault, died by suicide. Crosley unpacks that distressing time, which took place over the span of just one month in 2019, to craft a poignant remembrance of her late mentor—an influential yet flawed figure in the high-pressure publishing industry. She elegantly processes her grief over two seemingly unconnected traumas in her life.

Buy Now: Grief Is for People on Bookshop | Amazon

Wandering Stars, Tommy Orange (Feb. 27)

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Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Orange’s new historical fiction novel imagines how three generations of a family are affected by the real-life Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, in which more than 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people were killed by the U.S. Army in Colorado. Orange follows the son of a survivor of the attack, a boy who is sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and taught a curriculum designed to erase Native American history. Wandering Stars flips forward to 2018, in the aftermath of a shooting, and reveals how the past is tied to the present.

Buy Now : Wandering Stars on Bookshop | Amazon

The Hunter , Tana French (March 5)

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Contemporary mystery master Tana French returns to the fictional West Irish village of Ardnakelty for a sequel to her Western-inspired 2020 novel The Searcher . In that book, retired Chicago police detective Cal Hooper moved to the sleepy rural enclave to rebuild his life, and was drawn into a missing-persons case by local teenager Trey Reddy. The Hunter picks up two years later with Cal and his girlfriend acting as parental figures to Trey, whose long-absent father returns to Ardnakelty with a scheme to find gold in the remote town. But Trey's not happy to see him—and wants revenge. Hailed as the queen of Irish crime fiction, French spins a taut tale of retribution, sacrifice, and family.

Buy Now: The Hunter on Bookshop | Amazon

Anita de Monte Laughs Last, Xochitl Gonzalez (March 5)

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In Xochitl Gonzalez’s new novel, a first-generation Ivy League art history major named Raquel discovers the work of Anita de Monte, a popular 1980s artist who was mysteriously found dead in New York City. As Raquel researches de Monte’s life, she starts dating another student, who is older and has many connections in the art world. Raquel begins to see parallels between her life and de Monte’s, leading her to question her relationship and her place on campus. Just like her 2022 best seller Olga Dies Dreaming , Gonzalez’s latest is a dissection of social status and privilege.

Buy Now : Anita de Monte Laughs Last on Bookshop | Amazon

The House of Hidden Meanings, RuPaul (March 5)

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RuPaul , star of the hit reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race , has written three autobiographical books, but his fourth might be his most personal. In the upcoming memoir, RuPaul details the challenges of growing up Black and queer with a father who was out of the picture, and how he found love and family with his husband George LeBar. As he said in a video statement , “This world today feels so hostile and it’s such a scary place to be vulnerable in, but I did it. So get ready.”

Buy Now : The House of Hidden Meanings on Bookshop | Amazon

Until August, Gabriel García Márquez (March 12)

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Arriving almost a decade after Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez ’s death is a recently rediscovered novel, translated by Anne McLean from the original Spanish. Until August is set in the Caribbean, where a woman married for 27 years takes a new lover every time she comes to visit her mother’s grave. As she gives into her desires, a powerful narrative about love and freedom emerges. The novel promises to be full of the absurd circumstances the Colombian magical realism master is known for.

Buy Now : Until August on Bookshop | Amazon

Who's Afraid of Gender? , Judith Butler (March 19)

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Preeminent gender studies scholar Judith Butler unpacks how authoritarian regimes and fascist movements use anti-gender ideology as a fear-mongering tool to distract from globally destructive forces like war and climate change. At a time when anti-LGBTQ and anti-trans rhetoric is being weaponized by right-wing extremists around the world, Butler argues that opposing these conservative and incendiary concepts requires solidarity among all those fighting for equality.

Buy Now: Who’s Afraid of Gender? on Bookshop | Amazon

James, Percival Everett (March 19)

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Pulitzer Pulitzer finalist Percival Everett reimagines Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Finn’s enslaved friend Jim in his new novel James . In this gripping thriller, Huck Finn has embarked on a journey down the Mississippi River after faking his own death to escape his abusive father, and Jim goes into hiding on an island when he finds out he’s going to be sold into slavery and separated from his family.

Buy Now : James on Bookshop | Amazon

The Morningside , Téa Obreht (March 19)

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In The Morningside , Téa Obreht introduces us to the half-underwater ruins of Island City (an apparent fictional facsimile of Manhattan), where preteen Silvia and her unnamed mother have just moved into a decaying luxury high-rise. Adapted from Obreht’s 2020 short story of the same name, the dreamlike novel draws on elements of folklore and fairy tales for a narrative set eerily close to present day that explores environmental collapse and human resilience.

Buy Now: The Morningside on Bookshop | Amazon

There's Always This Year, Hanif Abdurraqib (March 26)

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Cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib looks at basketball as a lens to try and understand why some people make it big in America and others don’t. He weaves together threads from his own relationship to the sport alongside history and contemplates the meaning of home. Like he did in his 2021 book A Little Devil in America , which was a finalist for a National Book Award, Abdurraqib distills a huge aspect of American culture to consider its societal implications.

Buy Now : There's Always This Year on Bookshop | Amazon

Like Love , Maggie Nelson (April 2)

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A collection of essays drawn from nearly 20 years of genre-defying author Maggie Nelson’s work, Like Love offers incisive commentary on topics ranging from music and literature to feminism and queerness to motherhood and love. Featuring cultural criticism, conversations with friends, and tributes to beloved artists like Björk and Prince, the chronological anthology examines the purpose of art and how Nelson’s relationship to her own writing has changed over time.

Buy Now: Like Love on Bookshop | Amazon

Table for Two , Amor Towles (April 2)

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Amor Towles’ latest is an immersive collection of short works of fiction set in turn-of-the-millennium New York and Golden Age Hollywood. The book features six short stories and a novella that centers on Evelyn Ross, a character from Towles’ debut novel The Rules of Civility . The author, whose previous three novels have collectively sold more than six million copies worldwide, told Today that the majority of the narratives in Table for Two deal with fateful encounters between strangers or family members. “When I finished the collection,” he said, “it occurred to me that in many of the stories, a critical moment in the tale involved two of the characters facing each other across a kitchen table to confront some new reality in their lives.”

Buy Now: Table for Two on Bookshop | Amazon

Knife, Salman Rushdie (April 16)

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On Aug. 12, 2022, Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie survived a stabbing in which he lost sight in one eye and the use of one of his hands (the latter is coming back). While he's best known for his magical realism, Rushdie draws on his own experience recovering from the traumatic attack in his latest book. In an interview with TIME earlier this year, the novelist described writing the book as part of his healing process—“a way of kind of taking charge of it”—and not letting the incident control him.

Buy Now : Knife on Bookshop | Amazon

Real Americans, Rachel Khong (April 30)

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In her second novel, Rachel Khong serves up a story about race and power in America. Like her 2017 debut Goodbye, Vitamin, Real Americans is set on the West Coast, this time on a small island off the coast of Washington state. It’s 2021, and Lily Chen is a single mom raising a 15-year-old boy who decides to search for his birth father. But the journey is complex—and uncovering answers about the boy’s father only leads to more questions. By following three generations of the family, Khong explores the forces that shape a person's sense of self and probes the connection between identity and fate.

Buy Now : Real Americans on Bookshop | Amazon

Funny Story , Emily Henry (April 23)

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A rising - star writer of literary romance, Emily Henry has garnered a devout readership by consistently delivering dreamy modern love stories. Building on a run of best-sellers—from Beach Read (2020) to Happy Place (2023)—in which Henry found innovative ways to subvert tropes of the genre, Funny Story puts the author’s signature spin on the idea that opposites attract. The novel centers on Daphne, a down-on-her-luck librarian whose fiancé Peter recently dumped her for his childhood best friend Petra. Finding herself at a crossroads, Daphne decides to move in with Petra’s ex-boyfriend Miles. Hijinks, heartache, and a healthy dose of temptation ensue.

Buy Now: Funny Story on Bookshop | Amazon

The Demon of Unrest , Erik Larson (April 30)

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Best-selling author Erik Larson has spent his writing career meticulously reconstructing critical junctures in history, from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair in The Devil in the White City to the rise of the Third Reich in In the Garden of Beasts to the sinking of the Lusitania in Dead Wake . Larson’s nonfiction accounts of these fateful events feel like novels, making his books as readable as they are informative. In The Demon of Unrest , Larson digs into the months between Abraham Lincoln’s election as the 16th president of the United States and Confederate forces firing the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter. As Larson told the Associated Press , he was particularly interested in exploring “the human element—the hubris, the personalities, the ambitions, the egos”—that led to America’s fracturing.

Buy Now: The Demon of Unrest on Bookshop | Amazon

This Strange Eventful History , Claire Messud (May 14)

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Inspired by acclaimed author Claire Messud’s own ancestry, This Strange Eventful History chronicles seven decades in the lives of a fictional family of Algerian-born French citizens. Opening with the patriarch, naval attaché Gaston, while he is stationed in Greece as Paris falls to the Nazis, the novel unfolds as war, distance, politics, and faith test the family's ties. Messud follows the Cassars from 1940 to 2010, weaving a complex, multi-generational saga against the backdrop of World War II, the Algerian Revolution, and beyond.

Buy Now: This Strange Eventful History on Bookshop | Amazon

Lies and Weddings, Kevin Kwan (May 21)

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Much like his blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, Kevin Kwan’s latest novel satirizes super-rich Asian jetsetters—only this time he's sending up the English upper classes. In the follow-up to 2020's Sex and Vanity, a former Hong Kong supermodel is pressuring her son, the future Earl of Greshambury, to pursue a wealthy woman at his sister’s glamorous Hawaii wedding because the family is secretly bogged down by debt. But when a volcano erupts and ruins the nuptials, it also knocks all of the schemer's plans off course. What ensues is a hilarious, richly detailed family affair that takes place around the world, from Hawaii to Venice to Los Angeles to the English countryside.

Buy Now : Lies and Weddings on Bookshop | Amazon

Tehrangeles, Porochista Khakpour (June 11)

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The tragicomic novel from Porochista Khakpour follows the Milani family, Iranian American multimillionaires and wannabe reality TV show stars in the City of Angels. They are finally close to landing their own series, but before the cameras even start rolling, family secrets start leaking out. The Milanis begin to realize the price of fame—and it might just be their downfall.

Buy Now : Tehrangeles on Bookshop | Amazon

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Write to Megan McCluskey at [email protected] and Olivia B. Waxman at [email protected]

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The best new books released in 2023, as selected by avid readers and critics

A composite image of book covers published in 2023

It may feel like a long time ago, now that we've reached the halcyon days of the festive season, but August was a big month for books.

Four of the books deemed the best of the year were released in that chilly month — perhaps it's a coincidence, perhaps it was a balm for our seasonal depression. Either way, our critics were here for it.

Among them are this year's Booker Prize winner but also a debut short story collection, which is a perfect demonstration of the breadth of books that took the fancy of Kate Evans, Claire Nichols, Sarah L'Estrange, Declan Fry and Cher Tan this year.

The books that captured them most over the past year take us everywhere from Trinidad in the 40s to the politics of the heavy metal scene, a futuristic (but disturbingly familiar) reality TV show and into the mind of a kind-of ghost from 19th century France.

So, as you sit back and contemplate the year that was (almost), these are the books we recommend you take with you.

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

The book cover of Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein, an illustration of trees reflected on a lake at night

In 40s Trinidad, a rich farmer has disappeared. His glamorous wife, Marlee Changoor, has received a ransom note. But she has no intention of paying. She is finally free.

In Hungry Ghosts, Kevin Jarad Hosein introduces us to an unforgettable cast of complex people. There's Marlee and her employee Hansraj, who she pays to work as a night watchman in her husband's absence. There's Hansraj's disconnected wife Shweta and their angry son, Krishna, living in poverty in the nearby "barrack", crammed into a single room and dreaming of a better life.

With several other families packed into the crumbling barrack house, privacy is non-existent. They hear each other's arguments; they smell each other's vomit. And, as readers, we are also asked to pay attention. Grief, sex and violence are described in unflinching detail.

Hungry Ghosts is a rich and rewarding read, packed with characters you'll love one minute, and be appalled by the next. It's an incredible debut.

— Claire Nichols

Hungry Ghosts appeared in our Best Books of February , check out the full review and other great books from that month here . 

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

A book cover showing a black and white illustration of a hill with six trees blowing in the wind

Birnam Wood takes its name from a forest in Shakespeare's Macbeth, and most readers know that if a story is connected to this tragedy about a Scottish king's downfall, it's not going to be all lollipops and rainbows.

Indeed, Eleanor Catton's follow up to her Booker-winning novel The Luminaries is a fast-paced thriller, and is part of a growing literary trope that we on The Book Show call "bunker and billionaire" fiction.

In the novel, Birnam Wood is the name of a New Zealand guerilla gardening collective, led by the idealistic and driven Mira Bunting. She leads the group to a tract of seemingly abandoned farmland to rehabilitate the property. There she encounters the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine, who has his own plans for the property (cue the bunker trope).

Read on to find out who will be the victor in this murky battle of ideals versus capitalism.

— Sarah L'Estrange

Birnam Wood appeared in our Best Books of March , read the full review and see other great books from that month here .

Tomás Nevinson by Javier Marías

Hamish Hamilton

A book cover showing a black and white photograph of a close-up of a man smoking a cigarette

The final novel from Spanish novelist Javier Marías, who passed away late last year, offers a catnip-ready premise for spy/thriller fans: coaxed out of retirement to complete one last job, Tomás Nevinson — a half-English, half-Spanish spy — searches for the woman involved in a series of real-life terrorist attacks launched by Basque separatists in Spain.

The novel begins with Nevinson reflecting on the idea of killing Hitler before his rise to power — citing two examples, one fictional, one real — as a way of examining moral philosophy's trolley problem: can death ever be justified if it means preventing greater destruction? (Around the time the novel is set, Bill Clinton was finalising the Good Friday Agreement and losing opportunities to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, fearing collateral damage. Of course, no one knew 9/11 was around the corner.)

Tomás Nevinson offers a reflection on the historical antipathies and the relationship between peoples and nations. From the sorrows of Sarajevo and Rwanda, to Hamas and Israel currently caught in a war of incalculable carnage, Marías asks a perennial question: Where does enmity end?

Nevinson — described by his handlers as an "interpreter of lives" — gives Marías an opportunity to reflect on language, identity and the intractable limitations upon how much we can ever really know of ourselves or the world.

As in much of Marías' work, the writing moves with hypnotic grace. (And recommends itself to being read aloud: check out Ben Cura's wonderful audio recording.) The result is an ample display of Marías' many and various gifts, including a deft sense of humour and his agile ability to turn an aphorism ("You only have to introduce a little truth into a lie for the lie to seem not just credible, but irrefutable.")

Tomás Nevinson also represents a final chapter for one of the great translating partnerships of our time. Thanks to Margaret Jull Costa, anglophone readers may continue to read and reread nearly everything Marías has published since the 80s.

— Declan Fry

Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad

Grove Atlantic

A book cover: white text on a blue background on the top half; an illustration of yellow apartments on the the bottom half

The setting of Enter Ghost is one of colonial occupation and constant unease. Yet things are still required to continue.

It is in these circumstances that Sonia, Isabella Hammad's Palestinian British thespian protagonist, goes to visit her sister in Haifa. There, amid some devastating discoveries, she ends up reconnecting with Mariam, an old family friend, and is reluctantly roped into an Arabic stage adaptation of Hamlet in the West Bank.

Hammad's prose is precise. The world she writes has a dialectical feeling to it — an oozing disquiet is present throughout, even if there are small moments of joy. The Palestinian Hamlet actors turn up late for rehearsals when they encounter Israeli checkpoints that needlessly detain them on account of their identity. In one particularly acute scene, Mariam asks the actor playing Hamlet, Wael, to simulate an altercation with an Israeli soldier to bring out the character's aggression. We're left to interpret how that feels.

Enter Ghost is the rare kind of novel that seeks to reconcile aesthetic and political aims. It is a metafictional narrative of Palestinian resistance and love.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Harvill Secker

A book cover with large text printed in green, red and yellow and the outline of a scythe against a black background

There's a new show in town, and it's as bloody as hell. Swinging machetes, chains, axes, knives … and tight, tight close-ups — because this is reality TV on steroids.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah creates an America in which prisoners might be pardoned — if they agree to fight to the death in techno-filled arenas, while every aspect of their lives is broadcast with the roar and swirl of publicity, music and fanfare.

It's WWE wrestling with real red stuff and extra politics; it's adrenaline to the max; it's heart-pounding commentary.

This is a future fantasy world that is also now. Overwhelmingly, the prisoners fighting for their lives and freedom are black or people of colour. They work together in a group — chains — that reference the history of slavery and racialised incarceration. Speaking out, silencing, resistance, rebellion: it's all there, too.

This is a novel with a thumping pace and plenty of complicated narratives that build and intertwine and come together in a breathless crescendo.

The two women at the heart of it, warriors both, are allies and lovers — but we know they'll end up in the arena together. And the man whose mind has been shattered by surveillance and enforced silence will have a part to play too, won't he?

And what about the viewers/the readers, where do we stand? Adjei-Brenyah makes sure that our position is interrogated, too.

— Kate Evans

Chain-Gang All-Stars appeared in our Best Books of June , check out the full review and other great books from that month here .

Tonight It's a World We Bury by Bill Peel 

Repeater Books

A book cover with white text and a red patterned illustration on a black background

It's almost cursory to associate the black metal genre with the far right. Although it first began as a clarion call against Christianity, the scene became co-opted by figures such as Varg Vikernes and Faust, from whom proliferated right-wing views alongside bands who categorise themselves under the "NSBM" (national socialist black metal) umbrella.

But, as Bill Peel argues in Tonight It's a World We Bury, the genre is ripe for rehabilitation, particularly in this fractious era, to create a scene that holds Marxism as a value system as well as one of its political aims.

Peel's knowledge of the genre is vast. In this way — alongside close readings of philosophers like Mark Fisher and Byung-Chul Han — he manages to tell a compelling story of its past missteps, while also pointing out the bands who are bucking the status quo, preferring instead to visibly align themselves with the left.

What makes this book especially appealing is that, unlike many punters and thinkers of subcultural worlds, Peel doesn't revel in nostalgia.

Instead, he looks forward to possibilities yet unrealised, what could be further imagined. That in itself is part of a communist-minded paradigm — as Marx himself has written: "Reason cannot blossom without hope; hope cannot speak without reason".

Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy

A book cover showing a close up of a baby's face including a nostril and lips

Irish writer Claire Kilroy's novel blazes and shines with exhaustion, fury, love and resentment. In it, a woman (Soldier) addresses her baby son (Sailor) with all the weariness and heightened sensibility of someone at the end of their tether. And her tether is more like a frayed, gnawed rope.

Amid resentment of her husband, the humiliation of pram and doorway and buckles and supermarket tears, she is funny and ferocious and battling on and on.

Her writing takes us into the joy and the drag of her body: "My old enemy, the stairs."

Kilroy doesn't overplay the military language of her Soldier and Sailor — it's lighter, more flexible, vernacular.

There's an industrial hum throughout the book as well. Something's coming down the line, on tracks that thrum with power — and her language sparks and is polished with all the energy of life's machinery.

This is a novel where the plot is apparently about the commonplace — just getting through the first few years of a child's life — but she soaks it with tension and beauty and rage and movement and humour, so it's impossible to look away, and impossible to forget.

Soldier Sailor appeared in our Best Books of August , check out the full review and other great books from that month here .

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

A book cover showing an illustration with black geometric shapes and a rising sun over mountain peaks at the top

When I first read Prophet Song as one of the six 2023 Booker Prize shortlisted novels, I immediately knew it would win — and indeed it did .

The fifth novel by Irish writer Paul Lynch, it's set in a dystopian Ireland where a populist government has taken control and civil liberties are diminishing by the day. It is lyrical and electrifying, but this novel struck me because of its focus on the domestic rather than the militaristic or political.

Zeroing in on Eilish Stack — a microbiologist with four children and a husband who's been disappeared by the new regime — Prophet Song chronicles her efforts to hold her family together in the face of forces beyond her control. She's implored to escape the encroaching violence but, for Eilish, this prospect is akin to "tearing off your feet".

Paul Lynch told ABC RN's The Book Show that his purpose as a writer was to "get as close to myth" as possible, and in this novel he might just have achieved this coveted goal.

— Sarah L'Estrange

Prophet Song appeared in our Best Books of August , check out the full review and other great books from that month here .

Firelight by John Morrissey

A book cover showing an illustration of three First Nations men set in the silhouette of a person's profile

This debut collection of short fiction from John Morrissey offers a sly, teasing narrative voice, elegantly staged dialogue and an eye for the absurdities and indignities of contemporary life.

At times recalling Will Self — both authors share a droll narrative voice, interest in office space and alternative timelines, fabulist narrative and colonisation — there are a number of highlights throughout the collection.

Autoc, a tale of future "alien" contact, invites the reader into all manner of sinister magic: the atmosphere of the 19th-century macabre, the question of imperialism, and an unnerving dreamlike atmosphere reminiscent of the lecture hall scene in Dario Argento's Inferno. Five Minutes is a beautifully executed metafiction examining familial angst, bureaucracy and the probable outcomes of a giant centipede attack. Ivy mixes urban ennui with slacker wit, gradually transforming into a meditation on rapture.

Much of the wonder of these stories lies in their suggestiveness. Morrissey is capable of relating the bizarre with lucidity and a calmly sardonic touch. The narratives are elusive yet vividly realised, leaving their endings and implications to the reader's imagination.

They could be described as speculative fiction but, in truth, they are more firmly anchored to that genre's underlying fabric: ourselves, and our inescapable strangeness.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

A book cover showing daisies with white petals and yellow centres against a green bushy background

My copy of Tom Lake is looking increasingly worse-for-wear. Ann Patchett's ninth novel, with its green-blue floral cover, has been borrowed by my ABC colleagues over and over again since its July release.

The popularity makes sense. This is a book about summer love, cherry orchards and family ties, beautifully written by one of America's best-loved writers. It's a big warm hug of a book, with just enough bite to stop it drowning in sweetness.

Tom Lake is the name of a summer stock theatre, where our narrator Lara spent a season as a 20-something actress. It was there that she fell in love with Peter Duke — a magnetic, passionate actor who would go on to become a Hollywood star.

It's no spoiler to say that the romance was short-lived. Lara tells the story years later, as she and her three adult daughters pick cherries on the family farm. Lara didn't make it as an actress, and she married someone else. Her life is quiet, and quietly miraculous.

It's in this quiet contentment that Patchett does something revelatory. Tom Lake celebrates the joy that can be found in an ordinary, imperfect life. And isn't that something we can all aspire to?

Tom Lake appeared in our Best Books of August , check out the full review and other great books from that month here .

The Sitter by Angela O'Keeffe

A book cover showing a painted portrait of a woman sitting in a chair

The Sitter is the second novel by Australian author Angela O'Keeffe that takes the art world as its subject to dazzling effect. The first, Night Blue, anthropomorphised Jackson Pollock's famous painting Blue Poles, so don't expect a straight narrative in this new book.

The Sitter is an inventive conjuring of the post-Impressionist French artist Paul Cezanne's wife and model, Hortense Cezanne.

It's not, however, a straightforward re-writing of her life; instead, long dead Hortense appears as a presence in the French hotel room of an Australian writer who's researching her life for a novel. Hortense is not a ghost. In fact, the best way to think of this presence is as the manifestation of the writer's obsession.

This book is so exciting because Hortense becomes the observer of the writer rather than the perennially observed artist's subject. It's a slender, satisfying read that will send you to the paintings featuring Hortense and lead you to wonder what she's thinking as she looks out from the canvas.

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

Allen & Unwin

A book cover showing a rural landscape: brown grass, rocks and a cloudy sky and a person in the distance

Grief can linger in your bones or pare you right back to them. Bare, skeletal, stony. Rattling around inside the noise of a busy life.

Accomplished and assured writer Charlotte Wood (The Natural Way of Things, The Weekend, many more) has taken that lonely sound and placed it inside her unnamed narrator — a woman who is searching for respite and heads to a nunnery and retreat in regional New South Wales.

She is not herself religious, and while she's longing for some sort of reflective space, she's scratchy with irritation at the rituals and bad food and seemingly pointless gliding about of the other women. Her irritation is itself a pleasure — funny, eye-rolling, cutting through any earnest piousness as we sink into her inner world.

There's plenty of outer world to be going on with, too: a murder; a celebrity nun; ferocious and difficult memories; sharply worded encounters with this community of nuns — and a mouse plague.

This mouse plague takes those bones of grief and plunges our hero — and us, as readers — back into the body. You can feel the curve of a foot as it encounters a small furry body in a shoe (gah!), or the horrifying wiggle in the small of her back as she gets into a car and then launches out of it again, an entire enmeshed cushion of small bodies writhing against our imagination.

Fine, intelligent writing.

— Kate Evans

Stone Yard Devotional appeared in our Best Books of October , check out the full review and other great books from that month here .

Alien Daughters Walk Into the Sun by Jackie Wang 

Semiotext(e)

A book cover showing a photograph of a young Asian girl with windswept long black hair, wearing a pink shirt and sunglasses

Many may know Jackie Wang as the author of Carceral Capitalism (2018), an incisive examination into contemporary incarceration techniques. Few may know of her beginnings as a punky zine writer — her 2009 personal zine On Being Hard Femme provided a fun and expansive provocation on gender that I still stand by today. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that zine, as well as other early writings, have been collected into something Wang refers to as "an almanac of extreme girlhood".

In the introduction Wang laments her assimilation into so-called respectable institutions: "I no longer know how to live as though the impossible were possible. I only know what I'm supposed to do to lead a successful life. I have a PhD from Harvard now. I put money away into a retirement account while I write from the comfort of a tenure-track job."

Within this volume of collected writing — nudged on by her friend, the poet Bhanu Kapil — is a kind of double-edgedness: while it grieves the loss of a more carefree, reckless and ultimately naïve time (it can also be said that this loss is engendered by how capital has completely permeated our lives), it's similarly a guidebook to possible existences. It's Proust's "retrospective illumination" put into practice.

Alien Daughters Walk into the Sun appeared in our Best Books of November , check out the full review and other great books from that month here .

Women and Children by Tony Birch

A book cover showing a mid-century photograph of an older woman standing next to a seated younger woman in a white wedding dress

It might sound strange to describe a novel centred on violence as "tender". But that's certainly the case with Tony Birch's stunning fifth novel.

The book is set in 1965. Eleven-year-old Joe Cluny lives with his mum, Marion, and his sister, Ruby, in a safe and loving home. He's getting into trouble at his Catholic school and spending long days with his beloved grandfather, Charlie.

Then one night, violence arrives on the family's doorstep. Joe's aunt, Oona, is bruised and bleeding, after being beaten by her partner. And while the wider community has learned to look away from domestic violence — Ruby, while leading her beaten aunt through the street, observes that Oona has become an "invisible woman" — the Cluny family will confront it.

The tenderness is found in a series of small, perfect moments: Joe and Charlie sharing a buttery bacon sandwich; Ruby cleaning her aunt's bruised body. Birch's prose is clear-eyed and unpretentious, taking readers right to the heart of the story. And what a heart it is.

Women and Children appeared in our Best Books of November , check out the full review and other great books from that month here .

What I Saw, Heard, Learned by Giorgio Agamben

A book cover illustrated with a swirling light-blue blue pattern on a cream background

Italy's foremost philosopher, Giorgio Agamben, was a friend and collaborator of everyone from Pier Paolo Pasolini and Italo Calvino to Ingeborg Bachmann and Jacques Derrida.

This year, Seagull Books (publishers of great work like Hélène Cixous' Well-Kept Ruins, and Hussein Barghouthi's Among the Almond Trees) offered their latest title from the 81-year-old.

What I Saw, Heard, Learned is a series of startling, wise and often beautiful aphorisms and reflections. One chapter reads: "What water taught me: delight, when our foot no longer finds its hold and our body almost unwillingly gives in and swims." Or how about this? "Writing, I learned that happiness lies not in poetizing, but in being poetized by something or someone we cannot know."

The book is an intellectual and spiritual summa from a thinker who has meant much to many. Remarkable and thrillingly evocative, it closes with a moving account of Agamben being given a page of writing he made at the age of eight or nine by his mother, a piece that foreshadowed "the secret core of my philosophy".

Like the parables of Walter Benjamin or Zhuangzi, the memory approaches a kind of Daoist enlightenment, accepting that every work is only a failed iteration of some more fully realised ambition.

As Agamben writes, if "I really tried to cross the threshold of silence that accompanies every thought, I wouldn't have written a thing."

Tune in to ABC RN at 10am Mondays for The Book Show and 10am Saturdays for The Bookshelf .

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Reader's Digest

The 30 New Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2024

New books to read in 2024.

N o matter how long my TBR list gets, it's tough to resist the urge to add new books, especially romance novels or mystery books from my favorite authors. Fortunately, as a book reviewer and writer, I get to make daily reading part of my job. But even if reading is relegated to tiny cracks in your daily routine—the commuter train, the waiting room, the bleachers during swim practice—you, too, can cash in on the joy and mental health benefits of reading . Not sure where to begin? We're here to help with plenty of new book releases to recommend for your shopping or library list.

Every title on our list of new books to read in 2024 will debut this year. We made our picks by scouring pre-release book reviews, assessing what upcoming titles have bibliophiles buzzing and reading upcoming books ourselves. This list includes selections from Reader's Digest editors—look for the "Reader's Digest Editor's Pick" seal. Will any of these new books be bestsellers, or maybe even make the list of the best books of all time? Only time will tell, but we bet there are a few contenders!

Join the free Reader's Digest Book Club for great reads, monthly discussions, author Q&As and a community of book lovers.

1. First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

Genre: Thriller

Release date: Jan. 2, 2024

If you love a juicy cat-and-mouse story, First Lie Wins will hook you from the very first chapter. " I'll read a few chapters before tackling the laundry , I thought, before devouring this entire book in a single day," says Reader's Digest Books Editor Tracey Neithercott. "The cleverly crafted plot and whip-smart protagonist mean you won't know who to trust in this edge-of-your-seat thriller."

Meet Evie Porter. She's a successful yet unassuming Southerner with girl-next-door appeal. But she's also a lie. "Evie" is on a mission for the mysterious Mr. Smith, a shadowy figure who keeps his con artists on their toes. Cinching the con for Mr. Smith should be easy, except for two problems: Our brazen heroine has caught feelings for her mark, Ryan. And someone from her past—someone who knows her real identity—has just arrived in town. If you loved the fast pace and twisty storytelling of Iris Yamashita's City Under One Roof , you'll find yourself sucked into Ashley Elston's riveting thriller.

Looking for your next great book? Read four of today's bestselling novels in the time it takes to read one with Fiction Favorites !

2. The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan

Genre: Historical fiction

New book releases from debut authors have extra-special appeal. There's fun in discovering new voices, and Vanessa Chan is already getting major buzz. Her upcoming novel, The Storm We Made , contains the emotional story of an ordinary Malayan family surviving Japanese occupation during World War II. Cecily always yearned to be more than a housewife. Becoming a spy for the Japanese seemed exciting until it unleashed a chain of events she'd never considered. Now that the dominoes have fallen, can she save the people she loves while hiding the truth—that she played a hand in welcoming the oppressors?

"With action, intrigue, dazzling writing and a war front not often visited, The Storm We Made stands out from other WWII historical fiction," says Reader's Digest Senior Editor Megan Melle. "As English colonizers are swapped for Japanese occupation, we see the horrors of war, the stripping of innocence, the guilt of a mother and a family fighting to survive." This is historical fiction at its most sweeping and heartbreaking, a worthy addition to the best books for women by female authors .

3. The Women by Kristin Hannah

Release date: Feb. 6, 2024

Kristin Hannah has topped bestseller lists since her 2015 breakout, The Nightingale . Any list of the best books of 2024 is sure to include her upcoming historical fiction novel, The Women . It follows Frances "Frankie" McGrath, a sheltered young California woman, as she joins the Army Nurses Corps and heads for the conflict in Vietnam. It's a powerful coming-of-age tale of survival, heartache, trauma and love amid unimaginable chaos. "Kristin Hannah pulls no punches in this gripping tribute to the women who fought in Vietnam," says Neithercott. " The Women is a heartbreaking account of war and its traumatic effects, but it's also an uplifting story of sisterhood and heroism."

4. Unsinkable by Jenni L. Walsh

Release date: Jan. 9, 2024

Move aside, Jack and Rose. It's time for another perspective on the Titanic shipwreck. New books on well-worn tales can be hard to pull off, but Jenni Walsh's fictional account of Violet Jessup, a real woman who survived three tragedies at sea (including the sinking of the Titanic ), is fresh and riveting. Perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale , Unsinkable shines with themes of endurance, tenacity and female empowerment. I predict Unsinkable will be a favorite among in-person and online book clubs .

5. The Fury by Alex Michaelides

Release date: Jan. 16, 2024

Alex Michaelides is the author of masterful psychological suspense novels The Silent Patient and The Maidens . This year, he's back at it with The Fury , a thriller about a celebrity crew's vacation to Greece that turns sinister. As he did with his previous bestsellers, Michaelides has crafted a slow burn that explodes midway through with plot twists and character revelations you won't see coming. Expect murder and mayhem turned up at full volume, though not to the grisly degree of iconic horror books .

6. So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole

Genre: Young adult fantasy

When it comes to 2024 book releases, fantasy book fans are counting down the days until they can get their hands on So Let Them Burn . Kamilah Cole's debut YA novel is a Jamaican-inspired story that will delight fans of Iron Widow and The Priory of the Orange Tree . Faron Vincent is a 17-year-old island legend with magical powers and a divine calling to take down dragon riders. But when her sister, Elara, forms a deep bond with an enemy dragon, Faron must decide whether to destroy her family or allow the land she loves to be destroyed.

7. Family, Family by Laurie Frankel

Genre: Contemporary fiction

Release date: Jan. 23, 2024

Family. It's complicated, right? That's the premise of Laurie Frankel's latest hilarious, heartwarming and heartbreaking novel, Family, Family . India Allwood is a proud adoptive mother. But what she has yet to tell everyone is that she also had a baby that she gave up for adoption in high school. When India and her biological daughter reconnect, India soon learns that she's not the only one with secrets—and that while some family comes by blood and others by love, sometimes the definition of family is just ... complicated. Frankel has written a handful of great modern fiction reads. Once you've devoured all of them, check out the other contemporary writers you should've read by now.

8. Mrs. Quinn's Rise to Fame by Olivia Ford

Genre: Domestic fiction

Release date: Jan. 30, 2024

Jenny's life hasn't exactly turned out as she planned. She's 77, childless and worried about her husband Bernard's failing health. Desperate for joy and meaning, she applies to be a contestant on the TV show Britain Bakes ... and makes it! But as Jenny enjoys this new beginning, her baking stirs up memories of a long-buried secret. The result is a beautiful coming-of-old-age story full of heart and humor. "As a fan of The Great British Baking Show , I loved the behind-the-scenes glimpses of the competition, but even better than that are the likable characters in Olivia Ford's big-hearted novel," says Neithercott. "Even non-bakers will agree that Mrs. Quinn's Rise to Fame is the perfect feel-good story for a cold day spent reading by the fire—with some sweet treats, of course."

9. The Mayor of Maxwell Street by Avery Cunningham

Genre: Historical romance

Avery Cunningham's debut, The Mayor of Maxwell Street , is a well-imagined historical fiction story that touches on race relations in 1920s Chicago. The plot follows Nelly Sawyer, a wealthy Black investigative journalist who connects with a local speakeasy manager to help her infiltrate a dangerous underground criminal network. "In Avery Cunningham's twist on The Great Gatsby , the setting truly shines," says Neithercott. "Chicago of 1921 is alive in rich detail, and readers will feel transported through time."

10. A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams

Genre: Romance

Looking for a romantic magical realism novel to add to your stack of new books? Look no further than Tia Williams's A Love Song for Ricki Wilde . After years of feeling like the odd woman out, Ricki leaves her family empire to open a flower shop in Harlem. There, life suddenly blossoms. She falls under the spell of her new home's music and rich culture. And time after time, she runs into a mysterious stranger named Ezra. But as sparks fly and their lives become impossibly entangled, she learns that he might not be as available as she first believed.

11. Fourteen Days by Margaret Atwood et al.

Genre: General fiction

Ready or not, there's a COVID-19-era novel coming to bookstores near you. But if it is successful in any form, it should be this: a collaborative novel penned by Margaret Atwood, Douglas Preston, Celeste Ng, Dave Eggers, John Grisham and a bevy of your other favorite authors . In Fourteen Days , residents of a Manhattan apartment building gather on the roof in the early days of COVID-19 lockdowns. There, these strangers and neighbors open up to one another. Stories are told. Commonalities emerge. The characters of Fourteen Days slowly realize what so many of us did during that strange, unsettling season: The strongest bonds are built during tragedy.

12. T he Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

Genre: Contemporary fantasy

Release date: Feb. 13, 2024

If you loved The Midnight Library or The Night Circus , add The Book of Doors to your 2024 TBR pile. Gareth Brown's debut novel weaves together magic, time travel , mystery and adventure in a new and breathtaking way, according to advance readers. When a barista named Cassie receives a mysterious book full of drawings and strange script, she knows she's been gifted with something extraordinary. What she doesn't know is that there are dangerous people who are greedy for magical tomes, and they'll stop at nothing to steal the book that opens portals to new worlds.

13. My Side of the River by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez

Genre: Memoir

Great memoirs make us feel like we're walking a mile in someone else's shoes. And the very best ones stick with us, impacting our perspectives forever. From the looks of it, Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez's memoir, My Side of the River , will do all that and more. Born in the United States to Mexican immigrants, the author details what it was like when her parents were forced to move back to Mexico when she was 15. Unparented and unhoused, she stayed in America with her brother to finish high school. This book is a tenderhearted, searing account of what it's like to be caught in the chaos of a broken immigration system.

14. Slow Noodles by Chantha Nguon

Release date: Feb. 20, 2024

These days, many American 20-somethings and retirees escape to Southeast Asia for tropical winters, digital-nomad stints and affordable beach resorts. For those who live on the other side of the world, it's easy to forget the recent wars and devastation. In Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss and Family Recipes , Chantha Nguon reclaims the love and culture she lost with a beautiful collection of recipes knitted together with her personal story. From Battambang to Phnom Penh to Saigon to a refugee camp in Thailand, Nguon carried and protected her culinary heritage even as she lost her family members one by one.

15. Ours by Phillip B. Williams

Chicago-born poet Phillip B. Williams has published two award-winning poetry books , Thief in the Interior and Mutiny . This is his first novel, promising a surrealist story rooted in Black American history. In the 1830s, a mystical woman named Saint frees enslaved people and whisks them away to a magical town called Ours. Though Ours is a haven, it is not perfect. Shot through with themes of freedom versus bondage and empowerment versus protection, Ours explores what happens when community members dare to ask if their newfound safety is just a new type of entrapment.

16. Keep Your Friends Close by Leah Konen

Meet Mary. She's a quiet, meek mother trying to make it through a messy divorce with her filthy rich ex, George. She's also lonely, especially since her best friend, Willa, ghosted her after a drunken confession months ago. When Willa resurfaces with a new identity and no recollection of their friendship, then George is found brutally murdered, Mary's mind starts to reel. Who is Willa? And who killed George? I thought Keep Your Friends Close was a fun, quick read in the twisty vein of Girl on the Train or Gone Girl . It's the perfect beach bag read if you have plans to take a sunny spring break in 2024.

17. Wa ndering Stars by Tommy Orange

Genre: Literary fiction

Release date: Feb. 27, 2024

If you're anything like me, you're constantly looking for new books from beloved authors. Well, there's good news for readers who devoured There, There , the Native American epic about 12 characters traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow. In Wandering Stars , Orange once again focuses on how the oppression of young Cheyenne people impacts families for generations. In 1864, a correctional officer forced a young Native man named Star to speak English and practice Christianity. A generation later, the same oppressor punishes Star's son at a school designed to erase Native culture. Generations later, descendants seek healing from physical and emotional traumas by returning to the Native rituals their families were forced to abandon.

18. My Name Was Eden by Eleanor Barker-White

Genre: Psychological thriller

I expected psychological suspense when I picked up My Name Was Eden . It's marketed as a perfect read for fans of Ashley Audrain's The Push , after all. Let's just say this debut thriller delivered. It had me questioning which narrator to trust while figuring out which character wrote the menacing prologue. In the book, a mother obsessed with Vanishing Twin Syndrome is shaken when her surviving twin, now a teenager, wakes up after a catastrophe asking to go by her long-lost brother's name. And that's only the beginning of strange things to come.

19. T he Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez

Release date: March 5, 2024

From the author of The Book of Unknown Americans comes another epic saga, this time detailing the stories of the migrant laborers and locals involved with constructing the Panama Canal. There's local fisherman Francisco, who opposes the construction; his son, Omar, who joins the dig despite his father's wishes; West Indian laborer Ada Bunting, who arrives illegally in search of work; and many more. It can take a few chapters to settle into the many characters' stories, but if you give it time, the resulting tapestry is a rich, evocative slice of life from a little-known chapter of history.

"Cristina Henríquez's slowly building and sprawling saga isn't simply a look at the construction of the Panama Canal. It's a story about community, colonialism and the everyday people who worked on and were impacted by the canal," says Neithercott. "I was captivated by these characters' lives and the ways in which this monumental event shaped their futures. Publisher's Weekly says the book has the feel of a classic, and I couldn't agree more."

20. Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

Genre: Science fiction

Release date: March 14, 2024

Annie Bot is one of the strangest novels I've read this year, and I say that with utter respect and admiration for the author and work. Perfect for fans of My Dark Vanessa and the TV show Black Mirror , this is a somewhat dystopian story of a robot girlfriend, Annie, and her human owner, Doug. At first, Annie happily follows Doug's every command. But when she gets the chance to interact with a second human, one who makes Annie feel something new, exciting and painful, the bot notices unbidden thoughts and feelings woven into her coding. It's a haunting tale that asks readers to consider classic questions: What comes by nurture versus nature? And what does it mean to have a soul?

21. Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Genre: Young adult mystery

Where Sleeping Girls Lie checks all the boxes for a fantastic dark academia release: An elite boarding school with Gothic vibes. A diverse cast of students and teachers. Mysteries, secrets, lies and disappearances. After being homeschooled for years, Sade Hussein is sent to Alfred Nobel Academy, where her roommate, Elizabeth, goes missing after the first night. As Sade and Elizabeth's best friend try to figure out what happened, they unearth unsettling secrets, alliances and cover-ups by a group of girls known as the "Unholy Trinity." And then a body is found. Readers who love The Atlas Six and Ghosts of Harvard will fall under this book's spell.

22. E xpiration Dates by Rebecca Serle

Genre: Women's fiction

Release date: March 19, 2024

Last year, Rebecca Serle's One Italian Summer charmed me with a wistful, whimsical story on the Amalfi Coast. So when Expiration Dates showed up on my growing list of new books coming out in 2024, I immediately added this romance novel to my TBR list. The premise hooked me from the first page. Daphne Bell lives a pretty ordinary life, save for one crucial detail: Every time she meets a guy, she receives a paper with the man's name and a number indicating how long the relationship will last. When she gets a slip inscribed only with "Jake"—no expiration date—she assumes he must be her soulmate. But what if he's not the partner she had in mind?

23. A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Release date: March 26, 2024

This 2024 release has been compared to Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere , which only makes me more excited to read it! In the gated community of Pacific Hills, California, residents are living, breathing examples of the American dream. That includes the Shah family, though the house practically vibrates with tension between the immigrant parents, who sacrificed everything for their dreams, and the children, who have their own versions of success. Then one night, 12-year-old Ajay is arrested. Fallout in the family and community threatens to shake the foundation of the lives Mr. and Mrs. Shah took years to build. In A Great Country , Shilpi Somaya Gowda masterfully explores intergenerational conflict, immigration, privilege and the price some will pay for success.

24. Nosy Neighbors by Freya Sampson

Genre: Cozy mystery

Release date: March 28, 2024

Brimming with heart and humor, Nosy Neighbors is a cozy mystery about sworn enemies and neighbors, septuagenarian Dorothy and 20-something Kat. The two have nothing but bitterness in common until their building, Shelby House, is threatened. They must put their differences aside to save the only place they can call home. But it doesn't take long to learn there's something sinister afoot in the building. Can the two get ahead of the baddies before becoming the latest victims of foul play?

25. Table for Two by Amor Towles

Genre: Short stories

Release date: April 2, 2024

Worried you don't have time to polish off a stack of new books? Well, why not read a single collection of short stories ? Amor Towles has won over tens of thousands of readers with his novels The Lincoln Highway , Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow . In 2024, his first short story collection, Table for Two , will hit (and promptly fly off) bookstore shelves. The book includes six short stories set in New York City and a novella set in Hollywood. The latter follows Evelyn Ross from Rules of Civility as she reinvents herself in the cinematic world of Golden Age Los Angeles.

26. Funny Story by Emily Henry

Release date: April 23, 2024

Can we talk about the most-anticipated books of 2024 without mentioning Emily Henry's new romance? The queen of happily-ever-afters will return in April with Funny Story , an opposites-attract love story between two jilted lovers. After Daphne's fiance runs away with his friend Petra, she is desperately broke and in need of a roommate. Her best bet? Another newly single person—aka Petra's ex, Miles. As expected, witty banter and shenanigans ensue.

27. Real Americans by Rachel Khong

Release date: April 30, 2024

The author of Goodbye, Vitamin is back at it with a sprawling multi-narrator, multigenerational saga about a Chinese American family. Real Americans takes readers from New York City at the turn of the millennium to a Washington island in the aftermath of COVID-19. Rachel Khong weaves together a story of identity, love, family and forgiveness—and, ultimately, what it means to come home.

28. Oye by Melissa Mogollon

Release date: May 14, 2024

Melissa Mogollon's debut novel, Oye , is pitched as a "telenovela-worthy drama." And if listening in on a stranger's animated phone call sounds like your idea of entertainment, you'll be hooked. Meet Luciana, the baby sister of a massive Colombian American family based in Florida. She's called up her older sister, Mari, to vent and get advice as the family faces the prospect of evacuating before a hurricane batters their town. The problem? Their grandmother, Abue, refuses to budge. Readers get to "listen in" as Luciana and Mari engage in a sometimes laugh-out-loud, sometimes tear-jerking conversation about family, life and love. If you're aiming to read more books by Latinx authors , this is a good place to start.

29. Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

Release date: May 21, 2024

Kevin Kwan took us to Singapore in Crazy Rich Asians , and he's whisking us away to Hawaii, Marrakech and the English countryside in Lies and Weddings . As the son of a former Hong Kong supermodel and the future earl of a British estate, Rufus Leung Gresham should be set for life. Instead, he's just discovered that the family is sinking into debt. The only path forward, according to Rufus's mom, is for him to woo a woman with enough cash to replenish the family coffers. He's off to schmooze someone at his sister's lavish tropical wedding when a volcanic eruption ruins the grand plan and sends the motley cast of characters on a hilarious tale of love, lies, sex and money.

30. The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

Genre: Literary science fiction

Release date: Aug. 29, 2024

The beloved author of The Midnight Library is offering up another shimmering story of the search for happiness. In The Life Impossible , retired widow Grace Winters believes her best days are behind her. But then comes the twist of a lifetime: An old friend has died and left Grace a house in Ibiza, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea. Before long, Grace is plunged headlong into a new community, with new adventures, new friends and new lessons yet to learn.

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The post The 30 New Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2024 appeared first on Reader's Digest .

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Author Interviews

Police raided george pelecanos' home. 15 years later, he's ready to write about it.

Andrew Limbong headshot

Andrew Limbong

new fiction books by popular authors

Writer George Pelecanos reads The Washington Post every morning in his home. Keren Carrión/NPR hide caption

Writer George Pelecanos reads The Washington Post every morning in his home.

It was August 2009 when the police raided writer George Pelecanos' home in Silver Spring, Md., just outside of Washington, D.C., with a no-knock warrant.

He was performing his daily ritual of sitting on the couch reading The Washington Post when he saw cars enter the driveway. "I saw these guys wearing black and holding automatic rifles and battering rams," he said in an interview at his home. The police broke down the door overlooking the driveway, and the basement door, too. Pelecanos said they put him on the floor and zip tied his hands.

The police were looking for his then 18-year-old son, Nick. The younger Pelecanos was a part of the robbery of a weed dealer, with a gun involved. So, the cops executed the no-knock warrant looking for evidence of guns or drugs.

After not finding anything, George Pelecanos said the officers started needling him about his liquor cabinet, his watch, his home. "One of the SWAT guys was looking at my books, and he goes 'maybe you'll write about this someday.' And he laughed," Pelecanos said. "And right then I knew that I would write about it. He challenged me."

No knock warrants have been banned in multiple states

Pelecanos is known for his gritty, realistic crime stories. For television, he co-created The Deuce , about the burgeoning porn industry in 1970s New York City, and We Own This City , the mini-series detailing a real-life corrupt police ring in Baltimore. As an author, he's known for his deep catalog of stories set in the streets of Washington, D.C.

His new short story collection is titled Owning Up . And it features characters grappling with events from the past that, with time, fester into something else entirely. There's a story about two guys who knew each other in jail, crossing paths years later. Another has a woman digging into her own family history and learning about the 1919 Washington, D.C. race riots.

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Many of Pelecanos' crime fiction book are set in Washington, D.C. Keren Carrión/NPR hide caption

Many of Pelecanos' crime fiction book are set in Washington, D.C.

But Pelecanos said he wanted to write about the August 2009 incident because he wanted to further show the effects of no-knock raids. The Montgomery County police department confirmed they executed the warrant but they didn't immediately provide any additional details. Pelecanos did share a copy of the warrant, which states: "You may serve this warrant as an exception to the knock and announce requirement."

The practice of issuing no-knock warrants has been under increased scrutiny since the police killings of Breonna Taylor in Louisville in 2020, and Amir Locke in Minneapolis in 2022. They're banned in Oregon, Virginia, Florida and Tennessee.

"They don't accomplish anything except mayhem and violence," Pelecanos said.

The story "The No-Knock" starts with a journalist named Joe Caruso drinking his coffee and reading the morning paper when the vehicles pull up. The same beats follow — the guns, the zip ties, the pinning down on the floor. Pelecanos writes like he remembers every sensation from that night, because, he said, he does.

It deviates further into fiction from there. Caruso wants to write about it, but he can't. He's too close. He starts drinking heavily, instead. Pelecanos, on the other hand, knew he could write about it, easily. But he waited for over a decade on purpose. He wanted his son's permission, first.

"I wanted my son to grow up," he said. "And so that I could say to you today – he's fine."

Owning Up to the past

"He allowed time for me to grow as a man, and develop myself as a responsible person," said Nick Pelecanos in an interview. He now works in the film industry as a director and assistant director. He got his start working on jobs his dad helped him get. So he's attuned to his father's storytelling style — how he favors details and facts over sepia-toned nostalgia.

"When he writes something, you know that it's technically correct," he said. "And has come to his objective, as non-biased as possible opinion."

new fiction books by popular authors

In Owning Up , Pelecanos writes about a non-knock incident inspired by real events. Keren Carrión/NPR hide caption

In Owning Up , Pelecanos writes about a non-knock incident inspired by real events.

As personal as "The No-Knock" is, Pelecanos calls the title story in the collection his most autobiographical. It's about a kid in the 70s named Nikos who works a job where he gets in with a bad crowd, and eventually gets talked into breaking into a guy's house.

"It's just the way my life was in that era and on this side of Montgomery County," Pelecanos said. "It was about muscle cars, playing pickup basketball, drinking beer, getting high."

Listening to Pelecanos talk about this story, it sounds familiar. You get the sense that history does repeat itself. That the same lessons get taught again and again. But that's O.K., because some lessons bear repeating.

"I got in trouble occasionally," he said. "But I always came home to the warmth of my family, you know? That's all you need."

Meghan Collins Sullivan edited this story for radio and the web.

Wreath

The best books of 2023

From Paul Murray’s brilliant tragicomedy to Barbra Streisand’s epic memoir, Guardian critics pick the year’s best fiction, politics, science, children’s books and more. Tell us about your favourite books in the comments

Three book jackets

Zadie Smith’s first foray into historical fiction, medieval magical realism from Salman Rushdie and Paul Murray’s Booker-shortlisted tragicomedy – Justine Jordan looks back on the year in fiction.

Read all fiction

Children’s books

Three book jackets

From poignant stories of love and grief to picture books about rockets and ogres, Imogen Russell Williams picks the best books for children, including titles by Carnegie-winning Katya Balen and children’s laureate Joseph Coelho.

Read all children’s books

Young adult books

Three book jackets

Imogen Russell Williams highlights five of the best books for teenagers, including a superb graphic memoir, a poignant family saga and a chilling murder mystery.

Read all young adult books

Crime and thrillers

Three book jackets

Laura Wilson ’s pick of the year’s page-turners, from cosy crime by Richard Osman and Janice Hallett to spy novels, historical crime and psychological thrillers.

Read all crime and thrillers

Science fiction and fantasy

Three book jackets

A Booker-longlisted story of cosmic exploration, a historical multiverse novel and a military tale in space – Adam Roberts chooses five of the best science fiction and fantasy books.

Read all science fiction and fantasy

Translated fiction

Three book jackets

John Self ’s top five novels in translation, including a colourful and eccentric South Korean tale and the late Spanish author Javier Marías’s final page-turner.

Read all translated fiction

Three book jackets

Jilly Cooper’s take on the world of football, a film tie-in edition of Red, White & Royal Blue, and Rebecca Yarros’s romantasy bestseller – Jenny Colgan showcases five of the best novels about love and romance.

Read all romance

Biography and memoir

Three book jackets

From vivid accounts of siblings and grief to Barbra Streisand’s doorstopper, Fiona Sturges selects the best books about people’s lives.

Read all biography and memoir

Three book jackets

Gaby Hinsliff on memoirs and biographies across the political spectrum, an insider account of Trump’s White House and a humorous take on the tumultuous last two years in No 10.

Read all politics

Three book jackets

Emma John picks five of the year’s best sport books, including the story of how Graham Taylor and Elton John turned Watford Football Club around, a biography of tennis heroine Althea Gibson and an oral history about the brutality of horse racing.

Read all sport

Three book jackets

Feminism, the climate crisis, artificial intelligence and vaccines are just some of the topics explored in Steven Poole ’s roundup of books that take on the world’s big questions.

Read all ideas

Three book jackets

Rishi Dastidar chooses the year’s best collections, from a new translation of The Iliad to Forward prize winners that examine race and identity.

Read all poetry

Graphic novels

Three book jackets

A new memoir from Pulitzer winner Darrin Bell, a story about an imagined world in which wishes can be granted and an affecting collection of manga – James Smart picks out the finest comics and graphic books.

Read all graphic novels

Three book jackets

Alexis Petridis chooses his five favourite music books of the year, from homages to dance music and 90s/00s pop to a look at the role LGBTQ people played in the early days of blues.

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Three book jackets

Rachel Roddy on five of the best food books of the year, which include a study of food’s role in national identity, a brilliant vegetarian cookbook and an engrossing history of rice.

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To browse all of the Guardian and Observer’s best books of 2023 visit guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply.

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The best new science fiction books of February 2024

From a new Jasper Fforde to post-apocalyptic hellscapes aplenty, February’s science fiction offers something for everyone

By Alison Flood

1 February 2024

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A priestess can manipulate space-time in Meredith Mooring’s debut novel

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Now we have finally moved on from an interminable January, it is time to see what science fictional delights February has in store – and it’s a varied line-up this month. I am looking forward to some enjoyably disastrous-sounding postapocalyptic novels from Daniel Polansky and Paul E. Hardisty – I love a good tale of a world in ruins – and I’m also going to make time for the latest novel from Jasper Fforde, a writer who I have loved ever since The Eyre Affair came out in 2001. Top of my list to track down, though, is Meredith Mooring’s Redsight – starring a blind priestess who can manipulate space-time.

Tomorrow’s Children by Daniel Polansky

Nothing can cheer me up more than a good post-apocalyptic romp, and the new novel from Hugo Award nominee Polansky sounds like a corker. Manhattan has been enveloped by the funk, a “noxious cloud” that separates it from the world and mutates its population. Generations on, those who remain are focused only on surviving, when the first tourist in centuries arrives on the Island.

The Descent by Paul E. Hardisty

This is waiting on my desk at home for the moment I get a minute to read it. It is the prequel to climate emergency thriller The Forcing , and sees Kweku Ashworth, who was born on a sailboat as his parents fled disaster, setting out to uncover what led the world to cataclysm. More post-apocalyptic disaster – great!

Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde

This is the sequel to Fforde’s bestselling Shades of Grey , set in a society where hierarchy is determined by the colours you can see, following “Something that Happened” 500 years earlier. When Eddie Russett and Jane Grey discover this might make no sense at all, and could potentially be unfair, they investigate.

12 extraordinary science fiction books to watch out for in 2024

From a new Adrian Tchaikovsky novel to pandemic echoes in Haruki Murakami's The City and its Uncertain Walls (fingers crossed we get an English translation), there is loads of excellent science fiction reading ahead next year, says Sally Adee

Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee

Unemployed and in debt, Jonathan Abernathy takes a job as a dream auditor, which will see him entering workers’ dreams to remove their anxieties so they can be more productive. I love this brilliantly sinister idea, and this novel has been described by one reviewer as the “spiritual sibling of Severance , but creepier”, which is right up my street.

Plastic: A Novel by Scott Guild

This sounds delightfully weird: plastic girl Erin lives in a plastic world, where she sells her fellow plastic people a form of wearable tech called a Smartbody, which allows them to fully immerse themselves in a virtual world as a refuge from real life and its wars. “Profound, hilarious, wrenching, bizarre, about an imaginary universe with incalculable complexities that is also somehow our own broken world,” says author Elizabeth McCracken.

The best new science fiction books of January 2024

From Machine Vendetta by Alastair Reynolds to Tlotlo Tsamaase’s Womb City and Ali Millar’s Ava Anna Ada, January’s sci-fi will chase the New Year blues away

Redsight by Meredith Mooring

I like the sound of the heroine, Korinna, in Mooring’s debut novel: she is a blind priestess who can manipulate space-time, but who has been raised to believe she is weak and useless. When she takes a job as a navigator on an Imperium ship, she discovers she is meant to become a weapon for the Imperium – but then her ship is attacked by a notorious pirate, Aster Haran, and Korinna’s world changes.

Exordia by Seth Dickinson

“Michael Crichton meets Marvel’s Venom ,” says the publisher of this story of Anna, a refugee and survivor of genocide, who joins a team investigating a “mysterious broadcast and unknowable horror” as “humanity reels from disaster”. I’m loving the drama we are being promised here.

Twice Lived by Joma West

Tipped by our former sci-fi columnist Sally Adee as one to watch out for in 2024, there are two Earths in this set-up, existing in parallel, which “shifters” can cross between. Canna and Lily are the same person, shifting randomly between worlds, lives and families, but they need to settle in one of them – and how can they prepare their loved ones for their final disappearance?

How I Won a Nobel Prize by Julius Taranto

Maybe this debut novel isn’t science fiction per se, but it is fiction about science and it sounds intriguing, so I wanted to mention it. It sees young physicist Helen, who is on a quest to save the planet, decide to follow her mentor (who has been involved in a sex scandal with a student) to an island research institute giving safe harbour to disgraced artists and scientists.

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The Bone Hunters is loosely inspired by the life of 19th-century palaeontologist Mary Anning

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The Bone Hunters by Joanne Burn

Again, not science fiction but fiction about science, and pitched as The Essex Serpent meets Ammonite , so hard to say no to, for me at least. Loosely drawing from the life of the pioneering 19 th -century palaeontologist Mary Anning, this is set in 1824 Lyme Regis, Dorset, UK, when 24-year-old Ada Winters uncovers some “unusual fossils” on the cliffs.

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Historical Fiction

New Historical Fiction That Immerses You in Far-Flung Places

From England and France to the deepest Arctic and northern China, these stories will transport you.

  • Share full article

This illustration shows a man peering into an old-fashioned camera at silhouettes of five people standing outside on a snowy night. The drawing is done in shades of blue and red.

By Alida Becker

Alida Becker was an editor at the Book Review for 30 years. She was the first winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for excellence in reviewing.

Anne Michaels has served as Toronto’s poet laureate, so it’s no surprise that her latest novel, HELD (Knopf, 240 pp., $27), turns a multigenerational family saga into a lyrical jigsaw of images and observations, a trigger to “the long fuse of memory, always alight.” It begins in the trenches of World War I with a soldier’s impressions of what’s essentially a “450-mile grave” and ends in the near future as one of his descendants walks the streets of a city on the Gulf of Finland.

In between, Michaels’s narrative glides gracefully back and forth in time, from North Yorkshire in the 1920s to rural Suffolk in the 1980s, then all the way to 1908 Paris. John, the soldier we first meet in 1917, returns from the war to his wife, Helena, and his photography studio. Haunted by what he has seen (or not seen), he leaves a legacy that will send his daughter and granddaughter to other front lines, this time working in field hospitals and refugee camps, “the most dangerous places.”

Each brief chapter is filled with deftly sketched characters: a war correspondent tasked with writing “what no one could bear to read”; a widow encountering an unexpectedly kindred spirit as she trudges across a snowy landscape; even Marie Curie, whose courage is recalled by one of her closest friends. Throughout, these stories spark both poignant connections and provocative divergences. Those whose lives follow John’s must find their own way to survive in this “new world, with new degrees of grief, many more degrees in the scale of blessedness and torment.”

Survival — and how far a person will go to achieve it — is at the heart of Ally Wilkes’s WHERE THE DEAD WAIT (Emily Bestler Books/Atria, 388 pp., $27.99), which her publisher aptly describes as “an eerie, atmospheric Polar Gothic.” William Day was a lowly young fourth lieutenant when the deaths of his superior officers gave him command of a ship stranded in the Arctic ice. He made it back to civilization, but emerged with the cannibalistic moniker “Eat-Em-Fresh Day.” Thirteen years later, his former second-in-command, a dashing American named Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the very same region. Now, in the winter of 1882, the Admiralty orders Day to go find him.

Complications abound, both logistical and psychological. Day’s relationship with Stevens was intense, to say the very least. And as the new expedition becomes trapped in the Far North, Day is haunted by the earlier group’s travails, presented in alternating chapters. Eating human flesh may not have been the only horrific act committed back then, and new crimes could be uncovered in Stevens’s wake. Even the lost adventurer’s domineering wife, a spirit medium who travels with a “pet skull,” begins to doubt the wisdom of joining this ill-fated mission.

The ice has “swung shut behind them like a cemetery gate,” leading Day’s crew toward a possible mutiny. Haunting visions and ominous clues leave no one’s sanity untested. What is the significance of a hideous mask made from the hide of a killer whale? Of unearthing the figurehead of a ship that was supposed to have sunk hundreds of miles away? True to the novel’s title, there are plenty of dead men waiting to be found. And it’s not just the light that “plays tricks out here.”

One of the shape-shifting tricksters from Chinese folklore is the unlikely yet convincing narrator of Yangsze Choo’s witty and suspenseful THE FOX WIFE (Holt, 400 pp., $27.99). Calling herself Snow, she makes her way through northern Manchuria and Japan in 1908 in female guises, intent on hunting down the man responsible for the death of her cub. In the process, she illuminates the realities of a hidebound society on the brink of change: “If there ever was a time for ghosts and foxes to appear, it’s now,” when the last imperial dynasty is failing and uncertainty is everywhere.

For most of the novel, Snow’s pursuit of a Manchurian named Bektu Nikan runs parallel to another quest featuring Bao, a former teacher who has earned a reputation as an amateur detective. His attempt to investigate the death of a courtesan will eventually lead him to Snow — and the solution of a mystery from his youth, when he and his childhood sweetheart left offerings for the fox god at an improvised altar.

Following various clues, Snow and Bao take the reader into the households of aristocrats and peasants, urban centers and rural villages. Their inquiries will soon enmesh them in the dramas of a merchant family convinced that a curse has doomed their son. Young men dabbling in revolutionary politics and a photographer with a bent for blackmail add complexity to the plot, as do a pair of foxes who masquerade as attractive gentlemen. Shiro is the less savory of the two, fond of romancing rich, bored women. Kuro, a novelist, is more honorable, albeit more enigmatic. But this is Snow’s story, and although she relishes being able to live either as a fox or as a woman, she is aware that “neither are safe forms in a world run by men.”

Explore More in Books

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In Lucy Sante’s new memoir, “I Heard Her Call My Name,” the author reflects on her life and embarking on a gender transition  in her late 60s.

For people of all ages in Pasadena, Calif., Vroman’s Bookstore, founded in 1894, has been a mainstay in a world of rapid change. Now, its longtime owner says he’s ready to turn over the reins .

The graphic novel series “Aya” explores the pains and pleasures of everyday life in a working-class neighborhood  in West Africa with a modern African woman hero.

Like many Nigerians, the novelist Stephen Buoro has been deeply influenced by the exquisite bedlam of Lagos, a megacity of extremes. Here, he defines the books that make sense of the chaos .

Do you want to be a better reader?   Here’s some helpful advice to show you how to get the most out of your literary endeavor .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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