Every week, critics and editors at The New York Times Book Review pick the most interesting and notable new releases, from literary fiction and serious nonfiction to thrillers, romance novels, mysteries and everything in between.
You can save the books you’re most excited to read on a personal reading list, and find even more recommendations from our book experts.
TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURE
A Marriage at Sea
by Sophie Elmhirst
In 1972, a young British couple decided to ditch their jobs, sell their house and sail the world. All went well until their boat was capsized by a breaching whale, at which point their story became one not merely of survival but also of a relationship placed under the greatest imaginable pressure. Elmhirst’s account is as much a meditation on intimacy as a remarkable adventure. Read our review.
FAMILY DRAMA
These Summer Storms
by Sarah MacLean
Alice Storm has been estranged from her family for five years, but she reluctantly returns to their Rhode Island estate after the accidental death of her tech billionaire father. What begins as a funeral morphs into a “Westing Game”-esque series of challenges stipulated in her father’s will — and administered by his attractive, enigmatic aide — in this contemporary novel by MacLean, an acclaimed author of historical romance. Read our review.
Literary Fiction
Killing Stella
by Marlen Haushofer
In this short, searing novel, first published in Austria in 1958, a woman nervously recounts how a teenager named Stella came to live with her family and wound up meeting a tragic end. There is plenty of blame to go around, it turns out, and this would-be whodunit quickly shifts into a brilliant study of domestic strain, complicity and guilt. Read our review.
Literary Fiction
Great Black Hope
by Rob Franklin
The young queer Black man at the center of this novel faces some hard lessons about wealth and class in America. From a privileged upbringing in Atlanta to a busy party life in New York City, he has felt comfortable with his place in society — that is, until a drug arrest and the sudden death of his roommate send him spiraling. “The book is part elegy, addiction narrative, mystery, queer coming-of-age story and novel of manners,” our reviewer wrote. Franklin’s dark humor crackles throughout. Read our review.
narrative nonfiction
A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children
by Haley Cohen Gilliland
Among the thousands of people “disappeared” by Argentina’s military dictatorship in the late 1970s and early ’80s were hundreds of pregnant women who were killed as soon as they gave birth, their babies distributed to military officials. In this gutting history, Gilliland retraces the lives of these women and their offspring through the stories of the determined Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo whose demand for information, and for their grandchildren, was unflagging. Read our review.
horror
Awakened
by Laura Elliott
In a bleak world where scientists have invented a way for people to live without sleep, turning them into feral monsters, a handful of researchers — stranded in the Tower of London — frantically hunt for a cure. “Postapocalyptic narratives usually deal with large-scale events, but their success hinges on their ability to make the grandiose feel immediate and intimate,” our horror columnist, Gabino Iglesias, wrote. “‘Awakened’ does that very well. … This is an impressive debut worth losing sleep over.” Read our review.
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