It may feel different outside, but according to our calendars, spring has arrived! And that means we have warm and comfortable weather coming our way (hopefully, it will come soon)!
However, we book lovers don’t only have the nice weather to look forward to but also the exciting new releases coming our way, great new books that are perfect for our “spring reading”. So get your pen, book journal, StoryGraph, whichever you use to jot down your TBR pile; the following 25 upcoming books will have you running towards your favorite park bench and start your reading journey:
When Our Worlds Collided by Danielle Jawando
Expected Publication Date: March 31
When fourteen-year-old Shaq is stabbed outside of a busy shopping centre in Manchester, three teenagers from very different walks of life are unexpectedly brought together. What follows flips their worlds upside down and makes Chantelle, Jackson, and Marc question the deep-rooted prejudice and racism that exists within the police, the media, and the rest of society. (Credit: Simon & Schuster UK)
When The Sky Falls by Phil Earle
Expected Publication Date: April 5
Shortlisted for the 2022 YOTO Carnegie Greenway Award
In 1940, with his father off to war, Joseph is sent on a train out of his British town into the care of Mrs. F., a gruff woman with no great fondness for children. But he soon discovers her softer side when she takes him to the rundown city zoo and he learns she is the only one who ever checks on it.
Many of the animals have escaped, been released, or have sadly starved . . . but not Adonis, a huge silverback gorilla. Adonis is strong and ferocious—and a danger to the whole city if a bomb should fall and damage the fence that keeps him in. But as Joseph struggles in his new school and starts to spend more time at the zoo, he finds, unexpectedly, Adonis becoming a loyal new friend. This is the touching story of how a boy and a gorilla find redemption in each other among the toughest of circumstances. (Credit: Bloomsbury Children Books)
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Expected Publication Date: April 5
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.
Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist. (Credit: Doubleday)
Seven Steeples by Sara Baume
Expected Publication Date: April 26
The mountain remained, unclimbed, for the first year that they lived there. Bell and Sigh, a couple in the infancy of their relationship, cut themselves off from friends and family. They turn their backs on a city divided by scores of streets and hundreds of sterile cherry trees, by a foul river and a declining population of house sparrows. Them in and the world out. From the top of the nearby mountain, they are told, you can see seven standing stones, seven schools, and seven steeples. All you have to do is climb. Taking place in a remote house in the south-west of Ireland, this rich and vivid novel spans seven years and speaks to the times we live in, asking how we may withdraw, how better to live in the natural world, and how the choices made or avoided lead us home. (Credit: Tramp Press)
Mrs. England by Stacey Halls
Expected Publication Date: April 12
West Yorkshire, 1904. When newly graduated nurse Ruby May takes a position looking after the children of Charles and Lilian England, a wealthy couple from a powerful dynasty of mill owners, she hopes it will be the fresh start she needs. But as she adapts to life at the isolated Hardcastle House, it becomes clear there’s something not quite right about the beautiful, mysterious Mrs England.
Distant and withdrawn, Lilian shows little interest in her children or charming husband, and is far from the “angel of the house” Ruby was expecting. As the warm, vivacious Charles welcomes Ruby into the family, a series of strange events forces her to question everything she thought she knew.
Ostracized by the servants and feeling increasingly uneasy, Ruby must face her demons in order to prevent history from repeating itself. After all, there’s no such thing as the perfect family – and she, of all, should know. (Credit: MIRA)
The No-Show by Beth O’Leary
Expected Publication Date: April 12
Siobhan is a quick-tempered life coach with way too much on her plate. Miranda is a tree surgeon used to being treated as just one of the guys on the job. Jane is a soft-spoken volunteer for the local charity shop with zero sense of self-worth.
These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: They’ve all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up—Valentine’s Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they’ve all been stood up by the same man.
Once they’ve each forgiven him for standing them up, they let him back into their lives and are in serious danger of falling in love with a man who seems to have not just one or two but three women on the go….
Is there more to him than meets the eye? And will they each untangle the truth before they all get their hearts broken? (Credit: Berkley)
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
Expected UK Publication Date: April 14
There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub owned by her family. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever. As people get up each morning and go to work, school, church or the pub, the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploded, another man beaten, killed or left for dead.
In the class Cushla teaches, the vocabulary of seven-year-old children now includes phrases like ‘petrol bomb’ and ‘rubber bullets’. And as she is forced to tread lines she never thought she would cross, tensions in the town are escalating, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together. (Credit: Bloomsbury)
People Person by Candice Carty-Williams
Expected UK Publication Date: April 28
If you could choose your family… you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons.
Dimple Pennington knew of her half siblings, but she didn’t really know them. Five people who don’t have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad’s gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues. Dimple has bigger things to think about.
She’s thirty, and her life isn’t really going anywhere. An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend, Dimple’s life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen. And despite a small but loyal following, she’s never felt more alone in her life. That is, until a dramatic event brings her half siblings Nikisha, Danny, Lizzie and Prynce crashing back into her life. And when they’re all forced to reconnect with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things get even more complicated.
The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood
Expected Publication Date: May 3
Judith Potts is seventy-seven years old and blissfully happy. She lives just outside Marlow with no man in her life to tell her what to do and she keeps herself busy setting crosswords for the newspaper. But Judith’s peace is disrupted when she witnesses a murder while out for a swim in the Thames River.
The local police don’t believe her story, so she investigates for herself, joined by a salt-of-the-earth dog-walker and the prim and proper wife of the local vicar. Together, they are the Marlow Murder Club. When another body turns up, they realize the puzzle they set out to solve might be a real-life serial killer’s deadly trap… (Credit: Poisoned Pen Press)
The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra
Expected Publication Date: May 3
When clever, headstrong Kaveri moves to Bangalore to marry handsome young doctor Ramu, she’s resigned herself to a quiet life.
But that all changes the night of the party at the Century Club, where she escapes to the garden for some peace and quiet—and instead spots an uninvited guest in the shadows. Half an hour later, the party turns into a murder scene.
When a vulnerable woman is connected to the crime, Kaveri becomes determined to save her and launches a private investigation to find the killer, tracing his steps from an illustrious brothel to an Englishman’s mansion. She soon finds that sleuthing in a sari isn’t as hard as it seems when you have a talent for mathematics, a head for logic, and a doctor for a husband . . .
And she’s going to need them all as the case leads her deeper into a hotbed of danger, sedition, and intrigue in Bangalore’s darkest alleyways. (Credit: Pegasus Books)
Two Little Girls by Laura Jarratt
Expected Publication Date: May 3
When Lizzie’s car crashes with her two daughters inside, she faces a terrible choice—she has time to save one of her girls. Only one.
As she recovers from her injuries, Lizzie has to deal with not only the tragedy of her decision, but also a police investigation into it. Grieving, she and her family struggle to come to terms with the events of that night, and then things take an even darker turn. What exactly happened on that remote country road? Who is responsible? And can the family get through this together, or will the truth finally tear them apart? (Credit: Sourcebooks Landmark)
The Agathas by Kathleen Glagsow & Liz Lawson
Expected Publication Date: May 3
Last summer, Alice Ogilvie’s basketball-star boyfriend Steve dumped her. Then she disappeared for five days. She’s not talking, so where she went and what happened to her is the biggest mystery in Castle Cove. Or it was, at least. But now, another one of Steve’s girlfriends has vanished: Brooke Donovan, Alice’s ex–best friend. And it doesn’t look like Brooke will be coming back…
Enter Iris Adams, Alice’s tutor. Iris has her own reasons for wanting to disappear, though unlike Alice, she doesn’t have the money or the means. That could be changed by the hefty reward Brooke’s grandmother is offering to anyone who can share information about her granddaughter’s whereabouts. The police are convinced Steve is the culprit, but Alice isn’t so sure, and with Iris on her side, she just might be able to prove her theory.
In order to get the reward and prove Steve’s innocence, they need to figure out who killed Brooke Donovan. And luckily Alice has exactly what they need—the complete works of Agatha Christie. If there’s anyone that can teach the girls how to solve a mystery it’s the master herself. But the town of Castle Cove holds many secrets, and Alice and Iris have no idea how much danger they’re about to walk into. (Credit: Delacorte Press)
Smile Out Loud: 25 Happy Poems by Joseph Coelho and Daniel Gray-Barnett
Expected Publication Date: May 10
Twenty five original poems from award winning poet Joseph Coelho designed to be read aloud to project confidence, conjure happiness, make you laugh or cheer others up. Some are odes, some can be said as personal mantras or just poems full of words that you can’t help but smile when you hear them.
This is a book for any child who wants to build confidence reading aloud, or wants a way to channel their speech and drama confidence. It is a book to foster a love of words and the power that comes with the spoken word. It will show children how speaking a poem aloud has a certain magic, almost like reading a spell.
Poems can be read aloud to an audience, muttered quietly to oneself or whispered in the ear of someone who needs to hear some cheerful words. (Credit: Wide Eyed Editions)
The Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan
Expected Publication Date: May 10
First Rule: Make them like you.
Second Rule: Make them need you.
Third Rule: Make them pay.
They think I’m a young, idealistic law student, that I’m passionate about reforming a corrupt and brutal system.
They think I’m working hard to impress them.
They think I’m here to save an innocent man on death row.
They’re wrong. I’m going to bury him. (Credit: William Morrow)
Fix the System, Not the Women by Laura Bates
Expected Publication Date: May 12
10 years after founding the Everyday Sexism Project, feminist writer and activist Laura Bates connects the dots between the ‘isolated incidents’ of violence against women and the institutional and systemic misogyny that is so deeply ingrained in our society.
Every three days in the UK, women are murdered by their current or former partners. 137 women worldwide are killed by a family member every day. These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a devastatingly clear pattern. But it is a pattern we are so used to seeing that we simply don’t notice it anymore. These incidents are the product of a society in which misogyny is so deeply ingrained that it has simply become part of our daily lives.
This book will lay these patterns bare for everyone to see. Joining the dots from an epidemic of school sexual violence to the failings of the police and CPS, institutional and systemic misogyny, political apathy and media distortion, this will be an examination of how the entire system lets women and girls down, again and again. (Credit: Simon & Schuster)
The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Expected UK Publication Date: May 12
In Strasbourg, in the boiling hot summer of 1518, a plague strikes the women of the city. First it is just one – a lone figure, dancing in the main square – but she is joined by more and more and the city authorities declare an emergency. Musicians will be brought in. The devil will be danced out of these women.
Just beyond the city’s limits, pregnant Lisbet lives with her mother-in-law and husband, tending the bees that are their livelihood. Her best friend Ida visits regularly and Lisbet is so looking forward to sharing life and motherhood with her. And then, just as the first woman begins to dance in the city, Lisbet’s sister-in-law Nethe returns from six years’ penance in the mountains for an unknown crime. No one – not even Ida – will tell Lisbet what Nethe did all those years ago, and Nethe herself will not speak a word about it.
It is the beginning of a few weeks that will change everything for Lisbet – her understanding of what it is to love and be loved, and her determination to survive at all costs for the baby she is carrying. Lisbet and Nethe and Ida soon find themselves pushing at the boundaries of their existence – but they’re dancing to a dangerous tune…
Idol by Louise O’Neill
Expected UK Publication Date: May 12
Follow your heart and speak your truth.’
For Samantha Miller’s young fans – her ‘girls’ – she’s everything they want to be. She’s an oracle, telling them how to live their lives, how to be happy, how to find and honour their ‘truth’.
And her career is booming: she’s just hit three million followers, her new book Chaste has gone straight to the top of the bestseller lists and she’s appearing at sell-out events.
Determined to speak her truth and bare all to her adoring fans, she’s written an essay about her sexual awakening as a teenager, with her female best friend, Lisa. She’s never told a soul but now she’s telling the world. The essay goes viral.
But then – years since they last spoke – Lisa gets in touch to say that she doesn’t remember it that way at all. Her memory of that night is far darker. It’s Sam’s word against Lisa’s – so who gets to tell the story? Whose ‘truth’ is really a lie?
‘You put yourself on that pedestal, Samantha. You only have yourself to blame.’ (Credit: Transworld Publishers Ltd)
Only On The Weekends by Dean Atta
Expected Publication Date: May 24
Mack never thought he’d find love, but now two boys want to be with him. Will he choose Karim or Finlay? And can true love last for ever? A must-read queer love story for fans of Sarah Crossan and Sex Education, written in verse by Dean Atta.
Fifteen-year-old Mack is a hopeless romantic – he blames the films he’s grown up watching. He has liked Karim for as long as he can remember, and is ecstatic when Karim becomes his boyfriend – it feels like love.
But when Mack’s dad gets a job on a film in Scotland, Mack has to move, and soon he discovers how painful love can be. It’s horrible being so far away from Karim, but the worst part is that Karim doesn’t make the effort to visit. Love shouldn’t be only on the weekends.
Then, when Mack meets actor Finlay on a film set, he experiences something powerful, a feeling like love at first sight. How long until he tells Karim – and when will his old life and new life collide? (Credit: Hachette Children’s Group)
The Science of Murder: The Forensics of Agatha Christie by Carla Valentine
Expected Publication Date: May 31
Written by mortician and forensic expert Carla Valentine, The Science of Murder explores the real-life cases that inspired Agatha Christie and shows how the great mystery writer may have kept up to date with the latest developments in forensic science, from ballistics to blood-splatter analysis.
Valentine examines the use of fingerprints, firearms, handwriting, impressions, and toxicology in Christie’s novels, before finally revealing the role the dead body itself played in offering vital clues to dastardly crimes. (Credit: Sourcebooks)
What’s the T?: The Guide to All Things Trans And/Or Nonbinary for Teens by Juno Dawson
In What’s the T? Stonewall ambassador and bestselling author Juno Dawson is back again, this time with everything you’ve wanted to know about labels and identities and offering uncensored advice on coming out, sex, and relationships with her trademark humor and lightness of touch. It is informative, helpful, optimistic, and funny but with a good dose of reality and some of the things that can downright suck too.
The companion title to the groundbreaking This Book Is Gay, What’s the T? tackles the complex realities of growing up trans with honesty and humor and is joyfully illustrated by gender non-conforming artist Soofiya.
This book is for:
- Anyone with questions
- Parents of trans and/or non-binary kids
- Educators looking for advice about the transgender community (Credit: Sourcebooks Fire)
The Gifts That Bind Us by Caroline O’Donoghue
Expected US Publication Date: June 7
It’s senior year, and Maeve and her friends are practicing and strengthening their mystical powers, while Maeve’s new relationship with Roe is exhilarating. But as Roe’s rock star dreams start to take shape, and Fiona and Lily make plans for faraway colleges, Maeve, who struggles in school, worries about life without them—will she be selling incense here in Kilbeg, Ireland, until she’s fifty? Alarm bells sound for the coven when the Children of Brigid, a right-wing religious organization, quickly gains influence throughout the city—and when its charismatic front man starts visiting Maeve in her dreams. When Maeve’s power starts to wane, the friends realize that all the local magic is being drained—or rather, stolen. With lines increasingly blurred between friend and foe, the supernatural and the psychological, Maeve and the others must band together to protect the place, and the people, they love. A thrilling sequel to All Our Hidden Gifts. (Credit: Walker Books US)
The Poet by Louisa Reid
Expected Publication Date: June 9
Bright, promising Emma is entangled in a toxic romance with her old professor – and she’s losing control.
Cruel, charming Tom is idolized by his students and peers – confident he holds all the cards.
In their small Oxford home, he manipulates and undermines her every thought and act. Soon, he will push her to the limit and she must decide: to remain quiet and submit, or to take her revenge. (Credit: Transworld Publishers)
Lucky by Rachel Edwards
Expected Publication Date: June 14
Etta believes she was born lucky. She believes that if she can save enough money, she and Ola can finally marry and buy a home. Willing to chance it all, she quietly begins to make money on an online gambling site—until she begins losing. Soon she has secretly lost their entire savings. Luckily, Etta has made a friend on the site, a friend who has recently won big. Perhaps she can persuade him to give her a loan, just until she wins the money back. What could possibly go wrong? (Credit: Fourth Estate)
Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun by Tolá Okogwu
Expected Publication Date: June 14
Onyeka has a lot of hair—the kind that makes strangers stop in the street and her peers whisper behind her back. At least she has Cheyenne, her best friend, who couldn’t care less what other people think. Still, Onyeka has always felt uncomfortable with her vibrant curls…until the day Cheyenne almost drowns and Onyeka’s hair takes on a life of its own, inexplicably pulling Cheyenne from the water.
At home, Onyeka’s mother tells her the shocking truth: Onyeka’s psycho-kinetic powers make her a Solari, one of a secret group of people with super powers unique to Nigeria. Her mother quickly whisks her off to the Academy of the Sun, a school in Nigeria where Solari are trained. But Onyeka and her new friends at the academy soon have to put their powers to the test as they find themselves embroiled in a momentous battle between truth and lies…(Credit: Margaret K. McElderry Books)
Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith
Expected Publication Date: June 14
Wash Day Diaries tells the story of four best friends—Kim, Tanisha, Davene, and Cookie—through five connected short story comics that follow these young women through the ups and downs of their daily lives in the Bronx.
The book takes its title from the wash day experience shared by Black women everywhere of setting aside all plans and responsibilities for a full day of washing, conditioning, and nourishing their hair. Each short story uses hair routines as a window into these four characters’ everyday lives and how they care for each other. (Credit: Chronicle Books)
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