Every January I set a slew of New Year’s resolutions. I’ve got the recurring stars—save more money, finally start stretching, eat more vegetables… you get the idea—and usually one or two new kids on the block, like writing a book or tackling five DIY projects around the house (as someone who isn’t exactly handy, this is a tough one for me). But my favorite resolution each year, and the one I usually have no trouble sticking to, is to read more books. I look forward to setting my reading goal on Goodreads and tracking my progress throughout the year almost as much as I love the actual reading part.
Reading more is a common resolution for many. So, if you’re looking for books to help you reach your reading goals this year, this is the list for you. Behold: the most anticipated books of 2023 are here. These books have been vetted by Goodreads’ community of readers, so you’ll be in good company as you dive into them throughout the year. I’ve also included a few books our editors here at The Everygirl have on their personal “most anticipated” lists, so you’ll have no shortage of new books to add to your queue as you smash your reading goal this year.
New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the curb and in the blink of an eye, five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.
Available January 3
Ninth House introduced readers to Galaxy “Alex” Stern as she navigated Yale’s secret magical underworld. In Hell Bent, her job is simple: find a gateway to the underworld and steal a soul out of hell. There’s only one problem—people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Alex is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.
Available January 10
One year ago, Isabelle Drake's life changed forever: her toddler son, Mason, was taken out of his crib in the middle of the night while she and her husband were asleep in the next room. With little evidence and few leads for the police to chase, the case quickly went cold. However, Isabelle cannot rest until Mason is returned to her—literally. Except for the occasional catnap or small blackout where she loses track of time, she hasn’t slept in a year.
Available January 10
It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow - and horror. As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling - and how their lives would play out from that point on.
For Harry, this is that story at last.
Available January 10
Maggie is fine. She’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s broke, her graduate thesis on something obscure is going nowhere, and her marriage only lasted 608 days, but at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new life as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée™.
Now she has time to take up nine hobbies, eat hamburgers at 4 am, and “get back out there” sex-wise. With the support of her tough-loving academic advisor, Merris; her newly divorced friend, Amy; and her group chat (naturally), Maggie barrels through her first year of single life, intermittently dating, occasionally waking up on the floor and asking herself tough questions along the way.
Available January 17
When Louise learns her parents have died, she dreads going home for many reasons. Most of all, she doesn't want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get their childhood home sold. But in this terrifying tale, the house doesn’t want to be sold and has plans of its own.
Available January 17
When her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she’s ready to experience some important “firsts”: She finds a flat share, says yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But it's not long before tragedy strikes, forcing Maddie to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils—and rewards—of putting her heart on the line.
Available January 31
VenCo’s witches hide in plain sight wherever women gather: Tupperware parties, Mommy & Me classes, suburban book clubs. Since colonial times, they have awaited the moment the seven spoons will come together and ignite a new era, returning women to their rightful power. Lucky St. James’ seemingly mundane life is turned upside down when she finds one of the spoons and begins working with VenCo.
But as reckoning approaches, a very powerful adversary is stalking the group’s every move. He’s Jay Christos, a roguish and deadly witch-hunter as old as witchcraft itself.
Available February 7
A fortysomething podcaster and mother of two, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past—the family history that marred her adolescence and the murder of one of her high school classmates, Thalia Keith. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s death and the conviction of the school’s athletic trainer, Omar Evans, are the subject of intense fascination online, Bodie prefers—needs—to let sleeping dogs lie. However, Thalia’s killer might still be out there and Bodie could be the key to finally solving the case.
Available February 21
Things We Hide From The Light is the follow-up to Lucy Score’s Things We Never Got Over. In this return to Knockemout, readers will get to follow Knox’s brother Nash as he recovers from being shot. The last thing Nash wants to do is let anyone know just how much he’s struggling—until he meets his new next-door neighbor, Lina, who has secrets of her own.
Available February 21
A standalone prequel to Shannon’s acclaimed Priory of the Orange Tree, A Day of Fallen Night is bound to be the standout fantasy novel of the year. When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, four women (including a wyrm-slayer, a queen, and a princess) must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat.
Available February 28
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.
Available April 4
There’s a cottage on a cliff. Gabe and Pippa’s dream home in a sleepy coastal town. But their perfect house hides something sinister. The tall cliffs have become a popular spot for people to end their lives. Night after night Gabe comes to their rescue, literally talking them off the ledge. Until he doesn’t.
When Pippa discovers Gabe knew the victim, the questions spiral...Did the victim jump? Was she pushed?
Available April 4
From the bestselling author of All You Can Ever Know comes a searing memoir of class, inequality, and grief—a daughter's search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she's lost.
Available April 4
In the far north of Canada sits Camp Zero, an American building project hiding many secrets. Desperate to help her climate-displaced Korean immigrant mother, Rose agrees to travel to Camp Zero and spy on its architect in exchange for housing. She arrives at the same time as another newcomer, a college professor named Grant who is determined to flee his wealthy family’s dark legacy. Gradually, they realize that there is more to the architect than previously thought, and a disturbing mystery lurks beneath the surface of the camp.
Available April 4
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
Available April 11
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple for over a decade, and according to the friends they vacation with every year, they still are. Rather than tell their friends they broke up, Harriet and Wyn decide to fake it for one more annual trip. As they were together for so long, how hard could it be to pretend for one week? Turns out, quite hard. They spend the trip lying through their teeth to their friends all while trying desperately to ignore a hard truth: they still want each other.
Available April 25
Proctor Bennett has a satisfying career ferrying retiring citizens of Prospera to the Nursery to have their memories wiped before they restart life. But when Proctor’s called to retire his own father, everything he thought he knew about his life and world begins to crumble.
Available May 2
Fern Brookbanks has wasted far too much of her adult life thinking about Will Baxter. She spent just twenty-four hours in her early twenties with the aggravatingly attractive, idealistic artist, a chance encounter that spiraled into a daylong adventure in the city. The timing was wrong, but their connection was undeniable: they shared every secret, every dream, and made a pact to meet one year later. Fern showed up. Will didn't. Ten years later, Fern’s life is in disarray and who shows up to save the day? None other than Will.
Available May 2
Despite seemingly having it all, Gemma Ashbourne is the only member of her family to possess no magic. Instead, it makes her violently ill. On top of that, her father and older sister are locked in a deadly feud with the Bask family. Talan is determined to redeem his family’s honor after they were destroyed by a demon. When Gemma and Talan meet, they strike a bargain to help each other in their respective missions. For fans of Bridgerton and A Court of Thorns and Roses , this will be a can’t-miss fantasy of 2023.
Available May 9
When June Hayward witnesses fellow author Athena Liu’s freak-accident death, she sees an opportunity to advance her stalling career. Athena had just finished a masterpiece: an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I. June steals the novel, lets her editor publish it under an Asian-American pseudonym, and starts raking in the praise. How far will June go to protect her newfound stardom?
Available May 16
In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a loose circle of lovers and friends encounter, confront, and provoke one another in a volatile year of self-discovery. At the group’s center are Ivan, a dancer turned aspiring banker who dabbles in amateur pornography; Fatima, whose independence and work ethic complicates her relationships with friends and a trusted mentor; and Noah, who “didn’t seek sex out so much as it came up to him like an anxious dog in need of affection.” The group heads to a cabin to bid goodbye to their former lives—a moment of reckoning that leaves each of them irrevocably altered.
Available May 23
Raven Kennedy’s Plated Prisoner series took the fantasy world by storm and is a favorite among Booktok readers. Gold is the much-anticipated epic finale to this retelling of the King Midas myth.
Available June 8
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred. Decades later, Lenora, now in her seventies, tells her home-health aide she’s finally ready to tell the truth.
Available June 20
In 2004, Rosemarie, Ada, Caroline, and Kasey are in their final days of high school and on the precipice of all the things teenagers look forward to when anything in life seems possible… from falling in love, to finding their dream jobs, to becoming who they were meant to be. In 2019, the girls are reunited and Kasey is forced to confront the circumstances surrounding her abrupt departure that summer after graduation.
Available July 8
On the night of her high school graduation, a young woman follows her older sister Debbie to Salvation, a Los Angeles bar patronized by energy healers, aspiring actors, and all-around misfits. After the two share a bag of unidentified pills, the evening turns into a haze of sensual and risky interactions—nothing unusual for two sisters bound in an incredibly toxic relationship. Our unnamed narrator has always been under the spell of the alluring and rebellious Debbie and, despite her own hesitations, she has always said yes to nights like these. That is, until Debbie disappears.
Available July 11
Montserrat has always been overlooked. But when she becomes embroiled in cult horror director Abel Urueta’s mission to finish the legendary lost film he claims ruined his career, it brings her closer to Tristán, the man she’s loved since childhood. Hounded by dark forces, they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and discover whether there’s truth to Urueta’s tale of occultism and magic.
Available July 18
In a lush world inspired by the history and folklore of South America, a sweeping epic fantasy of colonialism, ancient magic, and two young women's quest for belonging unfolds.
Attacked by creatures that stalk the region, Reina is on the verge of death until her grandmother, a dark sorceress, intervenes. Now dependent on the Doña’s magic for her life, Reina will do anything to earn—and keep—her favor. Even the bidding of an ancient god who whispers to her at night.
Illegitimate and of mixed heritage, Eva is her family’s shame. She tries her best to be perfect and to hide her oddities. But Eva is hiding a secret: magic calls to her. Eva knows she should fight the temptation. Magic is the sign of the dark god, and using it is punishable by death. Yet, it’s hard to deny power when it has always been denied to you. Eva is walking a dangerous path, one that gets stranger every day. And, in the end, she’ll become something she never imagined.
Available July 25
