27 Works of Fiction Coming This Spring

March

Anita de Monte Laughs Last, by Xochitl Gonzalez

In her second novel, Gonzalez, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the author of “Olga Dies Dreaming,” traces the dual narrative of Anita de Monte — a 1980s Cuban American performance artist who fell to her death from her husband’s apartment building — and Raquel, a 1990s art history student who sees parallels between Anita’s life and her own.

Flatiron Books, March 5

The Extinction of Irena Rey, by Jennifer Croft

Croft is an acclaimed translator, and won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for her English translation of Olga Tokarczuk’s “Flights.” It seems fitting that her first novel is a detective story following a troupe of translators tracking down their missing author.

Bloomsbury, March 5

The Great Divide, by Cristina Henríquez

Set in early 1900s Panama, Henríquez’s latest novel chronicles the construction of the Panama Canal and the United States’ intervention in the Panamanian civil war. Narrated by a rich cast of characters from all corners of the globe — Ada, a teenage stowaway; Omar, the son of a fisherman; and John, an American malaria researcher, are standouts — this novel takes a deep look at the ordinary people whose lives were upended by its construction.

Ecco, March 5

Help Wanted, by Adelle Waldman

In this ensemble comedy by the author of “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.,” a ragtag team of hourly workers at a big box store in upstate New York join forces to promote one of their own, in hopes of creating a better workplace.

Norton, March 5

The Hunter, by Tana French

In this sequel to French’s “The Searcher,” Cal Hooper, a former Chicago police officer, has mostly found peace running a furniture repair business in rural Ireland. But when his teenage mentee’s father returns to town, proclaiming there’s gold in a nearby mountain — only for the man’s millionaire backer to turn up dead — Cal puts on his detective cap.

Viking, March 5

Great Expectations, by Vinson Cunningham

In Cunningham’s fiction debut, David — a young father and college dropout — joins the fund-raising team on the 2007 presidential campaign of an unnamed Illinois “Senator” who seems destined for greatness. (The character is a barely-veiled reference to Barack Obama, for whom Cunningham, now a staff writer at The New Yorker, worked.) David comes of age on the campaign trail amid encounters with political donors and unexpected mentors, meditating on politics, sex, race, and purpose along the way.

Hogarth, March 12

Headshot, by Rita Bullwinkel

This kaleidoscopic debut novel is structured around a girls’ boxing tournament in Reno, Nev. Eight competitors bring to the ring their past and future selves, memories and superstitions from their hometowns, and specters of the girls they’ve eliminated in previous rounds.

Viking, March 12 | Read the review

The Morningside, by Téa Obreht

After being displaced from their homeland, Silvia and her mother move into the Morningside, a weather-beaten luxury apartment building in “Island City,” a sinking version of New York in the middle of all-out climate collapse. Silvia learns about her heritage through the folk tales her aunt Ena tells her, and becomes fascinated with the mysterious woman who lives in the penthouse apartment.

Random House, March 12

Until August, by Gabriel García Márquez. Translated by Anne McLean.

García Márquez, the Nobel laureate and master of magical realism, left an unfinished manuscript when he died in 2014. The novel is in five sections, following a married woman named Ana Magdalena Bach as she travels each August to a Caribbean island for a one-night affair.

Knopf, March 12

James, by Percival Everett

This retelling of “Huckleberry Finn” is told from Jim’s perspective, and shares some basic commonalities: As in the original story, Jim has run away from the plantation where he was enslaved and hopes to free his wife and daughter. But in Everett’s version, Jim is also a well-read autodidact who code-switches into “slave” dialect around racist white people.

Doubleday, March 19

Memory Piece, by Lisa Ko

Giselle, Jackie and Ellen met as preteens in 1980s suburbia, when the future seemed full of possibilities. As they come of age in the 1990s amid the growing corporate influence over the art world, the beginnings of Big Tech and accelerating gentrification, they choose different paths (performance art, coding, activism) and question what they’re willing to give up to get what they want.

Riverhead, March 19

April

The Cemetery of Untold Stories, by Julia Alvarez

When Alma inherits a piece of land in the Dominican Republic, she decides to use it as a place to bury her unfinished manuscripts. But the characters she puts to rest have lives of their own, and whisper their stories to Filomena, the groundskeeper.

Algonquin, April 2

The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio

This debut novel opens with Lauren returning home to her flat in London to discover that she’s married to a man she’s never met. He disappears into the attic, and another husband emerges. The attic, it seems, is producing an endless supply of life paths in the form of husbands — how will Lauren decide which is the right one?

Doubleday, April 2

Table for Two, by Amor Towles

Towles, known for his wildly popular books like “A Gentleman in Moscow,” collects six short stories set in New York around the new millennium. There’s also one story set in Golden Age Hollywood, a continuation of his novel “Rules of Civility.”

Viking, April 2

The Familiar, by Leigh Bardugo

After her employer catches her reciting Hebrew-Spanish incantations, an orphaned maid named Luzia Cotado enters a magical contest for miracle workers in 16th-century Madrid. To compete among the psychics, sorcerers, and alchemists, Luzia trains with the immortal, alluring Guillén Santángel, whose secrets threaten both their lives. Bardugo, the best-selling author of “Ninth House,” says this historical fantasy is partially based on her own family lore.

Flatiron, April 9

One of Us Knows, by Alyssa Cole

Kenetria Nash, the caretaker of a historical estate on a Hudson River island, grapples with dissociative personality disorder. During a nor’easter, she is trapped in the house with a group of conservationists. When one of them is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, leaving her (along with her alter egos) to prove her innocence.

Morrow, April 16

Funny Story, by Emily Henry

After Daphne’s fiancé leaves her for his childhood friend, she relocates to Michigan and moves in with the other woman’s ex, Miles. Over the course of a summer, when Daphne and Miles decide to stage their own relationship to get back at their exes, Daphne starts developing real feelings for her fake beau.

Berkley, April 23

Reboot, by Justin Taylor

David Crader was once a teenage heartthrob, but is now a twice-divorced voice actor, a recovering alcoholic and the father of a young son. He heads West to Los Angeles as his ex-wife plots a reboot of the TV series that made them famous, leaving David to convince their other co-stars to join the show.

Knopf, April 23

Real Americans, by Rachel Khong

Khong’s second novel begins as a love story between two 20-somethings, Lily and Matthew, then flashes forward to 2021, to focus on their son, Nick, whom Lily raised alone. Nick’s quest to find his father threatens to expose all manner of family secrets.

Knopf, April 30

May

Long Island, by Colm Toibin

In this sequel to Toibin’s acclaimed novel “Brooklyn,” Eilis and Tony are now married with two teenage children and living on suburban Long Island, surrounded by Tony’s extended family. When a man appears on their doorstep with the news that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s baby, Eilis returns to Ireland for the first time since moving to America years earlier, and discovers that her childhood love is single, prompting Eilis to reconsider the life she chose.

Scribner, May 7

Shanghailanders, by Juli Min

Min’s debut opens in Shanghai in 2040, and works backward through the lives of Leo Yang, a real estate investor; his glamorous, Japanese French wife, Eko; and their daughters, Yumi, Yoko and Kiko. As their pasts unspool, the narrative builds toward Leo and Eko’s 2014 wedding, when their younger selves decided to build a life together.

Spiegel & Grau, May 7

Women and Children First, by Alina Grabowski

A Greek chorus of 10 women in the small town of Nashquitten, Mass., narrates the lead-up to, and aftermath of, a local teenager’s death. After a young woman mysteriously dies at a house party, the circumstances are unclear: Was it was an accident, suicide or murder? The truth is somewhere in the gray area of Grabowski’s interwoven narrative.

SJP Lit, May 7

Blue Ruin, by Hari Kunzru

Jay, a mixed-race performance artist, was once among London’s most promising young talents. But by the time of the pandemic, he’s an undocumented essential worker in the United States, delivering groceries and living in his car. When he makes a delivery to his ex-girlfriend Alice and his former best friend Rob, who are now married and quarantined on an enormous estate, Alice invites Jay to stay on the property — presenting Jay with the opportunity to re-enter a world he left behind.

Knopf, May 14

This Strange Eventful History, by Claire Messud

Spanning three generations over 80 years, Messud’s epic novel incorporates elements of her family’s own history as pieds noirs, European expatriates in Algeria displaced after World War II.

Norton, May 14

Exhibit, by R.O. Kwon

At a raucous house party of the creative elite in Northern California, a photographer meets a ballet dancer, and confesses twin secrets: the family curse that has haunted her for decades, and the desires her husband won’t fulfill. Soon, the women’s lives become entangled, changing the course of both.

Riverhead, May 21

Lies and Weddings, by Kevin Kwan

In the latest novel from the author of “Crazy Rich Asians,” Rufus, the future Earl of Greshambury, must decide whether to seduce a venture capitalist or hotel heiress at his sister’s wedding in hopes of saving his family fortune, or follow his heart and confess his feelings to the woman he’s loved since childhood.

Doubleday, May 21

The Second Coming, by Garth Risk Hallberg

Hallberg follows his best-selling 2015 debut, “City on Fire,” with this sprawling saga of Ethan and Jolie, a father and teenage daughter struggling to reconnect. When Ethan’s ex unexpectedly reaches out to tell him Jolie is in danger, he travels to New York to save her from herself.

Knopf, May 28