The Curse of Pietro Houdini boasts a little bit of everything—a truly fascinating setting; rich, quirky characters; tragedy, suspense, warmth and humor. Derek B. Miller has shown the range of his talents in six previous novels, but this may be his masterpiece.
It’s a special gift when a favorite poet writes a novel. Martyr! is Kaveh Akbar’s fiction debut, after poetry collections Calling a Wolf a Wolf and Pilgrim Bell. It tells the story of Cyrus Shams, a young Iranian American poet recovering from addiction who, following the deaths of his parents, has become fixated on the idea of martyrdom.
Come and Get It is a return to the uncomfortable-yet-fascinating social commentary that made Kiley Reid’s debut, Such a Fun Age, so engrossing (and a bestseller, too!). When a visiting professor at the University of Arkansas begins paying a resident assistant to let her listen in on the conversations of a wealthy group of students, using their gossip as writing material, everyone ends up in murky moral territory.
The stunning, evocative cover of this historical novel is reason enough to add it to your TBR: a lone woman in red walks through winter wilderness, reflected in a frozen pond as a snow-white fox. Of course, readers of The Night Tiger would be eagerly awaiting Yangsze Choo’s next book even if the cover were a paper bag. This epic adventure set in Manchuria at the very end of the Qing Dynasty promises to bring together mystery and legend to vibrant effect.
This remarkable novel is both a prequel and a sequel to Tommy Orange’s Pulitzer Prize finalist, There There, picking up with his unforgettable characters Orvil Red Feather and Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield. Beginning in 1864 with the Sand Creek Massacre, Orange takes readers back in time to tell the stories of these characters’ ancestors, before sweeping forward to 2018 and the aftermath of the tragic shooting at the heart of There There.
Kirsten Bakis, author of Lives of the Monster Dogs, creates an atmosphere of gut-churning dread from the very first chapter of King Nyx. This is a scary good book.
Xochitl Gonzalez is back with a campus novel entwining the stories of two women: an artist, Anita de Monte, who died mysteriously in 1985, and an art history student, Raquel, who is determined to uncover what happened to Anita and bring new attention to her art. Like she did in her bestselling, award-winning debut, Olga Dies Dreaming, Gonzalez turns a sharp, thoughtful eye to the costs of success, this time in the elitist, and often racist and sexist, worlds of art and academia.
Cristina Henriquez’s polyvocal novel is a moving and powerful epic about the human cost of building the Panama Canal. It’s easy to imagine, in these snippets of lives, just how many more love stories, deaths, migrations, protests and other life-altering moments occurred during the canal’s construction.
If you’ve read Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Booker Prize-winning Flights or The Books of Jacob in English, then you’ve also read the work of Jennifer Croft, her accomplished translator. The Extinction of Irena Rey is Croft’s first novel, and it has a delightfully clever metafictional premise: Irena Rey, an enigmatic and brilliant author, has vanished after bringing eight translators to her home in the heart of an ancient Polish forest, ostensibly to begin translating her latest masterwork. The scramble to solve the mystery of Irena’s disappearance is heightened by Croft’s conceit that The Extinction of Irena Rey was written and translated by two of the translator characters. As you follow them through the woods hunting for clues, you’ll wonder how this account could have been skewed or altered by its layers of linguistic permutations.
Colombian literary icon and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez died in 2014, after a long career of groundbreaking novels and short stories. Published for the first time this spring, his novella Until August follows a married woman who travels to a Caribbean island each August to spend one night with a new lover.
In an era of retellings, Percival Everett’s James stands out for staying true to Mark Twain’s voice, tale-spinning talent and humor, while also accurately depicting what Twain failed to acknowledge: the reality of life for enslaved people.
Téa Obreht’s latest novel, The Morningside, soars in its depiction of an alternative world frighteningly similar to our own.
If you love Louise Kennedy (Trespasses, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac), Anna Burns (Milkman) and Claire Keegan (Small Things Like These, So Late in the Day) as much as we do, you’ll want to check out Wild Houses. Debut novelist Colin Barrett is the author of two much lauded short story collections. He writes hilarious, piercing and inventive tales often set in fictional Irish towns like Ballina, where Wild Houses’ protagonist, quiet, exceedingly tall Dev Hendrick, is dragged into the kidnapping of a drug dealer’s teenage brother.
It’s in moments of earnest wonder that Leif Enger’s I Cheerfully Refuse is most compelling, like the brief but glorious clearing of a tempestuous sky.
As in her debut novel, West, Carys Davies writes exquisitely of the wilderness in Clear, telling the tale of two men who connect on a nearly uninhabited Scottish island during the Highland Clearances of the 1800s, when many rural Scots were forcibly evicted from their land.
Magical and multifaceted, Julia Alvarez’s meditation on creativity, culture and aging, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is a triumph.
A Pulitzer Prize winner for her novel A Thousand Acres, author Jane Smiley crafts literary delights, from her moving historical Last Hundred Years trilogy to her wonderful, animal-led adventure, Perestroika in Paris. Lucky features Jodie Rattler, a folk musician from St. Louis who, through some blend of fate, chance and hard work, becomes a national star.
In Rachel Khong’s multigenerational saga, Real Americans, science and philosophy sit cheek by jowl with history and elements of magic.
The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club brings to life a historical moment, just after WWI, when both everything and nothing had changed for women in England—plus a summer’s worth of fresh seaside descriptions and romantic entanglements.
Long Island revisits Eilis Lacey more than 20 years after the events of Colm Toíbín’s 2009 novel, Brooklyn, which introduced readers to this self-possessed, elusive young woman.
With thrilling, adventurous sentences, Claire Messud leads readers along the elusive edges of life, where family and national histories entwine. Her understanding of the human soul is profound.
Kevin Kwan pens delightful, bestselling tales of romance and intrigue among Asia’s ultrawealthy (Crazy Rich Asians, Sex and Vanity). His next, Lies and Weddings, sounds extra fun: To get his illustrious family out of debt, Rufus needs to find an astronomically rich woman to marry from among the guests at his sister’s Hawaiian wedding. Twists ensue, including secrets, murder, volcanic eruption and, most outrageous of all, love.
Morgan Talty follows up Night of the Living Rez with Fire Exit, a beautifully written novel that is sometimes funny, often heartbreaking and hopeful against all odds.
David Wroblewski’s second novel, Familiaris, leaps back two generations from The Story of Edgar Sawtelle to follow John Sawtelle and his wife Mary as they develop the first generations of an amazingly sensitive breed of dogs.
John Vercher’s first novel, Three Fifths, a crime thriller about a young white-passing biracial man who gets implicated in a hate crime when his best friend returns from prison as a white supremacist, was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. His new effort, Devil Is Fine, sounds similarly riveting and thorny: In the wake of his son’s death, a biracial Black father inherits land that was once a plantation.
It’s hard to think of another current author with Akwaeke Emezi’s genre-disrupting range. After following up their bestselling literary novel The Death of Vivek Oji with the gorgeous romance You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty, Emezi is pivoting again, this time in a darker direction. Following five friends over the course of one chaotic, devastating weekend, the thrilling Little Rot is sure to be a page turner, and we can’t wait.
Julia Phillips’ second novel follows two sisters on one of the San Juan islands who are struggling to support themselves by catering to wealthy vacation homeowners. Sam and Elena both believe the only way out is to leave the island, until one day, a bear shows up at their door and throws their plans into uncertainty. Based on the Grimm fairy tale “Snow White and Rose Red,” Bear takes us to a wild, captivating place, just as Phillips did in her debut, Disappearing Earth, which was a National Book Award finalist.
Following his acerbic satire of modern office life, Black Buck, the widely acclaimed National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree is back with This Great Hemisphere, a speculative novel. In a far-off future world where some people are literally more visible than others, an invisible woman named Candace searches for her older brother, who is wanted for murder.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Silver Nitrate was one of our Best Books of 2023, so we’re excited to see what she has in store with The Seventh Veil of Salome. Set in Hollywood during the 1950s, it focuses on the rivalry between two actresses over the role of princess Salome.
Carys Davies sets Clear at the crux of two historic upheavals in 1800s Scotland but keeps her focus on her characters.
The acclaimed author’s latest family saga follows the French Algerian Cassars, who find themselves bit players in the global shifts following WWII.
With thrilling, adventurous sentences, Claire Messud leads readers along the elusive edges of life, where family and national histories entwine. Her understanding of the human soul is profound.
Whale Fall is a rich and quietly compelling novel that vividly captures the transformation of an isolated community in the British Isles.
For anyone intrigued by stories that highlight experiences with race, gender, self-love, family and friendship, skin & bones will resonate in more ways than one.
The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club brings to life a historical moment, just after WWI, when both everything and nothing had changed for women in England—plus a summer’s worth of fresh seaside descriptions and romantic entanglements.
As she crafts a journey that stretches from 2040 back to 2014, debut novelist Juli Min reveals how many small moments and secrets can shape who a couple—and a family—become.
Couldn’t get enough of Challengers, director Luca Guadagnino’s sophisticated and steamy story of a tennis pro love triangle? We’ve got some reading material for you.
Does warmer weather and the approach of summer have you feeling restless? Pick up one of these stories featuring journeys great and small.
Movingly read by author Diana Khoi Nguyen herself, the audiobook of Root Fractures offers a close approximation of attending a poetry reading.
Long Island revisits Eilis Lacey more than 20 years after the events of Colm Toibin’s 2009 novel, Brooklyn, which introduced readers to this self-possessed, elusive young woman.
There have been few works of contemporary fiction about menopause, and even fewer that are as erotic and funny as All Fours, the first novel from artist, filmmaker and author Miranda July in nearly a decade.
Natalie Naudus lends an articulate, emphatic voice to 26-year-old Enid, impressively capturing her varied shades of introspection, from reminiscence to anger to rueful comedy.
The campy humor, biting observations and poetic musings of Bad Habit’s heroine will leave a lasting impression on readers. This is queer fiction at its painful, honest, celebratory best.
In Rachel Khong’s multigenerational saga, Real Americans, science and philosophy sit cheek by jowl with history and elements of magic.
