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32 Standout Sophomore Novels to Read in 2025
If you’ve fallen in love with a debut novel in the last few years, there's a good chance that there’s a follow-up novel on the shelves or on the way that you'll also really, really like. But it can be easy to miss these sophomore novels; after all, as avid readers know, there are always so many books and so little time.
In an effort to remedy this problem, we’ve gathered below 32 sophomore novels from authors who have enjoyed high-profile debuts in the last few years. All of the books here are slated for a 2025 release, and we've ordered them by their announcedU.S. publication dates so you can sequence your reading. Keep in mind that we’re talking about debut and sophomore novels, specifically. Many of the writers below also publish outside the novel form�short fiction or nonfiction, say.
It's a trulyinteresting collection. Some of the writers here stick to thethemes or genre traditions introduced in their debuts. Others switch gears into a new direction entirely. In any case, you’ll find plenty to choose from below: literary fiction, romance, sci-fi, mystery-thrillers, horror, and at least one remarkably appealing heist story.
If you find anything you like, click on the cover art image for more details about each individual title. You can also use the Want to Read button to add books to your digital shelf.
A kind of gothic thriller for the digital age, Vantage Point is author Sara Sligar’s follow-up to her 2020 psychological suspense novel, Take Me Apart. The setup: When scandal erupts for the old-money Wieland family, young heiress Clara must deal with the distinctly modern problem of the leaked online sex tape. But is the video real? Gaslighting, blackmail, and deepfake technology may or may not be involved.
Publication date: January 14
Publication date: January 14
In the romance aisle, author Naina Kumar is back on shelves with the follow-up to last year’s Say You'll Be Mine. The gist: Divorcing couple Meena and Nikhil are ready to sign the papers when a sudden hurricane results in some additional—and not entirely unpleasant—domestic proximity. ŷ members clearly dig Kumar’s take on romance traditions and Indian American culture.
Publication date: January 14
Publication date: January 14
With her 2022 debut novel, Black Cake, author caught a tidal wave of critical and popular acclaim. Her much-anticipated follow-up, Good Dirt, is a multigenerational epic concerning an affluent Black family in New England, a childhood tragedy, and a stoneware heirloom of remarkable provenance. Bonus trivia: Wilkerson was born in New York, grew up in Jamaica, and now lives in Italy.
Publication date: January 28
Publication date: January 28
A romance writer trying to Get Away from It All in her beachside hometown finds herself contending with unexpected visitors from the sea, including sharks, sugar-addicted sea creatures, and a deceased friend from childhood. If that sounds like a lot of concept to pack into onebook, never fear. Author mixed together cats, aliens, TV, and bacon to great effect inher lauded debut, On Earth As It Is on Television.
Publication date: January 28
Publication date: January 28
In 1959, Freda Gilroy leaves the relatively friendly environs of Chicago to fight back against a world of festering racism in the South. In 1992, Freda’s daughter Tulip joins the next generation’s struggle in the wake of the Rodney King verdict. Author Nancy Johnson (2021’s The Kindest Lie) returns with a story about mothers and daughters, justice and action, and the abiding power of community.
Publication date: February 11
Publication date: February 11
In a dystopian future where literacy has been outlawed, two best friends fight back via renegade literature, a network of rebel allies, and a wounded Bengal tiger. That old chestnut. Following on his 2019 novel, Tears of the Trufflepig, author Fernando A. Flores expands his gonzo vision of a near-future Texas in which mere anarchy has been loosed in every direction.
Publication date: February 11
Publication date: February 11
Author Jinwoo Chong topped a pile of best-of lists in 2023 with the sophisticated sci-fi of his ambitious debut novel, Flux. For his next act, Chong returns to his temporal twist themes with the story of Jack Jr. (J.J.), a man who awakes from a two-year coma to find his world has changed…a lot. Granted a kind of compulsory second chance, Jack goes back home to his family’s sushi restaurant and rethinks the story arc of his life.
Publication date: March 4
Publication date: March 4
This looks like trouble: Following a big hurricane, a Louisiana bayou town is overtaken by an eldritch algae bloom that’s turning residents into sea monsters. Author Trang Thanh Tran won over a lot of YA horror fans with 2023’s She Is a Haunting, and her second novel expands intoclimate anxiety, queer romance, Vietnamese folklore, and Lovecraftian dread. The book also continues a run of remarkably cool book cover art.
Publication date: March 4
Publication date: March 4
The new novel from British author Natasha Brown (2021’s Assembly) initially presents as a mystery story—and a pretty good one, too: A young man is bludgeoned to death at a rave, held on a Yorkshire farm, with a solid gold bar. But there’s a mystery within the mystery as Brown details a journalist’s subsequent investigation and asks some hard questions about truth, perspective, and the power of language itself.
Publication date: March 4
Publication date: March 4
If you like your historical fiction with a splash of magical realism, and a talking scarecrow, consider the new novel from short story specialist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Karen Russell (Swamplandia!). The Antidote follows a group of characters in 1935 Nebraska and folds in elements both historical (the Dust Bowl) and imaginative (prairie witches). Underneath it all is an ecological parable with red-alert relevance.
Publication date: March 11
Publication date: March 11
Fidgeting restlessly at the intersection of dark satire and psychological thriller, Sanjena Sathian’s Goddess Complex follows a desperate anthropologist trying to track down her missing ex. But as with her 2021 debut, Gold Diggers, Sathian’s story is threaded through with interesting themes and insights. In this case, issues of parenthood and pregnancy, identity and ambition, and the impossible complexity of 21st-century living.
Publication date: March 11
Publication date: March 11
An undercover journalist infiltrates a dangerous cult in California redwood country. Four Black soldiers try to survive the chaos of the Vietnam War. A documentary script uncovers details about the California cult and a Texas fundamentalist church. Author Nicole Cuffy (2023’s Dances) weaves three narrative threads into a dynamic new thriller with elements of historical fiction and real-world horror.
Publication date: March 18
Publication date: March 18
More goodies for the horror fan here as author Johanna van Veen invites readers to a creepy old mansion in the Netherlands, circa 1887. It seems that a young woman has been possessed by a malevolent entity, prompting her twin sister to investigate some old family secrets. Dutch author Johanna van Veen has a nice way with this gothic approach—check out her debut novel, My Darling Dreadful Thing.
Publication date: March 25
Publication date: March 25
To receive their shares of the family fortune, four estranged sisters must revitalize their family’s Vietnamese sandwich shops in run-down areas of Houston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and San Jose. The Family Recipe follows all four stories, plus a bonus fifth adventure with a wayward brother who can inherit everything if he marries. Author Carolyn Huynh specializes in stories of Vietnamese American identity, as with her debut, The Fortunes of Jaded Women.
Publication date: April 1
Publication date: April 1
What happens when a world-famous pop star catches feelings for an elite-level pro baseball player? Awesome things, usually, often in luxury vacation spots. But Ella Simone has a problem. She’s in the midst of a ferocious divorce from her music-mogul ex and under strict orders to stay out of the news headlines. Author Myah Ariel follows up on her 2024 debut, When I Think of You, with a thoroughly contemporary romance.
Publication date: April 1
Publication date: April 1
's firstnovel,Weyward,bagged her a double win for thehistorical fiction and debut categoriesin the 2023 ŷ Choice Awards. Her newest book weaves together two stories: In 2019, a sister goes missing from a town that's full of rumors of magic. In 1800, two women on a convict ship bound for Australia notice unexplainable changes occurring in their bodies. This kind of genre-bending, multi-timeline plot is fast becoming Hart's signature.
Publication date: April 1
Publication date: April 1
Kevin Nguyen follows up his 2020 heist story, New Waves, with some grim speculation on current and potential societal trajectories. My Documents follows the fate of four Vietnamese American cousins who get caught up in a federal crackdown after a series of mysterious terrorist attacks. Nguyen’s story deliberately invokes America’s real-life history of detention camps, updated with the scarier aspects of the Internet Age.
Publication date: April 8
Publication date: April 8
Author and cultural critic Morgan Jerkins made her nonfiction debut with the essay collection This Will Be My Undoing in 2018, and her fiction debut with Caul Baby in 2021. For her second novel, Jerkins goes both wide and deep with a multigenerational family saga of star-crossed lovers, the Great Migration, Mississippi circa 1865, and Harlem circa 2019. Jerkins is interested in the kind of love that spans eras and generations.
Publication date: April 22
Publication date: April 22
Runaway winner for our unofficial Best Book Title award, Blair Fell’s sophomore effort is set in and around New York City’s Fire Island gay community, circa 1989. The witches in question are plenty real, and they’re doing their best to protect the island from the HIV/AIDS epidemic ravaging the city. Fell (2022’s The Sign for Home) crosses queer romance with urban fantasy in the story of one young man’s extraordinary adventure.
Publication date: May 6
Publication date: May 6
Set in the despair-shrouded shadows of America’s marginalized edges, the new novel from authorOcean Vuongprofiles a deep and unusual friendship. When an elderly widow saves a teenage boy from attempted suicide, the two forge an unbreakable bond over the course of the subsequent year. Vuong, author of 2019’s On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, celebrates two of life’s abiding grace notes: chosen families and second chances.
Publication date: May 13
Publication date: May 13
If you like your speculative fiction thoughtful and unsettling, check out author Ling Ling Huang. Hernew book introduces an emerging technology designed to heighten empathy between people. But when a young art student tries it with her best friend, things get weird, fast. Huang’s first book, Natural Beauty, dealt with similar themes concerningtechnology and identity.
Publication date: May 13
Publication date: May 13
Old-school science fiction fans will want to make room for this one. Metallic Realms celebrates with the story of a Brooklyn writing group and their shared-universe creation, The Star Rot Chronicles. Author Lincoln Michel made several prestigious best-of lists with his 2021 debut, The Body Scout, and his new book looks like serious fun: Spacetime curvatures! Teenage melodrama! Solar whales!
Publication date: May 13
Publication date: May 13
The new novel from Marisa “Mac� Crane represents a shifting of the gears from their literary sci-fi debut, the delightfully imaginative I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself. For their sophomore effort, Crane offers a poignant coming-of-age story about two high school athletes, their unfolding love affair, a heartbreaking family tragedy, and the trickier parts of impending adulthood.
Publication date: May 13
Publication date: May 13
As a corporate lawyer and dissatisfied trans woman, Max is ready for a change. So when she tumbles down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve Party, Max decides to leverage the head-rattling experience and make one more go at the heteronormative life. Author Nicola Dinan (Bellies) employs a flashback structure to tell the story of Max; her straitlaced boyfriend, Vincent; and the universal complications of domesticity.
Publication date: May 27
Publication date: May 27
SFF short fiction maestro John Wiswell made a splash last year with his genre-defying, monster-POV debut novel, Someone You Can Build a Nest In. For his second feature-length story, Wiswell turns to Greek mythology for a wildly creative retelling of the Hercules legend. Wiswell’s tales have the shape of traditional fantasy, but he’s notorious for coloring outside the lines with empathetic wit and psychological depth.
Publication date: June 17
Publication date: June 17
Nikki Erlick’s 2022 novel, The Measure, announced a singular new voice in thoughtful, high-concept speculative fiction. Erlick rides a similar vibe with her second novel, which concerns a remote California research facility that offers a miraculous cure for grief and loss. When four strangers seek relief at this high-tech, mystical paradise, alarming discoveries lead to startling revelations.
Publication date: June 17
Publication date: June 17
Leila Mottley’s debut novel, Nightcrawling, was one of the most discussed books of 2022. She was longlisted for the Booker Prize that year, making her the youngest author ever nominated. Her highly anticipated second novel profiles four teenage mothers, cast out but sticking together in small-town Florida. Mottley brings insight, compassion, and new perspectives to the literary fiction aisle.
Publication date: June 24
Publication date: June 24
If you’re in the market for some cathartic reading, check out The Payback, a darkly humorous revenge fantasy about one woman’s stand against the predatory student loan industry. It’s a heist story, basically, but with the clever plotting and razor wit of author (and former Daily Show writer) Kashana Cauley. And if you like this one, be sure to double back to Cauley’s similarly caustic/funny 2023 debut, The Survivalists.
Publication date: July 15
Publication date: July 15
Back in the romance aisle: Muscogee pop star Avery Fox has just retreated to her grandmother’s ranch on an Oklahoma reservation. There was a scandal, it seems. That’s when she meets resident cowboy Lucas Iron Eyes, who is entirely unimpressed with her celebrity status. Nevertheless, sparks fly. Author Danica Navaexpands on the promise of her well-loved debut romance novel, The Truth According to Ember.
Publication date: July 22
Publication date: July 22
Thissophomore novel from Catherine Dang (Nice Girls) is an ambitious undertaking—a coming-of-age horror story wrestling with generational trauma and the Vietnamese immigrant experience. When a high school party goes awry, teenage Ronny Nyugen finds herself with a primal hunger for raw meat. Dang’s harrowing story turns emotional violence into something more literal, physical trauma into metaphysical rage.
Publication date: August 12
Publication date: August 12
' 2021 debutThe Sweetness of Waterwas longlisted for a whole slew of literary prizes, including a double nomination in the ŷ Choice Awards for theReaders' Favorite Historical and Debut Novel categories. In this highly anticipated second novel, Harris turns his pen to two siblings searching for each other and still-elusive freedom in the aftermath of the American Civil War.
Publication date: September 2
Publication date: September 2
Angela Flournoy, a National Book Award finalist for her 2015 novel, The Turner House, returns with the story of five young Black women as they navigate their various lives and loves over the course of 25 years. Flournoy combines a kinetic prose style with a willingness to dig deep into the mysteries of the human heart—and the fragility of the American dream. This is promising to be one of thebigger book events of the fall.
Publication date: September 25
Publication date: September 25
Ed. note: This article previously featured a book whose publication date has been moved to 2026. That title has been replaced.
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Mar 01, 2025 12:51AM
I have never smashed “want to read� as quickly as I did upon finding out John Wiswell has a new book coming out!! His first was hands down one of my favorite reads of 2024, AND it’s based on Hercules, aka one of the best Disney movies and soundtracks known to man outside Tarzan AND AND it’s released the week of my birthday????????? BE STILL MY BEATING HEART
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I can't believe I still haven't read Good Dirt. Is it good?
unrelated question that I am hoping someone can answer. Why do authors/publishers RErelease books with different titles and cover art????It is SOOOO frustrating to come across a book that looks good, but sounds familiar.I am grateful that MOST ,but not all, at least state somewhere in the description, that this novel was previously released under a different title. Is this strictly a money grab because it sure seems that way to me.
Mary wrote: "unrelated question that I am hoping someone can answer. Why do authors/publishers RErelease books with different titles and cover art????It is SOOOO frustrating to come across a book that looks goo..."It's mainly money grabbing, a lot of people will get a special edition of a cover over the normal/original which is why authors release so many different covers
Remember people if you are writing about Herakles, from the greek myth. To used his Greek name, Herakles and not his roman name Hercules. It speaks volumes when you are using the correct version
Mary wrote: "unrelated question that I am hoping someone can answer. Why do authors/publishers RErelease books with different titles and cover art????It is SOOOO frustrating to come across a book that looks goo..."Exactly!! It's sooo annoying. My favorite book, The Summer We Lost Her by Tish Cohen, was re-released with a different cover + title. I was SO excited!
I’m most looking forward to Ava Reid’s sophomore A Study in Drowning, which comes out in July of 2025.
