Ready Your Reading Nook: These Are the 22 Most Anticipated Books of Winter

Misfits in their own families, Keru and Nate find in each other a feeling of home. Keru is the only child of strict, well-educated Chinese immigrant parents who hold her to impossible standards even as an adult. Nate is from a rural, white, working class family that has never trusted his intellectual ambitions. Nevertheless, some years into their marriage, Keru and Nate find themselves incorporating their families into two carefully planned vacations. The results are disastrous and revealing.

Publishing December 3.

Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father dies. An architect as cruel as he was revered, his death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind until their fragile bond is shattered by a revelation in his will. More estranged than ever, the sisters’ lives spin out of control. But something even more sinister might be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always seemed unusually interested in the sisters’ lives.

Publishing December 3.

Savannah Carlson is counting down her last month until the big four-oh by making every weekend count. But when her estranged husband Caleb dies in a boating accident, and Vanna is arrested at his funeral, all of her plans go awry. Suddenly, Vanna is grappling with a host of mixed emotions. Grief. Rage. Fear. And even bliss when an old acquaintance comes back into the picture. Amidst all of the chaos, Vanna refuses to spiral—after all, 40 is still just around the corner.

Publishing December 24.

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret and give them up for adoption. Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified, and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and there’s always a price to be paid.

Publishing January 14.

Author Grady Green calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge, the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there… but his wife has disappeared. A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible—a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

Publishing January 14.

When Kyle McCray gets word his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, he returns to his hometown of Potsdam, New York, where he doesn’t expect a warm welcome. Kyle left suddenly two and a half years ago, abandoning people who depended on him—not to mention Casey, his wife of 16 years and a beloved teacher in town. He plans to lie low and help his dad recuperate until he can leave again. But the longer he’s home, the more Kyle understands the impact his departure has had on the people he left behind. When he’s presented with an opportunity for redemption as the coach of the floundering middle school hockey team, he begins to find compassion in unexpected places.

Publishing January 14.

In the breathtaking follow-up to Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, the battle has truly begun. With enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust. Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him. Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything.

Publishing January 21.

Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard. Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and a broken ankle, she is rescued by a couple who offer her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears. But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger. This safe haven isn’t what she thought it was, and now she must do whatever it takes to save herself—and her unborn child.

Publishing January 28.

Arctic explorer and American visionary Walter Wellman pioneered both polar and trans-Atlantic airship aviation, making history’s first attempts at each. He was a courageous innovator who pushed the boundaries of polar exploration and paved the way for the ultimate conquest of the North Pole—which would be achieved not by dogsled or airplane, but by airship. Realm of Ice and Sky is the thrilling narrative of polar exploration through the sky.

Publishing January 28.

Neko Case has long been revered as one of music’s most influential artists. Case brings her trademark candor and precision to a memoir that traces her evolution from an invisible girl “raised by two dogs and a space heater” in rural Washington state to her emergence as an internationally-acclaimed talent. In luminous, sharp-edged prose, Case shows readers what it’s like to be left alone for hours and hours as a child, to take refuge in the woods around her home, and to channel the monotony and loneliness and joy that comes from music, camaraderie, and shared experience into art.

Publishing January 28.

Scarlett Vandermeer is a junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving. She prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common, until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.

Publishing February 4.

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness. But all of this came to an abrupt halt when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. There, she pondered the varied ways those of other cultures grieve and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony’s death.

Publishing February 4.

Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, her nights spent roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie. When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act. With time ticking down, Junie grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control.

Publishing February 4.

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall, and her love life is… complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood 35 years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach about love.

Publishing February 11.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay. But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband-to-be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Publishing February 11.

London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second-class citizens by their male counterparts. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder. Determined to solve a highly publicized killing, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

Publishing February 11.

Everything is about to change. Paige Mahoney is outside the Republic of Scion for the first time in more than a decade—but she has no idea how she got to the free world. Half a year has been wiped from her memory. Her journey back to the revolution soon takes her to Venice. Before Paige can return to London, she must help the network unravel the sinister Operation Ventriloquist, which threatens to bring Europe to its knees in weeks. With its intricate worldbuilding and slow-burn romance, the fifth installment in The Bone Season series is an addictive read.

Publishing February 25.

It’s a Friday night in a campus bar in Berkeley, fall of 2000, and Percy Marks is pontificating about music again. Hall and Oates is on the jukebox, and Percy—who has no talent for music, just lots of opinions about it—can’t stop herself from overanalyzing the song, indulging what she knows to be her most annoying habit. But something is different tonight. The guy beside her at the bar, fellow student Joe Morrow, is a songwriter. And he could listen to Percy talk all night. Joe asks Percy for feedback on one of his songs—and the results kick off a partnership that will span years, ignite new passions in them both, and crush their egos again and again. Is their collaboration worth its cost? Or is it holding Percy back from finding her own voice?

Publishing February 25.

When her brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart all those years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son Bobby, who died a few years earlier. Beth and her husband Frank are happily married, but they have their fair share of secrets. And when the truth begins to come out, events spiral out of control, this time with deadly consequences.

Publishing March 4.

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater.

Publishing March 4.

As the day dawns on the 50th annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. But when his name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight… and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

Publishing March 18.

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor, is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.

Publishing March 18.

Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, there’s nothing to do but walk. Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie experiences human desperation and strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unlikely friendship with a young mother. As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. If she can just make it home, she’s determined to change her life.

Publishing March 25.