Exciting Books Coming Out in 2023

While I have made a concerted (and fairly successful) effort to read more back-list books over the past few years, when I look at my book statistics every year, close to 40% of the books I read are published in the current year and the year before (I can’t resist shiny things!).

Below are some of the books I am most excited about digging into this upcoming year. Many of these are books by authors whose work I have already read and loved, but only one of them is a sequel, so there is plenty for everyone to enjoy!

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Realistic Fiction

February – I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai

Makkai’s previous book The Great Believers was a well researched and utterly devastating account of the AIDS crisis in Chicago. I am so curious to see how that approach works in the book, which is a literary mystery set in a New England boarding school.

February – Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

I picked this because it had a great cover, and the description really drew me in. Set in 1940s Trinidad, this is a mystery that looks at intersections of class, race and colonialism, and I am very intrigued.

March – The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise by Colleen Oakley

An elderly women, Louise and her caretaker, Tanner go on the run when a jewelry heist suspect looks a little too much like Louise. The cover and synopsis of this book look utterly delightful. While big heavy books often draw my attention, I always love a break for some sweet, lighthearted fun, and this sounds like one I will really enjoy.

May – Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

In Babel, Kuang’s runaway bestseller of 2021, she brought a critical eye about race and privilege to fantasy. In this book, she does this, but in a realistic fiction setting, and I am excited about this! A book about publishing, and who has the right to claim a story, this book should be an interesting and compelling read.

September – Evil Eye by Etaf Rum

Rum’s semi-autobiographical debut novel, A Woman Is No Man, about women in conservative Palestinian-American households broke me. It was brutal and sad and wonderful. This book covers new ground, and while I am skeptical that she can repeat the brilliance of her debut novel, I am excited to give this a try.

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Fantasy/Science Fiction

January – Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire

Every other book on this list is a standalone, but it wouldn’t be an honest list if I didn’t include the latest in the Wayward Children series. This is a series of adult novellas about children who have entered magical worlds and returned to their previous lives. These books are about misfits who find their “fit” in other worlds, and about learning to own our uniqueness and weirdness. This is a truly magical series, and I always look forward to the next book. If you are interested, the first book is called Every Heart a Doorway. I hope you check it out!

February – The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

The blurb for this book promises a dark fairy-tale with gothic undertones, and it is set in Washington State, and I am intrigued.

March – The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Ann Older

This is another novella, and it seems to be a light science fiction murder mystery set in a human settlement on Jupiter. The descriptions are giving off Becky Chambers vibes (the author of A Psalm for the Wild Built and A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet), and since she does not appear to have a book out this year, I do want to check this out.

April – In The Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune

TJ Klune has my trust so implicitly that I will pick this book up without hesitation, despite one of the characters being described as “a small vacuum desperate for love and attention”. I anticipate this is a book that is full of love, kindness and the search for belonging, and I look forward to it, vacuums and all.

April – Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

This book is dystopian “cli-fi” (climate change fiction), set in Northern Canada with a focus on gender and migration. I don’t need to know much more than that to be interested, and I may try and get my hands on a copy before it comes out in April, because this is right in my wheelhouse.

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Non Fiction

January – Good for a Girl by Lauren Fleshman

I ran my first half-marathon this past year, and this book about running and women in sports is getting a lot of buzz right now. I do love a good feminist take-down of traditionally male spaces, and this one might also motivate me to keep running.

January – Spare by Prince Harry

I’m not sure I will actually read this, but I am nonetheless fascinated to see what is going to be in this book. His ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer with a couple adaptations under his belt, so at least it should be well-written.

March – Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond

Desmond’s first book, Evicted, was incredible. It was one of the best books I read that year and I still think about it today. His mix of incredibly kind and non-judgmental anecdotes and compelling research was really well crafted, but I was especially drawn to the fact that he refused to stop at “this is sad” and instead actually proposed real structural changes that would help. It sounds like this is a similar treatment of poverty on a larger scale, and I look forward to reading it.

April – The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

Give me pretty much any book about the tall ship era, and I am already invested. Add mutiny, murder, and David Grann, whose research is so thorough he discovered information even the FBI was unable to find when he wrote Killers of the Flower Moon, and I am definitely going to be reading this.

June – Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration by Alejandra Olivia

Olivia is a Mexican American translator who works with Latin American migrants and this book sounds like it is a literary look at the issues surrounding immigration as well as a call to see the human side of it all, which I am drawn to. I will definitely be picking this book up when it comes out.

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In addition to this, I also have my eye on a few authors who I follow closely enough to know that they are finishing/wrapping up books they are writing (looking at you Tamora Pierce and Ann Cleeves!). What are you excited about reading in 2023?

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