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36 Exciting New Book Releases for 2024

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Liberty Hardy

Senior Contributing Editor

Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until then, she lives with her three cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, in Maine. She is also right behind you. Just kidding! She’s too busy reading. Twitter: @MissLiberty

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Not only are the lists of the year’s best books rolling in, so you can add titles to your TBR, but it’s time to talk about upcoming books…so you can add titles to your TBR. Your TBR is going to explode! Next year is shaping up to be an incredible year for readers, so we’ve got a little preview for you. It wasn’t easy to choose, but here are 36 of the most exciting new book releases 2024 has to offer to get you started.

These are some of the buzziest books headed to shelves next year. There’s something here for everyone, from debut authors to beloved authors to authors who are no longer with us (sounds spooky, right??!)! It seems like a dream, but the follow-up to My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris is really happening in 2024. There’s a new Tana French mystery on the horizon. Stephen King has a new book coming, natch. And the legendary Kelly Link is releasing her debut novel. Truly, there’s so much here to get excited about!

A note: These are the projected release dates for these books as of this writing. Release dates are subject to change without notice, and if that happens, we’ll be sad too.

Now, let’s get down to book business!

January

cover of 1000 Words by Jami Attenberg; cream with orange font

1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg (S&S/Simon Element, January 9)

Jami Attenberg has taken her wildly popular online writing movement #1000wordsofsummer, and turned it into a book of advice and inspiration for writers. More than 50 writers contributed their wisdom, including Carmen Maria Machado, Roxane Gay, Lauren Groff, and Celeste Ng.

cover of Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino; purple with white font

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 16)

Marie-Helene Bertino, author of several books, including the delightful novel Parakeet, returns with the story of a child born in Philadelphia who senses she is not entirely from Earth. As she grows older, she navigates the highs and lows of the human world while also receiving messages from her extraterrestrial family.

cover of Your Utopia: Stories Bora Chung; yellow with a white robot with red eyes

Your Utopia: Stories by Bora Chung, Anton Hur (translator) (Algonquin Books, January 30)

Bora Chung’s debut collection of stories, Cursed Bunny, was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize and the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature. This is another fantastic collection, translated from Korean, that combines big topics such as technology, human absurdity, and mortality. And she does it in the most amazing ways.

cover of Come and Get It by Kiley Reid; bright green with an illustration of a pig

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, January 30)

Kiley Reid burst on the literary scene in 2020 with her debut novel Such a Fun Age. (Okay, so it technically came out on the last day of 2019, but you get the idea.) In her second novel, Reid is dishing up drama about the grand dreams and complicated relationships of a residential assistant at the University of Arkansas.

cover of Be a Revolution by Ijeoma Oluo

Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World—and How You Can, Too by Ijeoma Oluo (HarperOne, January 30)

A new book from The New York Times bestselling author of So You Want to Talk About Race and Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America! Award-winning author Oluo discusses antiracist activism in America and offers advice on how people can affect positive, lasting change.

February

cover of Greta & Valdin by Rebecca Reilly; image of limes in an orange mesh bag

Greta & Valdin by Rebecca Reilly (Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, February 6)

And this is one of the most buzzed-about debut novels of the beginning of the year. Two siblings who share a flat have romantic misadventures and meddling family problems as they try to get through life as functioning adults. It’s being billed as for fans of fans of Schitt’s Creek and Sally Rooney’s Normal People.

cover of The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden; illustration of hands holding a rose

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden (Del Rey, February 13)

Katherine Arden, author of The Bear and the Nightingale, takes two tragedies of the early 20th century and weaves a fantastical, heartbreaking story. After the munitions explosion in Halifax, Canada, kills her parents, wounded World War I nurse Laura Iven receives word that her brother has also been killed fighting overseas. Not wanting to let go, Laura travels back to Belgium to find out what really happened to him.

cover of The Book of Love by Kelly Link; red with different phases of the moon

The Book of Love by Kelly Link (Random House, February 13)

Holy cats, it’s a novel from Kelly Link! Kelly Linnnnnnnnnnk! The Pulitzer-nominated author, bookstore owner, and chicken wrangler has several collections of stories, but this is her first novel. And it’s a doozy! It’s over 600 pages about three teenagers in a small town who are returned from the dead to be used in a magical game of good versus evil.

cover of Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story by Leslie Jamison; collage of author's photos

Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story by Leslie Jamison (Little, Brown and Company, February 20)

From the author of The Recovering and The Empathy Exams comes Leslie Jamison’s examination of the end of a marriage: her own. She discusses how we lose ourselves in others, her love for her young daughter, her own parents’ relationship, and what it means to move on from something you didn’t imagine would happen.

cover of In Ascension by Martin MacInnes; photo of a woman in the ocean

In Ascension by Martin MacInnes (Grove Press, Black Cat, February 27)

In this Booker Prize-longlisted novel, a young microbiologist’s beliefs about science and the world are called into question when a large trench is discovered on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

cover of The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin; illustration of a Black woman in 1800s dress carrying a tray of glasses

The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin (One World, February 27)

Maurice Carlos Ruffin, the award-winning author of We Cast a Shadow, has written a fantastic work of historical fiction this time around. It’s about Ady, a young enslaved woman in the French Quarter of New Orleans, who joins a group of spies working to undermine the Confederacy.

cover of King Nyx by Kirsten Bakis; image of a large black bird in front of an island

King Nyx by Kirsten Bakis (Liveright, February 27)

It has been over two decades since the release of Kirsten Bakis’s debut, Lives of the Monster Dogs, which has since garnered a cult following. Fans only have to wait a couple more months to get their hands on her new novel, a work of historical fiction. It’s set on an ominous island estate, with mysterious disappearances and strange happenings, where a woman must decide if her life is worth an advancement in her scientist husband’s work.

March

cover of The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez; red with a flower border

The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez (Ecco, March 5)

From the author of The Book of Unknown Americans comes this ambitious novel about the building of the Panama Canal. At least at least 25,000 workers died over the 30 years it took to construct the Canal. In The Great Divide, Cristina Henríquez imagines the lives of these unknown people, from construction workers to doctors to activists.

cover of The Hunter by Tana French; image of a white farmhouse under an orange sky

The Hunter by Tana French (Viking, March 5)

A new Tana French novel is always reason to celebrate! In this follow-up to The Searcher, retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper’s attempts at building a quiet life in the Irish countryside are threatened when his girlfriend’s long-lost father returns to town with trouble on his mind.

cover of Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange; blue with orange stars and black font

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (Knopf, February 27)

Tommy Orange’s debut novel There, There was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a huge success with readers and critics. He returns to the history of some of the characters in that book, following three generations of a family from the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School to the present.

cover of Until August by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; image of a marble statue of a woman

Until August by Gabriel García Márquez, Anne McLean (translator) (Knopf, March 12)

Gabriel García Márquez is the late Colombian, Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. This is his newly rediscovered novel about a happily married woman who travels for one night in August every year to take a new lover.

cover of Memory Piece by Lisa Ko; image of pink fire

Memory Piece by Lisa Ko (Riverhead Books, March 19)

And this is the eagerly anticipated new novel from the author of the National Book Award finalist, The Leavers! It follows three close friends from their teenage years in the 1980s to their joys and disappointments as young adults to their future lives in the 2040s.

cover of There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib; photo of a Black boy sitting in a basketball hoop

There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House, March 26)

Hanif Abdurraqib has been reliably releasing amazing nonfiction every year or two now for a decade. He’s the author of such award-nominated books as They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us and A Little Devil in America. His new book is about growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, around the time of the rise of basketball star LeBron James. It’s a smart, thoughtful examination of home, role models, society, fame, and more.

April

cover of The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez; illustration of a woman lying in the grass with vines growing from her mouth

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez (Algonquin Books, April 2)

This new novel from the legendary author of In the Time of Butterflies is about a writer who decides to literally bury all her unfinished stories in a plot of inherited land. But the words still speak to her, even from beyond their grave.

cover of The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo; illustration of a hand holding a chain

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron Books, April 9)

Leigh Bardugo is the NYT bestselling author of the Grishaverse young adult series, which includes Shadow and Bone and the Ninth House series for adults. This is one of 2024’s most anticipated books, a new historical fantasy for adults set during the Spanish Golden Age

cover of A Better World by Sarah Langan; image of a neighborhood at sunset upside down

A Better World by Sarah Langan (Atria Books, April 9)

From the author of the excellent, anxiety-inducing novel Good Neighbors comes an even more delightfully horrifying story of family, classism, social niceties, and secrets. When Linda and her family gain entry into an ultra-exclusive neighborhood that will shield them from the dying rest of the world, it feels like their dreams have come true. But be careful what you wish for.

cover of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Vol. 2 by Emil Ferris; illustration of a young monster child with fangs

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Vol. 2 by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics, April 9)

ALL THE HEART EYES. This is definitely one of the most anticipated books of the year…if not the decade. Since the release of the first volume of this incredible adult graphic novel several years ago, about a young child detective who feels like a monster, readers have been clamoring for the second part. And it’s finally happening!

cover of Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie; cream with a slash for the I in knife

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (Random House, April 16)

The legendary author Salman Rushdie has written an account of being attacked while at a reading in August of 2022, more than three decades after Ayatollah Khomeini called for his assassination upon the publication of The Satanic Verses. Rushdie was severely injured in the attack and is expected to testify at his attacker’s trial in January.

cover of The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djeli Clark; photo of a young Black woman with cat's ears, a lace mask, and daggers

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom, April 23)

When young, deadly assassin Eveen the Eviscerator is assigned a new job, it seems straightforward. But there’s a complication she never could have expected, and when the whole job goes sideways, she finds herself on the run from the very people who hired her. This has Liberty’s early vote for her favorite book of the year! (Note: there are no dead cats in this book. It’s just a name.)

cover of The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan; illustrations of birds

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan (Knopf, April 23)

The amazing Amy Tan is probably best known for her novels, such as The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter’s Daughter. In this new book, she chronicles her new-found love of birdwatching, which started at the beginning of the pandemic, and shares some of the amazing illustrations she made of the birds she saw.

May

cover of Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru; painting of a man's face peering out of the clouds

Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru (Knopf, May 14)

From the award-nominated author of White Tears and Red Pill comes a new novel about an undocumented artist during the pandemic who encounters an old flame. Jay’s circumstances are not what he imagined they’d be two decades ago when he was with Alice, and he hopes she doesn’t recognize him behind his mask while they’re in quarantine.

cover of You Like It Darker: Stories by Stephen King; photo of a dark island in the ocean

You Like It Darker: Stories by Stephen King (Scribner, May 21)

Stephen King needs no introduction: he’s one of the best-selling authors of all time. He has a new collection of twelve tales of terror releasing this spring, his first story collection in some time, many of which have never before been published.

cover of Exhibit by R. O. Kwon; photo of an arm against black and tan paint

Exhibit by R. O. Kwon (Riverhead Books, May 21)

R. O. Kwon, the author of the bestselling novel The Incendiaries, is back! At a fancy party, a young photographer who seems to have it all finds herself drawn to a stranger. When she breaks a familial promise by telling the alluring stranger about a family curse, she then starts to wonder as the days go by if the curse is now coming true.

June

cover of Fire Exit by Morgan Talty; illustration of red fire with black font

Fire Exit by Morgan Talty (Tin House Books, June 4)

Morgan Talty’s debut collection of stories, Night of the Living Rez, garnered more accolades and awards than most of the other books released this century. Seriously! So readers are SO excited for his debut novel, about a man with a secret and an addiction who is trying to hold on to his family and his life.

cover of Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe; illustration of a blonde woman in an orange sweater lying facedown on a pink couch

Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe (William Morrow, June 11)

The cover for the new Rufi Thorpe hasn’t even been shared yet, but it has already been announced that the book is being made into a film with Nicole Kidman and Elle and Dakota Fanning producing! It’s about a young woman who is trying to figure out her life while in college when she becomes pregnant, and her financial troubles snowball from there.

cover of The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei; image of the Milky Way with a tentacle sticking out

The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei (Flatiron Books, June 11)

Yume Kitasei’s fantastic debut sci-fi mystery, The Deep Sky, was a Book Riot favorite. Now she’s back with another thrilling sci-fi adventure, this one about the galaxy’s best art thief and one last job to help save an alien civilization.

cover of Bear by Julia Phillips; image of a rainbow forest

Bear by Julia Phillips (Hogarth, June 25)

Julia Phillips is the author of the bestselling novel Disappearing Earth, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. This exciting new book is about two sisters on a Pacific Northwest island and a mysterious visitor in the woods.

July

cover of This Great Hemisphere by Mateo Askaripour ; illustration of bright outline of a person standing on a mountain against a colorful sky

This Great Hemisphere by Mateo Askaripour (Dutton, July 9)

Mateo Askaripour grabbed everyone’s attention with his first novel, Black Buck. His new novel is a speculative story about a young woman who is searching for her brother, who is the main suspect in a murder case. The problem: she thought he was dead.

cover of I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones; image of an empty floating hoodie

I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones (S&S/Saga Press, July 16)

Stephen Graham Jones has fast become one the the best, most beloved horror writers of our time. Hot on the heels of the conclusion of his Indian Lake Trilogy in March comes a new novel about a teenager in Texas in the 1980s who is cursed to become a killer.

August

cover of Hum by Helen Phillips; white with green eye shapes

Hum by Helen Phillips (S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books, August 6)

In this incisive look at humans and the future of artificial intelligence, a woman desperate to support her family after losing her job to AI agrees to an experiment that alters her face to make it unrecognizable to surveillance technology. It’s sure to be another stunner from Helen Phillips, the author of the National Book Award longlisted novel The Need.

cover of The Palace of Eros by Caro De Robertis

The Palace of Eros by Caro De Robertis (Atria Books, August 13)

From the bestselling author of The President and the Frog and Cantoras comes a new queer, feminist retelling of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros. When Psyche’s father decides to get rid of her to appease Aphrodite, she is somehow spared from the monsters. Instead, she is discovered by Eros, who falls in love with her. And against the wishes of the gods, they continue their relationship.


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