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Readers' Most Anticipated New Books of Fall
The fall book season is shaping up to be one of the busiest and best in recent memory, and we’re not just saying that. If you’re the kind to deliberately set aside time for reading, you might want to expand that time. Double it, say.
Among the renowned authors dropping new books this fall: Celeste Ng, Cormac McCarthy, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Barbara Kingsolver, Stephen King, N.K. Jemisin, the tag team of Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, and short fiction specialist George Saunders.
Also look for buzzy debut novels concerning Vietnamese ancestral curses, Eastern European mythology, and Gothic science fiction. On the sequel/series front, make some shelf space for official follow-ups to popular titles including Legendborn, The Spanish Love Deception, and They Both Die at the End.
All the books listed will be published in the U.S. between September and December. Titles are sorted by genre and largely determined by you, the loyal Goodreads regular. Books are selected by tracking early reviews and crunching the numbers on how many readers are putting these books on their Want to Read shelves. Oh, and we added a new Horror category this time around. Halloween, you know. Plus, we separated science fiction and fantasy because, well, we read your comments!
Be sure to add anything that catches your eye to your own Want to Read shelf, and let us know what you're reading and recommending in the comments.
In this highly anticipated debut novel, multiple generations of women in Orange County’s Little Saigon neighborhood try to defy an ancestral curse dooming them to loveless misery. But lo! A new prophecy has come forth! Author Carolyn Huynh brings mischievous magical realism into the messy, stubborn, rowdy lives of a modern Vietnamese American family.
Release date: September 6
Release date: September 6
Jamaican British author Candice Carty-Williams (Queenie) is back with the epic tale of the Pennington family, five siblings who get to know one another the awkward way when their long-absent father finally returns to the fold. Carty-Williams is a natural—an elite-level storyteller with a sustained interest in the ways we find ourselves in our families.
Release date: September 13
Release date: September 13
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove) concludes his popular Beartown series with this final installment of life and loss in small-town Sweden. The residents of hard-luck, hockey-obsessed Beartown have experienced triumph and tragedy, and now the final chapters are playing out dramatically. Backman is writing about family and community—you don’t have to like hockey to appreciate these books.
Release date: September 27
Release date: September 27
Set about five minutes into the future, the latest novel from celebrated author Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere) considers the sinister trajectory of dark-side American decay. After a period of political instability and violence, authorities preserve “American culture” by shipping off the children of insufficiently patriotic citizens. Ng delivers a cautionary tale for those who think: It can’t happen here.
Release date: October 4
Release date: October 4
This intriguing flight into historical fiction is being billed as a reimagining of the woman who inspired Hester Prynne, the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 classic The Scarlet Letter. Author Laurie Lico Albanese (Stolen Beauty) combines rigorous research with literary imagination to explore female creative power among relentless patriarchal oppression.
Release date: October 4
Release date: October 4
When a young woman is killed in small-town Adams, New Hampshire, two newly transplanted families find themselves looking to the past for answers. Mad Honey is a complicated mix of murder mystery, psychological suspense, and unexpected romance from coauthors Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper) and Jennifer Finney Boylan (She’s Not There).
Release date: October 4
Release date: October 4
Generally acknowledged as the greatest short story writer currently working in the English language, George Saunders (Tenth of December) returns with a new collection of nine stories that swerve from strange fantasy to grim reality. Saunders considers genre traditions to be dubious advice, best ignored, and his stories are one of the singular pleasures of life in the 21st century.
Release date: October 18
Release date: October 18
Inspired by Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, this ambitious new novel from Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible) seeks to transpose the empathy and insight of that Victorian classic from 19th-century London to the contemporary American South. Both novels lament lost boys failed by family and state, in places where institutional poverty can swallow entire lives whole.
Release date: October 18
Release date: October 18
Plenty of dedicated readers schedule their entire year around a new Cormac McCarthy book. It’s good policy, really. This latest novel from the Pulitzer Prize winner concerns a mysterious plane crash, a disturbing cover-up, and the utter inexplicability of human consciousness. You know, that sort of thing. Bonus trivia: The second book in the series is slated for November.
Release date: October 25
Release date: October 25
Sixty-somethings Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have just embarked on an all-expenses-paid vacation to mark their retirement. So that’s nice. When their former employer tries to kill them, it’s less pleasant. But don’t fret: It seems that Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie are highly trained assassins. And anyway, retirement really wasn’t working out.
Release date: September 6
Release date: September 6
Richard Osman continues the retired badass theme with this third installment of his popular Thursday Murder Club series. This time around, the usual gang of septuagenarian sleuths gets involved with two separate murder cases involving TV stars and money launderers. Then the ex-KGB colonel shows up. Uh-oh.
Release date: September 20
Release date: September 20
Liz Rocher, back in her Rust Belt hometown for a wedding, doesn’t have many fond memories of the place. But her suspicions grow deadly serious when the daughter of the bride goes missing. Recalling her own childhood, Liz makes a horrifying realization: Kids have gone missing in these woods for years. All of them girls. All of them Black.
Release date: October 4
Release date: October 4
From the author of 2016’s Behind Closed Doors, the mystery-thriller The Prisoner follows the fortunes of a young woman, Amelie, who marries into a billionaire family with a deadly secret. Several deadly secrets, actually. When Amelie wakes up imprisoned in a pitch-black room, it may actually be good news.
Release date: November 1
Release date: November 1
Rich people are weird. Everyone knows this. But every now and again you come across those One Percenters who are really weird. Severely weird. Lethally weird. This new psychological thriller from Catherine Steadman (Something in the Water) chronicles one woman’s experience with the wealthy Holbecks, whose savage holiday traditions are one rolling in-law nightmare. Good times!
Release date: November 8
Release date: November 8
Author Stephen King, a feisty young newcomer to the publishing game, crosses up several genres with his latest story, concerning a boy and his dog and a portal to another universe. Fairy Tale is said to be a passion project for King, who responded to pandemic despair with this epic tale set somewhere in the overlapping territories of fantasy, horror, and science fiction.
Release date: September 6
Release date: September 6
Winner of this fall’s unofficial Best Book Title, Thistlefoot is modern mythmaking in the key of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Nethercott’s debut novel, which digs deep into Eastern European folklore and Jewish mythology, features estranged siblings, a sinister figure known as the Longshadow Man, and a sentient house on chicken legs. Can’t miss, really.
Release date: September 13
Release date: September 13
New York City author N.K. Jemisin is a required-curriculum kind of writer for fans of modern speculative fiction. This final installment in Jemisin’s Great Cities duology follows 2020’s The City We Became, which suggests that all great cities have a soul…and a dark side shadow. Can the metropolis of New York, manifested in six mortal avatars, defeat the encroaching darkness? These are dangerous days.
Release date: November 1
Release date: November 1
The latest chapter in Brandon Sanderson’s epic Mistborn Saga series returns readers to the world of Scadrial, one of the most compelling examples of world-building in modern fantasy. The sprawling timeline folds in elements of high fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, and alternate history—check out the author’s website for useful primers.
Release date: November 15
Release date: November 15
A dark fantasy novella set in an alternate version of the American West circa 1883, this latest genre buster from Rebecca Roanhorse details the mining town of Goetia, where the descendants of angels and demons live in uneasy proximity. Celeste, raconteur and card sharp, is tasked with defending her sister, accused of murder.
Release date: November 15
Release date: November 15
Just in from the way out, Hiron Ennes’ debut novel, Leech, has been described as a surreal kind of Gothic science fiction, rooted in the shades and tones of 19th-century pioneers like Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe. The narrator, for instance, is a parasitic entity inhabiting the brain of a pathologist at a remote castle. Tagline: Meet the cure for the human disease. Oh, good. A cure.
Release date: September 27
Release date: September 27
Singaporean writer Neon Yang (The Black Tides of Heaven) brings queer and nonbinary themes to this sci-fi story of high-tech space technology and low-down political treachery. Protagonist Misery Nomaki possesses rare stoneworking powers that lead them to the center of the Empire and a deadly conflict between two powerful factions. Also: outlaws, rebels, fugitives, and an unfortunate condition called voidmadness.
Release date: September 27
Release date: September 27
New Zealand author Tamsyn Muir has carved out her own strange swath of genre-blended spacetime with The Locked Tomb series, adult space fantasy featuring swashbuckling adventure, goth sensibilities, and lesbian necromancers in space. The latest in dark (frequently very dark) space fantasy, Nona the Ninth is technically the third book in the series, but actually the fifth. Numbers are part of the fun.
Release date: September 27
Release date: September 27
Dystopian sci-fi specialist Veronica Roth (the Divergent series) returns with this story of a missing girl in a terrifying future vision of surveillance society gone mad. Prisoner Sonya Kantor, former poster girl for the oppressive regime known as the Delegation, has been offered a deal: Find the girl and win back her freedom.
Release date: October 18
Release date: October 18
Desperate to escape the slums, young Marion Shaw accepts a job as “bloodmaid” to a wealthy noble family known as the House of Hunger. Her new mistress, Countess Lisavet, likes to play games, and she takes a special interest in Marion. But when her fellow bloodmaids start disappearing, Marion realizes she'd better learn how to play the game, and fast.
Release date: September 27
Release date: September 27
Author Iain Reed made his bones in the spooky story business with his acclaimed debut novel, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, now a Netflix film from director Charlie Kaufmann. Reid’s new book, played in a similar key of slow dread, follows aging artist Penny, who has just moved into a highly suspect residential care facility where time doesn’t pass as it should.
Release date: September 27
Release date: September 27
Kari James’ world of dive bars and heavy metal takes a turn for the weird when she’s given an old family bracelet that once belonged to her mother. Now haunted by visions of mom and pursued by a second evil entity, Kari is forced to reckon with her past—the scary way. Author Erika T. Wurth brings a Native American perspective to horror fiction that’s frequently compared to classic Stephen King.
Release date: November 1
Release date: November 1
What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
by Randall Munroe
by Randall Munroe
Billed as a practical guide to impractical ideas, the What If? series by former NASA scientist Randall Munroe provides serious scientific answers to goofy hypothetical questions. Could we cool the climate by opening all our freezers at once? What about a cross-country catapult service? How about a lava lamp made out of real lava? Salient questions, all.
Release date: September 13
Release date: September 13
Raised in the religious cult the Children of God, also known as the Family, Daniella Mestyanek Young endured a strange and cruel childhood. She escaped at age 15, enrolled herself in high school, and launched a career as an intelligence officer. Her new memoir reminds us that dangerous groupthink can happen in or out of cult compound walls.
Release date: September 20
Release date: September 20
Celebrity scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson has proved to be one of the most effective science communicators of his generation. His new book is a direct challenge to those forces that divide us, a reminder that compassionate rationalism and a cosmic perspective can overcome misinformation campaigns and tribal politics.
Release date: September 20
Release date: September 20
Twenty-five years ago, author and educator Temple Grandin changed mainstream understanding of autism with her memoir, Thinking in Pictures. Her new book expands on the theme, celebrating visual/spatial cognition, intuitive design, and the critical importance of those who think differently. In fact, Grandin argues persuasively that today’s problems require neurodiverse thinking.
Release date: October 11
Release date: October 11
Hamilton, who? Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life, The Witches: Salem, 1692, Vera) is turning her attention to Samuel Adams: mastermind of the Boston Tea Party, Founding Father, and the most wanted man in colonial America.
Release date: October 25
Release date: October 25
Another Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer makes the list, this time Jon Meacham—the author of The Soul of America, His Truth Is Marching On, and American Lion—is focusing on Abraham Lincoln, the man who rallied a divided America to embrace the "better angels of our nature."
Release date: October 25
Release date: October 25
The celebrity memoir community has been waiting on this one for a while. Matthew Perry—star of stage, screen, and Friends—delivers behind-the-scenes showbiz stories along with candid discussion of his lifelong addiction struggles. Advance word suggests that the book handles both with humor and deftness. Pivot! Pivot!
Release date: November 1
Release date: November 1
When they go low, you write another book. In an inspiring follow-up to her bestselling memoir Becoming, the former First Lady of the United States shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced through difficult times.
Release date: November 15
Release date: November 15
Winner of this season’s Best Cover Image prize, Butts: A Backstory explores the scientific and cultural history of the female posterior with about as much seriousness as the topic will withstand. Biology! Anthropology! Sir Mix-a-Lot! Author Heather Radke is a contributing editor to the enduringly awesome Radiolab program and podcast, which specializes in this kind of deep-dive fun.
Release date: November 22
Release date: November 22
YOUNG ADULT
In the conclusion to her popular YA fantasy romance series, Kingdom of the Wicked, Kerri Maniscalco returns to the story of renegade witch Emelia, who’s determined to finally face down her demons. Quite literally. Sinister and sinful, Kingdom of the Feared finds our heroine dueling and dealing with shapeshifters, demons, witches, and the deadliest entities of all: the Feared.
Release date: September 27
Release date: September 27
Shanghai, 1931: A series of unnerving murders has the city on edge. Rosalind Lang (code name: Fortune) is an espionage expert and field agent with a secret—she doesn’t sleep, she doesn’t age, and she recovers from any injury. When Rosalind is paired with Nationalist spy Orion Hong, a conspiracy is revealed. Things get weird as author Chloe Gong maps new territories in speculative historical fiction.
Release date: September 27
Release date: September 27
A prequel of sorts to Adam Silvera’s 2017 sensation, They Both Die at the End, this “#0” entry to the Death-Cast series expands on the first book’s intriguing premise: What if you were told exactly when you were going to die? What if that day is today? Two young men find a deep connection in New York City under the strangest of circumstances. By the end of the day, one of them will die. Romantic!
Release date: October 4
Release date: October 4
North Carolina writer Tracy Deonn made some serious waves in 2020 with her novel Legendborn, featuring wizards, demons, Arthurian legend, and the lovely campus of UNC-Chapel Hill. The much-anticipated sequel Bloodmarked has finally arrived, with our heroine Bree having accessed her own ancestral powers. This is YA contemporary fantasy hitting on all cylinders.
Release date: November 8
Release date: November 8
Spanish author Elena Armas, Goodreads Choice Award winner for her debut romance, The Spanish Love Deception, has returned with an offshoot sequel to her popular love story from last year. This time around, aspiring romance writer Rosie Graham agrees to let handsome Lucas Martin serve as her muse with a series of experimental New York City dates. Experimental dates? Is that a thing now?
Release date: September 6
Release date: September 6
Set among the fertile valleys of Napa Valley wine country, Drunk on Love is the latest knotty romance from genre veteran Jasmine Guillory (The Wedding Date series). Guillory is beloved for her strong female characters, and here she introduces winery boss Margot Noble, whose delightful one-night stand just got extremely complicated. Because that new hire looks awfully familiar…
Release date: September 20
Release date: September 20
From the Old Switcheroo department, Colleen Hoover’s follow-up to 2016’s Goodreads Choice winner It Ends with Us toggles the POV over to fan favorite Atlas Corrigan, Lily’s first love from the previous book. Details are slim on this one, but Hoover promises to tell Atlas’ own backstory while also revealing What Happens Next.
Release date: October 18
Release date: October 18
Fans of the lively queer rom-com Delilah Green Doesn't Care will want to check out this follow-up from author Ashley Herring Blake, which shifts focus to a tightly wound interior designer and her strict policies regarding failure. Astrid Parker, busy with the renovation of beautiful Everwood Inn, can’t afford a distraction like the hot new lead carpenter. Well, maybe she can juggle some things.
Release date: November 22
Release date: November 22
Which books are you most excited to read this season? Let us know in the comments!
Comments Showing 51-100 of 234 (234 new)
message 51:
by
Erika
(new)
Aug 16, 2022 10:21AM
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy!! I can’t wait!
flag
On this list:The Lost Metal
Nona the Ninth
House of Hunger
Not on this list:
Tainted Blood
Final Heir
The Sunbearer Trials
Shades of Rust and Ruin
Into the West
Spells for Forgetting
The Second Death of Edie and Violet Bond
The Empress of Time
The Scratch Daughters
The Ones We Burn
Origins of The Wheel of Time: The Legends and Mythologies that Inspired Robert Jordan
The Luminaries
Talia wrote: "Did ya'll just really call Stephen King 'a feisty young newcomer'?"i'm confused!
What about Andrew Klavan's "Strange Habit of Mind"?
Keep Me Safe by Bellamy Gayle (love the author's name!)
Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng. I read her book, Everything I never told you, and I loved it. I can't wait to read this book
C. Shea wrote: "... how is this list missing Babel?"Babel is coming out this month, and this list is books published Sept-Dec.
i'm super excited about the ballad of never after by Stephanie Garber!! <333333
Was so hoping that The Book of Dust Volume 3 by Philip Pullman was going to featured here. Sigh....
Pamela wrote: "You forgot Other Birds/ by Sarah Addison Allen!"It's due out on August 30th, so not technically a fall debut. Certainly much anticipated, though!
Georgie wrote: "LittleFear wrote: "Heavily intrigued by Thistlefoot and Leech!" Me Too!!"Me, three!
Talia wrote: "Did ya'll just really call Stephen King 'a feisty young newcomer'?"Talia wrote: "Did ya'll just really call Stephen King 'a feisty young newcomer'?"
I was wondering this exact same thing.
Who wrote this article? Whoever wrote it screwed up on Stephen King! Mr. King is NOT a debut author!
Talia wrote: "Did ya'll just really call Stephen King 'a feisty young newcomer'?"Surely you jest?!?
Ruby Fever by Ilona Andrews and Soul Taken by Patricia Briggs!
Gavin wrote: "Fantasy: September 27th The Golden Enclaves (The Scholomance #3) by Naomi Novik"
Omg yessss I need the second book still but frrrr i cannot wait!
I didn't, strangely, see anything that really excited me in fiction but I do want to read Starry Messenger by Neil deGrasse Tyson and The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff.
Joe wrote: "Honestly? None of these! But there are new books coming from Kate Atkinson, Ian McEwan and William Boyd this autumn!"Exactly! It really does make you think, right? These chosen titles are paid placements!
Once again, I've barely even *heard* of any of the books on this list.Mad Honey goes beyond Picoult's normal "twist" and into outright deceptive marketing. As in, it is so deceptive that it could potentially be legally actionable. (Not saying it *IS*, saying I def think lawyers should look into it.)
Kat wrote: "These chosen titles are paid placements!"I'm really starting to think this. At *bare* minimum, these lists represent nothing more than books with massive marketing budgets and machines behind them.
no mention of TJR's Carrie Soto is back ???? crazy
So many of these are on my WTR list, but I am excited for
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
Hester
Demon Copperhead
Leech
White Horse
I'm currently reading The City We Became so I'm stoked the sequel doesn't come out too long from now. The Prisoner, Mad Honey, and Our Missing Hearts also sound interesting and have made me much more excited for the upcoming season.
C. Shea wrote: "... how is this list missing Babel?"Seriously! I’m new to her writing but am in the middle of an ARC of Babel and am hooked! So far it’s fantastic.
I am so incredibly excited for a few of these books!! 💕💕
I'm most looking forward to Kamome Shirahama's Witch Hat Atelier #10!!!
Mike wrote: "Does anyone know when the English translation of Michel Houellebecq's Aneantir (Destroy) will be out? That is my most anticipated book of 2022."Sounds like it is his final novel - I haven't read any of his yet but I'll add him to my list
Talia wrote: "Did ya'll just really call Stephen King 'a feisty young newcomer'?"I thought the same thing!
I am most looking forward to Less is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer.
RF Kuang’s Babel is what I’m waiting on right now!
Fredrick Backman's The Winners is my "winner."
If Kingdom of the Feared is anything like the last book, it is definitely not ya, it's smut lol.
The Prisoner by, B.A. Paris! I also am looking forward to Matthew Perry’s memoir!The Passenger by, Cormac McCarthy you can’t go wrong with his books!
Stephen King is not a feisty young newcomer, you guys 😂
So many upcoming books!! Need to keep up lol
I'm really looking forward to the next phase of Star Wars The High Republic in November with both Convergence and Path of Deceit.
Enjoyed this list, but NO JOHN IRVING, really??? Eagerly anticipating "The Last Chairlift". One of the criteria for a really good year is always the publication of a new John Irving novel.
Matthew Perry's audiobook is READ BY HIM. Could I BE any more excited?
Marie wrote: "I cannot wait for all these fall related articles!!!!!!!!!!!!!"Agreed!
Gavin wrote: "Fantasy: September 27th The Golden Enclaves (The Scholomance #3) by Naomi Novik"
How was this not on here?!
Amazed at all the people not understanding the Stephen King joke. You may need to reevaluate y'all's time on the internet if you take THAT seriously.
Amber wrote: "Who wrote this article? Whoever wrote it screwed up on Stephen King! Mr. King is NOT a debut author!"It's a joke...
