The 23 Most Anticipated New Books This Spring, According To Goodreads Members

Available now

If you’re a romance reader, you’re probably already deep into this book. In case you missed it, though, here’s the gist of Jimenez’s newest release: Larissa and Chris are best friends — they trade book recs, run a few side hustles, and even co-parent a rescue dog. But Larissa is in a relationship with Chris’ best friend, who Larissa accepted a ride home from after a fateful night out. Chris is just happy she’s happy... except, he wishes it was with him. Speaking up will change everything.

Available now

It’s 1958 in the remote outback of Western Australia. The MacBride family has lived on their sprawling, remote property for generations, when one morning, patriarch Phil MacBride swerves to avoid a kangaroo and the family’s lives come crashing down. Tragedy strikes again and again, and the youngest MacBride, Matt, must sort through the wreckage.

The book’s blurb swears it is illuminating and uplifting, so don’t let the plot summary steer you away — some of the tears you cry will likely be from pure emotion. This is the same author who wrote The Light Between Oceans, after all (*sniff*).

Available now

Benny Abbott and Joy Moore host one of the most popular true crime podcasts in the world, recounting survival stories and near-death experiences for listeners. Their empire has only grown with the help of their manager (and Joy’s husband), Xander. But when Benny arrives at their place to record and finds it ransacked, with the couple missing, the police zero in on him as their prime suspect.

Available now

If you love an enemies-to-lovers romance, this one will have you giggling and kicking your little feet. Simon and Charlie co-star in a popular sci-fi series, but viewers would never know they hate each other off-screen. Simon thinks Charlie should’ve stayed on reality TV, and now that his contract is up, he can finally move to New York and never see Charlie again. But rather than be seen as difficult to work with, Simon strikes up a purposely public friendship with Charlie shortly before his departure, just to keep rumors at bay. But the more the pair get to know each other, the more they realize their hatred was actually something else all along.

Available now

Christina Applegate spent five decades gracing our biggest screens, only to be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and confined to her king-sized bed in 2021. Here, the actress revisits her life with the help of old diary entries, addressing her self-doubt, body dysmorphia, experience watching her mother battle addiction, and so much more.

Available now

Score! Another thriller (this time about a haunted house) for those of you who prefer to stay on the edge of your seat. Here’s the synopsis:

“Single mother Elodie’s life has become a fairy tale. She’s met Bren, equal parts Golden-retriever-devoted and sinfully handsome. He’s whisked her and her autistic son, Jude, to the crumbling family house he’s renovating. She has a new husband, a new house, and a new baby on the way. Everything is perfect. Until Jude claims he can hear voices in the walls. He says their renovations are ‘hurting’ the house. Even Elodie can’t ignore it ― something strange is going on. The question is, is it with the house, or with her son? And what is Elodie hiding?”

Available March 24

Oliver Ines grew up in an English village where his bedroom was plastered in glow-in-the-dark planets and stars. He just so happened to be born on the same day the Challenger fell out of the sky.

Decades later, Ollie is one of the most renowned astronauts of his time, so it makes sense when he’s tapped to lead a mission to a faraway moon, Europa. As he gets further than ever from home, he finds himself revisiting it in his mind — his years at uni, becoming a husband and a dad, and wondering what home will be like when he returns in 10 years. Celestial Lights is “a portrait of a complicated man and a breathtaking tale of memory, personal choices, and the relationships that define us.”

Available March 31

According to the synopsis, “Retail worker Emmett Truesdale has never fit the Southern California mold of six-pack, suntanned masculinity. Over 300 pounds, he carries the weight of his childhood trauma and millennial ennui around his waist and in his soul. After trying every diet under the sun, he remains stuck — in his dead-end job, in love, and in his body. Desperate for help, he enrolls in a clinical trial for a new weight loss product called Obexity. The treatment is as horrifying as the results are miraculous, and as Emmett sheds pounds at superhuman speed, every part of his life improves overnight. Unfortunately, Obexity comes with some killer side effects, including lost stretches of time and overwhelming cravings. Worse, people who were cruel to him have started disappearing, and when the police warn of a cannibalistic killer on the loose, he fears that Obexity is turning him into a monster.”

Available March 31

Jenny Lawson has been writing humorously about her mental health since way before it was cool, but even as a celebrated author, she’s still plagued by self-doubt and anxiety — oh, and treatment-resistant depression. This book answers a question she gets all the time: “How do you do it?” In How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay, Lawson shares more than a hundred tools and tricks that she personally relies on to keep her living and creating in spite of her depression, anxiety, and ADHD. This book is about surviving and thriving, curating joy, and getting sh*t done.

Available April 7

Natalie Heller Mills lives a perfect life, in her perfect farmhouse, with her perfect husband and six perfect children. She has it all, but only shows some of it online to her 8 million followers — never the nannies and producers behind the scenes, or the fact that her husband is the heir to a political dynasty. Her Ivy League-educated coastal elite haters would really glom onto that.

But one morning Natalie wakes up, and something’s just... off. Her kitchen is warmed by a fire, not electricity. Her “soft-handed” husband is suddenly an actual farmer. And why are the kids all dirty? When she’s injured in the woods, Natalie realizes this isn’t her perfect life anymore, and she will do anything to escape.

Available April 7

Remy’s first novel was based on her three best friends, but now, they’re all leaving her in one way or another: one’s moving, one’s pregnant, and one’s back in love with her terrible boyfriend. Meanwhile, her publisher is breathing down her neck for her next book idea. Simone is a passionate kindergarten teacher with a high-paying side hustle her family doesn’t support, meaning she’s similarly alone. When the two bump into each other, it’s not exactly besties at first sight. But their friendship unfolds into something life-changing for them both.

Available April 7

November 29th, 2019: Surveillance cameras capture a young man pacing back and forth along the River Thames before jumping in. Days later, police arrive to tell the boy’s parents, Rachelle and Matthew, that their son Zac is dead. They would soon learn they knew very little about their son. Patrick Radden Keefe traces Zac’s entanglement with London’s crime underbelly — and his parents' arduous quest to discover who their child had really been in life, and the true nature of his death.

Available April 7

Six struggling authors are invited to visit the private island of Arthur Fletch, one of the world’s most renowned authors (and a complete recluse). He’s known for his memorable characters and unpredictable twists. But following his untimely death, his last novel is sitting unfinished. One of the six writers will earn the honor to complete his work for a massive check and a full career relaunch. Who will be left standing after 72 hours on the island?

Available April 14

Historian Alison Sage makes the discovery of the century when she unearths a manuscript documenting the prophecies of a 16th-century nun, Elizabeth Barton, which were previously thought to have been destroyed. The find secures her an invite to the Codex Consortium, a week-long research intensive held at an old English manor near Barton’s home — and while Alison is there, it becomes the site of a murder. Can she solve the crime using her unique knowledge of the area?

Available April 14

If you love books told in dual timelines, here’s your next read:

“October, 2026: Lee Turner doesn’t remember how or why he killed his college roommate. The details are blurred and bloody. All he knows is he has to flee New York and go to the one place that might offer refuge — his father’s new home in Japan, a house hidden by sword ferns and wild ginger. But something is terribly wrong with the house: no animals will come near it, the bedroom window isn’t always a window, and a woman with a sword appears in the yard when night falls.

“October, 1877: Sen is a young samurai in exile, hiding from the imperial soldiers in a house behind the sword ferns. A monster came home from war wearing her father’s face, but Sen would do anything to please him, even turn her sword on her own mother. She knows the soldiers will soon slaughter her whole family when she sees a terrible omen: a young foreign man who appears outside her window.

“One of these people is a ghost, and one of these stories is a lie. Something is hiding beneath the house of sword ferns, and Lee and Sen will soon wish they never unburied it.”

Available April 21

Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is 81, known for her stubborn independence and biting remarks. She mostly keeps to herself, until one day a neighbor turns up dead and the rumor mill starts churning. You see, Elsie used to go by another name: Mad Mabel Waller, Australia’s youngest convicted killer. The mystery introduces us to the entire neighborhood of characters, from precocious 7-year-old Persephone to Joan, who seems to have a grudge against Elsie. After a lifetime of being underestimated and misunderstood, Elsie sets out to prove everyone wrong once again.

Available April 28

It’s March 1980, above a small town in the Adirondacks, where Carol Girard lives with her husband and new baby. They’re the ones who see it: a light flickering in the sky, a signal from intelligent life that they know we’re here too. So begins a five-decade-long conversation between the Girard family and these faraway beings, revealing how each member of the family moves forward with the knowledge that we’re not alone in the universe after all.

Available May 5

Sometimes you need a book to make you look at things anew. In Strout’s novel we meet Artie Dam, who’s living a double life of sorts. He teaches 11th-grade history and encourages his students, attends holiday parties with his wife of 30 years. He just can’t help but feel like he doesn’t truly know anyone, even the people he’s closest with. When a secret about his own life is revealed, it will upend his world and his relationships.

Available May 5

Carley Fortune is one of those writers where if she writes it, I’ll read it. In her newest release we meet Frankie and George, who’ve been best friends since age 8. They always clashed and then came back together, but now it’s the eve of Frankie’s wedding, and she’s not sure George will actually show up and stand behind her as her best man. But when her fiancé dumps her the next day, George steps in to join her on her honeymoon-turned-healing journey, and the pair will have to face long-repressed feelings if they hope to repair their friendship.

Available May 5

You’ll recognize Kathryn Stockett’s name from her debut novel, The Help. And if that doesn’t make you want to read her new novel immediately, maybe this summary will:

“Oxford, Mississippi, 1933. Abandoned by her mother one Christmas Eve, eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Now one of the unadoptable ‘big girls’ at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, she fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed.

“Birdie Calhoun, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford to ask her socialite sister to help the struggling family she’s left behind. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie discovers her sister’s seemingly charmed life is a tapestry of lies.

“Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman running low on luck with little left to lose. When their fates and Meg’s converge, Charlie comes up with an audacious plan to claim what’s rightfully theirs. But in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife and women’s freedom is fragile, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences.”

Available May 5

A well-respected judge is murdered, and Leila Reynolds will defend the suspect in court. It’s her first murder case and a very high-profile one at that, but the defendant insists he wants her to represent him. And her opponent is the most ruthless, calculating prosecutor she’s ever met: her husband. Can she sway the jury in her favor and keep her own secrets buried?

Available May 12

Elegy is a soldier tasked with defending her tiny nation against the Talusar, a powerful country that worships a deadly fever said to bless its victims with special gifts. When she is summoned to hear a prophecy, an oracle declares she or Rava Vidar, the fearsome Talusar general, will lead their people to victory — but the oracle can’t say which one will survive. And a mysterious man will somehow determine their fates. Elegy sets out to ensure she’s victorious.

Available May 26

This book is set in the same world as Haig’s The Midnight Library, a magical realism masterpiece. The first sentence of this next book’s blurb has me hooked right away.

“No one can change the past, but the Midnight Train can take you there. The chance to re-live the moments that meant most. To see what kind of person you really were. For Wilbur his best days were with Maggie, the love of his life. On his honeymoon in Venice. Before he gave it all away. He wishes he could go back and live differently. But to do so risks everything.”