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Readers' Most Anticipated Books of April
Spring has sprung, and that’s good news for those of us who enjoy reading outdoors. Well, some of us insist on reading our books everywhere. In bed. At work. On the couch at a dinner party. On the train. In the rain. In a house. With a mouse. Anywhere at all, really.
New books coming in April: Jennifer Egan returns with another cerebral sci-fi scenario in The Candy House. Scottish author Douglas Stuart brings a story of dangerous love in Young Mungo. And the brilliant Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven!) considers the nature of time itself with Sea of Tranquility. Also on tap this month: Indian mythology, Chinese folklore, and a fairy tale in Memphis.
Each month the ŷ editorial team takes a look at the books that are being published in the U.S., readers' early reviews, and how many readers are adding these books to their Want to Read shelves (which is how we measure anticipation). We use the information to curate this list of hottest new releases.
Superstar author Emily St. John Mandel has been in the pop culture headlines of late thanks to the HBO Plus adaptation of her 2014 book, Station Eleven. The book and the series are both, frankly, awesome. Mandel also returns to the shelves this month with Sea of Tranquility, a kind of literary time-travel story with stops in 1912 Vancouver, the free city of Los Angeles circa 2203, and a lunar space station about 400 years from now.
Check out our recent conversation with Mandel about her new book.
Check out our recent conversation with Mandel about her new book.
This highly anticipated debut novel from author Tara M. Stringfellow unfolds over the course of 70 years, tracing one family line through the Memphis neighborhood of Douglass. Memphis is described by the author as the Black fairy tale she always wanted to read. The story is inspired by Stringfellow’s own family history and uses multiple voices to consider the values we pass to future generations, in our families and in our country.
Douglas Stuart’s sophomore novel, Young Mungo, chronicles the forbidden love of two working-class men in Glasgow, Scotland. Mungo comes from a Protestant family; James, from a Catholic one. Their bond is immediate, deep, and incredibly dangerous in this particular time and place. Stuart, the Booker Prize–winning author of Shuggie Bain, delivers a sustained meditation on masculinity, sectarianism, and violence.
Dedicated readers of historical fiction will want to bookmark this one, a particularly buzzy debut novel set in the American West circa 1880. The story follows the fortunes of a young woman named Daiyu, kidnapped from China and smuggled to America. As violent anti-Chinese bigotry rattles the continent, Daiyu must constantly reinvent herself in a desperate struggle to survive. Author Jenny Tinghui Zhang combines real history and Chinese folklore in a heartbreaking epic about one immigrant’s harrowing American experience.
Featuring characters from the 2011 Pulitzer Prize–winning A Visit from the Goon Squad, this cerebral sci-fi puzzler from author Jennifer Egan explores an intriguing idea: What if our memories could be extracted and externalized—bought, borrowed, traded, and sold? It’s a good question, considering that we now regularly delegate parts of our minds and memories to devices and multinational corporations. The Candy House is a deeply weird and fiercely intellectual investigation of our current moment in time.
Inspired by true events, Take My Hand transports readers back to Alabama, circa 1973, where Black nursing school graduate Civil Townsend has just begun work at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic. Down a dusty lane, in a one-room cabin, Civil meets two young girls and tries to right a most terrible wrong. This new novel from Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Wench) reminds us that when we forget our history, it tends to repeat itself.
This debut fantasy novel from author Vaishnavi Patel tells the story of princess Kaikeyi, favored daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya. But this is no ordinary princess fable, and Kaikeyi is no ordinary princess. Author Patel conjures a world where gods and men have ruled for millennia, until the day when one courageous young woman transforms herself from an obedient princess into a mighty warrior, magician, diplomat, and queen. Power, sister!
From the acclaimed author of Rabbit Cake, the tragicomic and excellently titled Unlikely Animals follows the fortunes of med school dropout Emma Starling, recently returned home to small-town Everton, New Hampshire. Devastated by the opioid epidemic, Everton desperately needs a healer like Emma. But there are complications. For one thing, Emma’s best friend from high school has gone missing. For another, her father is apparently being haunted by the ghost of a famous naturalist. Might get tricky.
Sally Hepworth (The Mother-in-Law) returns with another twisty domestic mystery thriller exploring the dark side of family dynamics. Heart surgeon Stephen Aston wants to marry his new young fiancée, Heather, but first he must divorce his wife. Stephen’s adult daughters Tully and Rachel don’t trust this new interloper, who’s younger than either of them. Meanwhile, young Heather may have some secrets of her own. Bear in mind that Stephen has money�a lot of money—and the motives and opportunities shift accordingly.
Vietnamese American scholar, novelist, and poet Ocean Vuong has earned a serious list of honors: the 2016 Whiting Award, the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize, and a 2019 MacArthur fellowship, to name three. His second poetry collection, Time Is a Mother, follows his 2016 collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, and his acclaimed novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. Bonus trivia: Vuong is an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a practicing Zen Buddhist.
This intimate memoir by author, philosopher, and Pulitzer Prize finalist Chloé Cooper Jones is, in part, a prolonged reflection on her experience living with sacral agenesis, a painful congenital condition that affects her stature and mobility. Looking back on a life stubbornly well-spent, Jones muses on various issues of disability with passion and humor. It’s a travel book, too, as Jones takes readers from film festivals in Utah, through sculpture gardens in Rome, and to the infamous Killing Fields of Phnom Penh.
Which new releases are you looking forward to reading? Let's talk books in the comments!
Check out more recent articles, including:
April's Most Anticipated New YA Novels
April's Hottest New Romances
Check out more recent articles, including:
April's Most Anticipated New YA Novels
April's Hottest New Romances
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Joe
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Mar 31, 2022 05:02AM
Where is City on Fire by Don Winslow?
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I want to read Abomination by Ashley Goldberg
A compelling and compassionate debut about friendship, faith, family and identity.
'He who turns his ear away from hearing the Torah � even his prayer is an abomination.� Proverbs 28:9
Melbourne 1999: Ezra and Yonatan are best friends whose lives are forever changed when their school, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Yahel Academy, is rocked by a scandal and they are thrown onto two divergent paths. Twenty years later, the lives of the two men are very different: Ezra identifies as secular and atheist, while Yonatan has been ordained as a rabbi and even teaches at the academy. By chance they are reunited, and the events of their past and present collide with devastating consequences.
Abomination lays bare the clash between religious and secular worlds in contemporary Australia and provides a revealing glimpse into a closed community. With great tenderness and insight debut author Ashley Goldberg tells the story of an enduring and evolving friendship as Yonatan and Ezra struggle to come to terms with the choices they have made, search for meaning, and forge their own identities. This is a beautifully observed, moving story from an exciting young writer.
Malcolm Devlin - And Then I Woke UpCatherynne M. Valente - Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods
Rebecca Roanhorse - Fevered Star
Paul Cornell - Rosebud
Jennifer McMahon - The Children on the Hill
Alma Katsu - The Fervor
These are Jim's list(being helpful and thought the links would help others)
And Then I Woke Up
Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods
Fevered Star
Rosebud
The Children on the Hill
The Fervor
Your list has some very good books on there.
Elsa wrote: "These are Jim's list(being helpful and thought the links would help others)
And Then I Woke Up
Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods
Fevered Star
[b..."
Thanks for the props and the links. I am pretty un-savvy with the techie stuff :)
I’m really not seeing how any of these are going to be particularly mind blowing experiences, but I bet there’s a movie or two up there …we’ll, “a� movie. But we’ll need a few teens to first meet in a context of a misunderstanding; soon an unusual situation, ripe for violent outbursts and angst, will be the perfect ecosystem for which a bland romance can unconvincingly manifest. The saving grace, I have no doubt will be the attractive actors, who technically hit all their marks & said all their lines. So maybe a few hundred million is out there for the taking.Why not?
Just finished
by Annie Hartnett today and my heart. My heart just adores this book. Highly recommend! I laughed, with this book, more than I have laughed in years. and it yanked at my sentimental heart strings at the same time. Brilliant, fantastic, wonderful, unique……absolutely thrilled to see this book on the list! I’m in awe and in love with this story and how it came to be. **Releases, April 12, 2022**
Started reading
by Jennifer Egan and I cannot wait to read the whole thing. I haven’t been well so my brain just kept rereading the same lines. I hope to find my brain cells again, soon because this is going to be an awesome book. It just needs the full attention I’ve been struggling to find. I can tell from the time I was reading it. **Releases today, April 5th**
Looking forward to
by Sally Hepworth because I’ve loved all the books I’ve read by her�..Ի…�
Not listed, but drop jaw, shocking, must read, fantastic, fresh and unique, breath of fresh air to the genre
by Anna Downes highly recommended author and book **Releases today, April 5th**
**Edited to add release dates
You've missed (accidentally, I'm sure) Adrian Tchaikovsky's Eyes of the Void, the follow-up to his fantastic space opera Shards of Earth.
Out of this list I think I'm most looking forward to Take My Hand
Looking forward to one of Marian Keye’s famous Welch sisters return in “Again, Rachel�
I think I am most looking forward to "Kaikeyi". I love when young heroines rise up and overthrow tradition. What I am most hoping for is that the author gives us something NEW.
this is an ultra-lefty grudge list, it doesn't include any book by a man. despite the latter being much superior writers
Melissa wrote: "Just finished by Annie Hartnett today and my heart. My heart just adores this book. Highly recommend! I laughed, with this book, more than I ..."I like your recommendations. Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett has me intrigued & is now on my wanting To Read list
