Somehow we're already in the middle of 2020, and it's been a year of amazing books. Fiction seems to be the most compelling genre—see: Lily King's Writers & Loversand Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half—as we attempt to immerse ourselves in another world to escape the current political climate and COVID-19 crisis. Then there are the purely therapeutic books, like Lili Reinhart's Swimming Lessonsand Maggie Smith's Keep Moving, that encourage us to practice more self-love. Ahead, a running list of the 2020 book releases we're looking forward to the most.
The opioid crisis is plaguing our country. Liz Moore brings the crisis to light in a twisty mystery where one of two inseparable sisters addicted to drugs goes missing. Oh, and that just so happens while a string of murders are happening in their Philadelphia neighborhood.
If you loved Lisa Taddeo's Three Women, you'll appreciate Miranda Popkey's debut novel, Topics of Conversation. The book is formatted into a series of conversations between fictional women who discuss everything from motherhood to loneliness to anger and guilt.
It's nearly impossible to describe the premise of Caroline Zancan's We Wish You Luck. Just know that a group of students want to take revenge on their professor, and this is their story.
Megan Angelo's debut novel traces the stories of three women, unexpectedly connected, who find themselves on the brink of high-profile success while discovering what their follower counts really means for their goals and dreams. It's a deep dive into the social media dominance we currently live within with lots of dark and hilarious turns.
When Anna Wiener was in her mid-20s, she left her book publishing job in New York City for a data startup in Silicon Valley. What she didn't realize is that she'd find herself in a falsely progressive world masked by company ski vacations and in-office speakeasies. In her memoir, Wiener documents the rise and fall of her Silicon Valley dream.
New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey writes a juicy rom-com about a couple who seemingly grows apart instead of growing together—forcing one of them to establish a marriage boot camp and the other to expose a big secret.
Every person nostalgic for the early 2000s will fall in love with Jessica Simpson's juicy memoir, Open Book, where she talks about everything from her relationship with ex John Mayer to how she convinced people to take her seriously while building an epic career.
Mary Kubica's The Other Mrs. tells the chilling story about a woman named Sadie who moves from Chicago to Maine with her husband. All seems well...until her next door neighbor is murdered and she's one of the whispered-about suspects.
One could argue that ELLE.com columnist R. Eric Thomas is one of the funniest people on the internet, and now he's blessing the world with his debut book, Here For It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America, filled with humorous essays about growing up and feeling like an outsider.
U.K.-based novelist Abi Daré makes her debut with an emotional story about a 14-year-old Nigerian woman determined to get an education and escape the fate of a child marriage her father forces her into with a local man.
Marie Claire'sMarch #ReadWithMC pick, Anna K, certainly doesn't disappoint. Jenny Lee's modern YA retelling of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina follows rich kids in New York as they navigate everything from sex and relationships to drugs and depression. Expect to be reminded of Gossip Girl.
In Alka Joshi's The Henna Artist, 17-year-old Lakshmi escapes her rural village to Jaipur and becomes a henna artist to the wealthy, discovering secrets and challenges along the way.
Lily King, the bestselling author of Euphoria (2014), knows exactly how to combine love, grief, creativity, and balance. A young prodigy who loses her mother must confront how to channel her ambition again...all while finding herself in love with two men at the same time.
Based on the author's grandfather, The Night Watchman takes place in 1953 as Thomas Wazhashk fights against the consequential treatment of Native Americans after a bill threatens to take away their land.
This isn't your cliché trope about a high school student-teacher relationship. Kate Elizabeth Russell brings forth all of the emotion and complexity when Vanessa discovers almost two decades later that her first love has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student.
Untamed is a beautiful memoir from activist, speaker, and bestselling author Glennon Doyle that explores the true lessons of motherhood, family, and divorce.
Rebecca Serle's New York Times bestselling novel, In Five Years, is Marie Claire's April book club pick. Read an exclusive excerpt here, then dive in with us throughout the rest of the month. You'll devour it.
Anybody obsessed with the exclusivity of private women's clubs, typically accessible only to the elite, will appreciate Andrea Bartz's latest thriller, The Herd, about what happens to the members of (fictional) NYC–based THE HERD when its glitzy founder vanishes without a trace.
You're always guaranteed a good time in Christina Lauren's novels, and The Honey Don't List is no exception. Home designers Melissa and Rusty Tripp have a very public Chip and Joanna Gaines-like relationship, except there's one problem: They actually can't stand each other. The story is told from the perspective of Melissa and Rusty's longtime employees, Carey and James, who are doing whatever it takes to keep their bosses' secret.
Available March 24, 2020
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'It's Not All Downhill From Here' By Terry McMillan
Terry McMillan, the bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting to Exhale is back with yet another heartwarming novel about the inevitabilities in life—this time with a 68-year-old who knows her best days are still ahead of her.
The New York Times bestselling author of the YA Divergent series is releasing her debut #adult novel about the aftermath of a group of five teens who save the world, essentially asking the existential question: Where do we go from here?
The unfortunate timeliness of Sahar Mustafah's The Beauty of Your Face will be triggering for anybody who has experienced gun violence or lost a loved one to gun violence. In the novel, a Palestinian principal for an all-girl Muslim school in Chicago is confronted with a school shooter fueled by radical alt-right beliefs.
Julia Alvarez, one of the most influential Latina writers of all time, returns with Afterlife—a story centered on Antonia Vega, an immigrant writer who is forced to cope with the sudden death of her husband, her sister's disappearance, and an undocumented teenager who shows up at her doorstep all at once.
Available April 7, 2020
Courtesy
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'Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life' By Marie Kondo
Fans of Daisy Jones & The Six will appreciate Emily Gould's Perfect Tunes—a story about one mother's journey to pursue her singing dreams and her daughter's quest to find the answers she's desperately searching for 15 years later.
You'll recognize Sue Monk Kidd from her critically-acclaimed novel The Secret Life of Bees (2003). In her fourth novel, The Book of Longings, she takes readers all the way back to the first century in a tale about a young woman who meets 18-year-old Jesus. Yes, that Jesus.
Emma Straub's All Adults Here will make you question your entire childhood, and how much your parents influenced it as you learn one mother's perspective of what went right and what went wrong with her own family.
Jennifer Weiner always writes honest, relatable stories, and Big Summer—a story about ex friends Daphne Berg and Drue Cavanaugh who unexpectedly re-enter each other's lives—is no exception.
Emily Henry's Beach Read is a brilliant meta novel about two authors who are complete opposites and decide to spend the summer helping each other finish their books. Nobody will fall in love at the end, right?
Escape reality with Farrah Rochon's juicy rom-rom, The Boyfriend Project, that tells the story of three friends who swear off men after a catfish incident. That is, until Samiah meets Daniel at work.
If you're in need of a new thriller, Catherine McKenzie's You Can't Catch Me is a gripping account of a woman who escapes a cult and attempts to reenter society. All goes according to plan until she lands next to a woman in an airport bar with an identical name and birth date.
Ottessa Moshfegh brings her genius to her latest novel, Death in Her Hands, where an elderly widow finds a note about a dead body while on a walk with her dog and attempts to discover what happened to her.
Hannah Orenstein is getting ready to release her latest novel, Head Over Heels, a rom-com set in the competitive gymnastics world. Avery Abrams is forced to learn a new way of life after her gymnast career suddenly ends. Meanwhile, her best friend slash former teammate, Jasmine, becomes an Olympic champion and marries their emotionally abusive coach, Dimitri. Twisty storylines about love and relationships follow.
Jasmine Guillory's Party of Two follows Olivia, a lawyer who moves to L.A. and unexpectedly meets a high-profile junior senator. Finally going public with their relationship after keeping it a secret, they couple is forced to deal with intense media scrutiny and the consequences of their past lives.
Psychological thriller The Last Flight tells the story of a woman, Claire, who plans to disappear from her seemingly-perfect life. When she meets a woman in an airport bar who's planning to do the same, they end up switching tickets. Tragically, the woman who ends up taking Claire's ticket dies in a plane crash (it was supposed to be Claire!), prompting Claire to assume the woman's identity and, therefore, her secrets.
Thin Girls recounts the story of twin sisters who help each other through their eating disorders and toxic relationships—attempting to save each other from themselves.
When Noemí Taboada receives a frantic letter from her cousin, she discovers her trapped in a nightmare that only she can see. Expect Mexican folklore mixed with darkness and suspense in this captivating novel.
Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure, is back with Blue Ticket—a Handmaid's Tale-esque story centered on a disturbing reality where women report to a station the first day they bleed to discover their fate: a white ticket, which grants you marriage and children, or a blue ticket, which grants you a career and freedom.
Leah Konen's All the Broken People is a domestic thriller centered on Lucy, who flees from Brooklyn to Woodstock, New York, and meets a couple next door who asks her to help fake the husband's death. As you might imagine, things don't go exactly as planned.
Diksha Basu's Destination Wedding is a charming rom-com about Tina Das who escapes to India for her cousin’s lavish wedding thinking it will help solve her problems. Instead, she's met with family drama and life-changing decisions she's forced to confront.
When plus-size fashion blogger Bea Schumacher gets an opportunity to star in hit reality show Main Squeeze, she realizes that trying not to fall in love—something she swore off doing on the show—is harder than she thought.
Saumya Dave's Well-Behaved Indian Women tells the story of three generations of women who grapple with their identity and how they shaped each other's lives...through the good and the bad.
Readers can expect the same genius in Transcendent Kingdom that Yaa Gyasi delivered in Homegoing (2016), which received the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award in 2017. In Transcendent Kingdom, Gyasi tells the story of a family from Ghana that struggles to make a home for themselves in small-town Alabama.
Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan returns with a sexy tale about a young woman who's torn between two worlds: the "WASP establishment" of her family and George Zao, a Hong Kong surfer boy she's desperately trying not to fall in love with.
Brazilian-American author Gabriella Burnham's debut novel, It Is Wood, It Is Stone, is set in São Paulo, Brazil. The story centers on Linda and how her maid Marta's lives intersect. Expect themes of class, privilege, and power.
In an unfortunately timely novel, Kim Johnson's This Is My America recounts the story of 17-year-old Tracy Beaumont who's working to get her innocent father off of death row. That is, until her older brother, Jamal, is accused of killing a white girl. Now, she's forced to discover the truth about what happened within the racist town her family resides in.
When 81-year-old Lilia Liska finds the diary of Roland Bouley, a man she once had an affair with, she finds herself outlining a different interpretation of events that transcends into themes of grief, loss, resilience, and rebirth.
What would you do if you were a mother who opened the front door and discovered your son's body wrapped in colorful fabric? Akwaeke Emezi's The Death of Vivek Oji is equal parts brilliant and heartbreaking as readers are taken on a journey to discover the hidden parts of Vivek's life and the mystery surrounding his death.
When four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a Black man named Rodney King half to death, Ashley's Blackness is front and center. Now, she's no longer just "one of the girls" and is forced to navigate the racism she experiences as a Black woman living in L.A. during the 1992 riots.
After Jill's best friend, Shaila Arnold, was killed by her boyfriend freshman year, she attempts to begin her senior year in Gold Coast, Long Island, with a fresh mindset. That is, until she starts receiving texts insisting the boyfriend is innocent.
At the height of her career, teen star Grace Turner disappeared. Now, she's trying to enter back into society while being unexpectedly confronted by her abuser. This time around, she knows she's the one in control.
When aspiring singer Enchanted Jones wakes up with blood on her hands and zero recollection of the night before, she's forced to confront a haunting question: What really happened to R&B artist Korey Fields?
Fans of Grey's Anatomy will appreciate The White Coat Diaries—a story about Norah Kapadia, who landed the medical residency of her dreams and soon questions her fate after being involved in a cover-up that could jeopardize her career.
Natalka Burian's Daughters of the Wild tells the story of Joanie and her foster siblings who live on a farm in rural West Virginia tending for a magical plant called the vine. Joanie plans to escape with the help of her foster brother after an arranged marriage goes wrong, but before she leaves her baby goes missing and she's forced to summon the vine for help.
Sometimes who we think we're supposed to end up with turns out to be the wrong person after all. In Just Like You, Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity, explores the relationship of an unexpected love match, and the rewards of opening your heart.
New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult publishes a heartbreaking tale about a woman who survives a plane crash, realizing in what she thought would be her final moments that she wasn't thinking about her husband—but instead a man she met 15 years ago. She must then decide which path she wants to take as she moves forward with her life.
Rachel EpsteinAssociate Digital EditorRachel Epstein is the associate editor at Marie Claire, where she covers celeb and royals news, culture, lifestyle, and politics.
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