Greener days are right around the corner, and they're bringing a ton of great new titles readers are sure to love. The most anticipated books of Spring 2021 include a healthy mix of literary fiction and memoirs from debut authors and old favorites. No matter what you're looking to add to your TBR list this season, you'll find something to love in the coming months.
Readers will find some long-awaited titles fresh on store shelves in March, April, and May. Isabel Allende will publish her new memoir, The Soul of a Woman, in March, and memoirist Morgan Jerkins makes her fiction debut with April's Caul Baby. Thriller fans will be happy to learn that Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Plot and Mary Kubica's Local Woman Missing are due out this quarter. Halsey Street author Naima Coster's sophomore novel, What's Mine and Yours, lands in stores early this spring, and award-winning speculative fiction writer and editor S.B. Divya publishes her full-length debut, Machinehood, the same week.
Here are the most anticipated books of Spring 2021:
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1
March 2
Lauded author Isabel Allende reflects on growing up as the daughter of a single mother, second- and third-wave feminism, and love, lust, and marriage in The Soul of a Woman.
2
March 2
From the author of Halsey Street comes this new novel about two families caught on opposing sides of integration in a small North Carolina town. A school play brings together two students — Gee, a Black boy, and Noelle, a multiracial girl whose mother erases her nonwhite heritage — but the impact of their mothers' meeting will affect everyone around them over the course of several decades.
3
March 2
When her client is murdered by terrorists who oppose humanity's dependence on pharmaceutical enhancements, a bodyguard goes on the offensive in S.B. Divya's debut novel. Welga has one week to figure out how to bring down the Machinehood, but the ex-special forces operative finds that she may be facing down an old enemy.
4
March 2
The American-born daughter of Colombian immigrants, Talia has been incarcerated in a juvenile detention facility ever since her violent outburst. Her father has secured her passage back to the United States, but he's in Bogotá, and Talia may not be able to make it there in time to catch her flight.
5
March 2
Reunited after their mother's death, siblings Rafa and Rufina strike a hard bargain upon returning to their hometown, a popular tourist destination. Afraid for her brother's life, Rufina asks Rafa to promise not to kill himself, provided that they can earn the cash for a flight out of Ciudad de Tres Hermanas before the weekend is up.
6
March 9
At the height of the AIDS epidemic, a serial killer targeted men in New York City gay bars. His crimes went unnoticed and unpunished for years, in spite of testimony from witnesses and at least one surviving victim. Elon Green's debut work of nonfiction, Last Call, sheds some light on the Last Call Killer's crimes and eventual capture.
7
March 9
Amazon's No. 1 new release in LGBTQ+ poetry at the time of this writing, Jasmine Mans' Black Girl, Call Home explores the poet's life and experiences growing up queer, Black, and female, both in New Jersey and in the United States at large.
8
March 9
After her brief romance with a charismatic writer ends, a young woman finds herself caught in a destructive spiral, in Megan Nolan's debut novel, Acts of Desperation.
9
March 16
Layla AlAmmar's Silence Is a Sense centers on a Syrian British magazine columnist who spies on her neighbors as she tries to overcome the traumas of war and relocation.
10
March 16
The first in a new series of mystery novels, Nadine Matheson's The Jigsaw Man follows Detective Inspector Anjelica Henley as she investigates a copycat killer... while trying to keep the original murderer at bay.
11
March 16
An empathic psychic who sells emotionally charged items crosses paths with a woman who collects her wares in Kim Neville's The Memory Collectors. Psychic Ev and enthusiast Harriet don't have much in common, but they may be one another's only saving grace when an old darkness creeps back into their lives.
12
March 23
In this historical epic, Lisa Scottoline examines the lives of three friends who find their mettle tested by Mussolini's rise to power and Hitler's invasion of Rome. Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro have a lot in common, but the fascists who have come to power don't pose an existential threat to all of them.
13
March 30
Moving between 1925 and 2015, Denny S. Bryce's Wild Women and the Blues centers on Honoree, a former nightclub dancer whose recollections of her storied past prove to be a student's only hope for finishing his final film school project.
14
March 30
Three generations of Cuban and Cuban American women wrestle with the realities of the past, present, and future in Of Women and Salt. From the mother who takes in an ICE detainee's child to the daughter pushing her grandmother for information about her heritage, an enigmatic cast of women and their lives form the focus of Gabriela Garcia's debut.
15
April 6
American photographer Dorothea Lange is the central figure in Jasmin Darznik's new novel. The Bohemians follows Lange as she moves through the art world in the decade preceding the Great Depression.
16
April 6
Gina Frangello's raw memoir traces the dark fractures of her life, from her childhood in poverty, to her life as a wife and mother, to her catastrophic extramarital affair. Blow Your House Down is an unforgettable book.
17
April 6
From the author of This Will Be My Undoing and Wandering in Strange Lands comes Caul Baby, a debut novel that centers on women pursuing motherhood at dangerous costs. The Melancons' magic comes from their caul, but what happens when they decide to raise a child who is not their own?
18
April 13
The Deaf twin daughters of Deaf parents take center stage in Yaara Shehori's Aquarium. At their father's insistence, Lili and Dori have grown up separated from the hearing, but their family is about to collide with that world in a life-changing way.
19
April 13
J. Nicole Jones' devastating memoir examines the realities of living in a picture-perfect, privileged family where nothing is as it seems to the public eye. Rife with trauma, Low Country reconciles Jones' family history with that of her homeland in coastal South Carolina.
20
April 27
The sequel to Anna K, Jenny Lee's Anna K Away catches up with the eponymous heroine — now living in her father's native South Korea — and her circle of friends, who have been laid low by the untimely death of Anna's ex.
21
May 4
The first installment in a new mystery series, Mia P. Manansala's Arsenic and Adobo centers on Lila Macapagal, a young woman whose job in her aunt's restaurant places her in the hot seat for a murder she didn't commit, forcing her to open her own investigation and solve the case before the police close in.
22
May 4
Larissa Pham's memoir-in-essays is Pop Song, a debut that connects music, art, and literature to the foundational moments in one's life. A tender heartache of a book, this memoir will make you feel seen in all the right ways.
23
May 4
Maggie Shipstead's Great Circle follows a trailblazing aviator and the woman hired to play her in a biopic 100 years later. Marian Graves disappeared in Antarctica while circumnavigating the globe, but that doesn't stop her life from lining up in surprising ways with that of the actress set to portray her on screen.
24
May 4
A prodigal son's return home draws disasters and tempts fate in Stacey Swann's Olympus, Texas. Two years ago, March had an affair with his brother's wife. Now, he's ready to come home, but not everyone in the family is ready to welcome him back into the fold.
25
May 11
From the author of You Should Have Known comes this new thriller. The Plot centers on washed-up novelist Jake, who takes credit for his MFA student's manuscript when the young man winds up dead. Someone knows Jake didn't write his new book, however, and they're out to get even.
26
May 18
It's been 11 years since Delilah and her mother went missing. Now, the teenager has returned to her sleepy hometown, dredging up memories of a dark past and leaving everyone to wonder if they really want to know what happened to the missing women.
27
May 18
After she loses everything, a former influencer seizes the opportunity to rebrand herself as the face of a friend's anti-toxic-masculinity retreat. But how will Sasha handle being den mother to a bunch of angry, resentful men, and why has her friend singled her out for the role?
