25 Best Books of 2021 (New and Upcoming)
Looking for new releases? Here are the best new and upcoming books of 2021, limited to books that slated as new releases published in the year 2021. There are a bunch of titles to be released that I’m really excited about and a lot of them are bookmarked for my must-read list.
This list of the Best (New and Upcoming) Books of 2021 is divided up in Adult/General titles and Young Adult titles. I’ll be updating this list, so check back as titles are released!
What books are you looking forward to for 2021?
For more books coming soon, see the list of Upcoming New Release Books which covers books I’m planning on reading and monthly book lists!
2021 New Releases, General
The Four Winds
Kristin HannahWhat It’s About: From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them Publication Date: February 2, 2021
  4.37 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction book club 2021 books
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir What It’s About: Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission–and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time Publication Date: May 4, 2021
  4.60 out of 5 on Goodreads
science fiction sci fi 2021 releases
The Push
Ashley AudrainWhat It’s About: A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for–and everything she feared.
Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had Publication Date: January 5, 2021
  4.16 out of 5 on Goodreads
thriller read in 2021 mystery
The Rose Code
Kate Quinn What It’s About: The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Huntress and The Alice Network returns with another heart-stopping World War II story of three female code breakers at Bletchley Park and the spy they must root out after the war is over.
1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes Publication Date: March 9, 2021
  4.52 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction historical wwii
Klara and the Sun
Kazuo Ishiguro What It’s About: Klara and the Sun, the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside
Publication Date: March 2, 2021
  3.92 out of 5 on Goodreads
science fiction sci fi 2021 releases
Malibu Rising
Taylor Jenkins Reid
What It’s About: Malibu: August 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit…Publication Date: June 1, 2021
  4.29 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction 2021 tbr contemporary
Harlem Shuffle
Colson Whitehead
What It’s About: Not a lot is known about this upcoming release yet, but it’s tentatively planned for Fall 2021. Whitehead has described it as a ‘lively heist’ novel that a bit lighter in tone. It’s set in Harlem in the 1960’s.Publication Date: September 14, 2021
  4.04 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction 2021 releases historical
The Last Thing He Told Me
Laura Dave
What It’s About: An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.
We all have stories we never tell.
Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her.
Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers: Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey.
Publication Date: May 4, 2021
  4.13 out of 5 on Goodreads
mystery botm thriller
When the Stars Go Dark
Paula McLain
What It’s About: Anna Hart is a missing persons detective in San Francisco. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her
Publication Date: April 13, 2021
  3.98 out of 5 on Goodreads
mystery thriller mystery thriller
Cloud Cuckoo Land
Anthony Doerr
What It’s About: From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, perhaps the most bestselling and beloved literary fiction of our time, comes a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring novel about children on the cusp of adulthood in a broken world, who find resilience, hope, and story…Publication Date: September 28, 2021
  4.54 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction 2021 releases arc
Bewilderment
Richard Powers
What It’s About: The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face…Publication Date: September 21, 2021
  4.44 out of 5 on Goodreads
literary fiction 2021 releases 2021 release
Apples Never Fall
Liane Moriarty
What It’s About: #1 New York Times bestselling author Liane Moriarty is back with a novel that looks at marriage, sibling rivalry, and the lies we tell others and ourselves. Apples Never Fall is the work of a writer at the top of her game.
The Delaney family love one another dearly―it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other …Publication Date: September 14, 2021
  3.71 out of 5 on Goodreads
2021 releases mystery thriller
The Maidens
Alex Michaelides
What It’s About: Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike—particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens.
Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge…Publication Date: June 15, 2021
  3.84 out of 5 on Goodreads
thriller mystery mystery thriller
The Hidden Palace (A Tale of the Golem and the Jinni)
Helene Wecker
What It’s About: In this enthralling historical epic, set in New York City and the Middle East in the years leading to World War I— the long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Golem and the Jinni—Helene Wecker revisits her beloved characters Chava and Ahmad as they confront unexpected new challenges in a rapidly changing human world…Publication Date: June 8, 2021
  3.97 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction series 2021 releases
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Sally Rooney
What It’s About: Beautiful World, Where Are You is a new novel by Sally Rooney, the bestselling author of Normal People and Conversations with Friends.
Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood…Publication Date: September 7, 2021
  4.35 out of 5 on Goodreads
to buy contemporary 2021 release
AmazonThe Good Sister
Sally Hepworth
What It’s About: From the outside, everyone might think Fern and Rose are as close as twin sisters can be: Rose is the responsible one and Fern is the quirky one. But the sisters are devoted to one another and Rose has always been Fern’s protector from the time they were small.
Fern needed protecting because their mother was a true sociopath who hid her true nature from the world, and only Rose could see it
Publication Date: April 13, 2021
  4.23 out of 5 on Goodreads
thriller mystery mystery thriller
Later
Stephen King
What It’s About: The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine – as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave
Publication Date: March 2, 2021
  4.08 out of 5 on Goodreads
horror stephen king thriller
Hamlet Retelling (Hogarth Shakespeare)
Gillian Flynn
What It’s About: Coming in 2021. Gillian Flynn, author of the bestseller Gone Girl, is to write a new twist on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Flynn is the latest author to be commissioned by the Hogarth Shakespeare project to rewrite the Bard’s works. The series launches in 2016 to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
Publication Date: Not Available
out of 5 on Goodreads
2021 New Releases, Young Adult
A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4)
Sarah J. Maas
What It’s About: Sarah J. Maas’s sexy, richly imagined Court of Thorns and Roses series continues with the journey of Feyre’s fiery sister, Nesta.
Nesta Archeron has always been prickly – proud, swift to anger and slow to forgive. And since the war – since being made High Fae against her will – she’s struggled to forget the horrors she endured and find a place for herself within the strange and deadly Night Court…Publication Date: February 16, 2021
  4.43 out of 5 on Goodreads
fantasy romance new adult
Chain of Iron (The Last Hours #2)
Cassandra Clare
What It’s About: The Shadowhunters must catch a killer in Edwardian London in this dangerous and romantic sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling novel Chain of Gold, from New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Cassandra Clare. Chain of Iron is a Shadowhunters novel.
Cordelia Carstairs seems to have everything she ever wanted…Publication Date: March 2, 2021
  4.49 out of 5 on Goodreads
fantasy young adult 2021 releases
Concrete Rose (The Hate U Give #0)
Angie Thomas
What It’s About: International phenomenon Angie Thomas revisits Garden Heights seventeen years before the events of The Hate U Give in this searing and poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood.
If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family…Publication Date: January 12, 2021
  4.46 out of 5 on Goodreads
young adult 2021 releases contemporary
The Fire Keeper’s Daughter
Angeline Boulley
What It’s About: An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.
With four starred reviews, Angeline Boulley’s debut novel, Firekeeper’s Daughter, is a groundbreaking YA thriller about a Native teen who must root out the corruption in her community, perfect for readers of Angie Thomas and Tommy Orange…Publication Date: March 16, 2021
  4.47 out of 5 on Goodreads
young adult mystery 2021 releases
Lore
Alexandra Bracken
What It’s About: From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Darkest Minds comes a sweepingly ambitious, high-octane tale of power, destiny, love and redemption.
Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals, hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality…Publication Date: January 5, 2021
  3.89 out of 5 on Goodreads
fantasy mythology 2021 releases
You’ll Be the Death of Me
Karen A. McManus
What It’s About: A YA murder mystery meets Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, about three estranged friends who skip school and get caught up in a crime they can’t solve without exposing their secrets. Publication Date: November 30, 2021
  4.76 out of 5 on Goodreads
young adult mystery thriller
Looking for new releases? Here are the best new and upcoming books of 2021, limited to books that slated as new releases published in the year 2021. There are a bunch of titles to be released that I’m really excited about and a lot of them are bookmarked for my must-read list.
This list of the Best (New and Upcoming) Books of 2021 is divided up in Adult/General titles and Young Adult titles. I’ll be updating this list, so check back as titles are released!
What books are you looking forward to for 2021?
For more books coming soon, see the list of Upcoming New Release Books which covers books I’m planning on reading and monthly book lists!
2021 New Releases, General
The Four Winds
Kristin HannahWhat It’s About: From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them Publication Date: February 2, 2021
  4.37 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction book club 2021 books
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir What It’s About: Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission–and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time Publication Date: May 4, 2021
  4.60 out of 5 on Goodreads
science fiction sci fi 2021 releases
The Push
Ashley AudrainWhat It’s About: A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for–and everything she feared.
Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had Publication Date: January 5, 2021
  4.16 out of 5 on Goodreads
thriller read in 2021 mystery
The Rose Code
Kate Quinn What It’s About: The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Huntress and The Alice Network returns with another heart-stopping World War II story of three female code breakers at Bletchley Park and the spy they must root out after the war is over.
1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes Publication Date: March 9, 2021
  4.52 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction historical wwii
Klara and the Sun
Kazuo Ishiguro What It’s About: Klara and the Sun, the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside
Publication Date: March 2, 2021
  3.92 out of 5 on Goodreads
science fiction sci fi 2021 releases
Malibu Rising
Taylor Jenkins Reid
What It’s About: Malibu: August 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit…Publication Date: June 1, 2021
  4.29 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction 2021 tbr contemporary
Harlem Shuffle
Colson Whitehead
What It’s About: Not a lot is known about this upcoming release yet, but it’s tentatively planned for Fall 2021. Whitehead has described it as a ‘lively heist’ novel that a bit lighter in tone. It’s set in Harlem in the 1960’s.Publication Date: September 14, 2021
  4.04 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction 2021 releases historical
The Last Thing He Told Me
Laura Dave
What It’s About: An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.
We all have stories we never tell.
Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her.
Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers: Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey.
Publication Date: May 4, 2021
  4.13 out of 5 on Goodreads
mystery botm thriller
When the Stars Go Dark
Paula McLain
What It’s About: Anna Hart is a missing persons detective in San Francisco. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her
Publication Date: April 13, 2021
  3.98 out of 5 on Goodreads
mystery thriller mystery thriller
Cloud Cuckoo Land
Anthony Doerr
What It’s About: From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, perhaps the most bestselling and beloved literary fiction of our time, comes a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring novel about children on the cusp of adulthood in a broken world, who find resilience, hope, and story…Publication Date: September 28, 2021
  4.54 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction 2021 releases arc
Bewilderment
Richard Powers
What It’s About: The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face…Publication Date: September 21, 2021
  4.44 out of 5 on Goodreads
literary fiction 2021 releases 2021 release
Apples Never Fall
Liane Moriarty
What It’s About: #1 New York Times bestselling author Liane Moriarty is back with a novel that looks at marriage, sibling rivalry, and the lies we tell others and ourselves. Apples Never Fall is the work of a writer at the top of her game.
The Delaney family love one another dearly―it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other …Publication Date: September 14, 2021
  3.71 out of 5 on Goodreads
2021 releases mystery thriller
The Maidens
Alex Michaelides
What It’s About: Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike—particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens.
Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge…Publication Date: June 15, 2021
  3.84 out of 5 on Goodreads
thriller mystery mystery thriller
The Hidden Palace (A Tale of the Golem and the Jinni)
Helene Wecker
What It’s About: In this enthralling historical epic, set in New York City and the Middle East in the years leading to World War I— the long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Golem and the Jinni—Helene Wecker revisits her beloved characters Chava and Ahmad as they confront unexpected new challenges in a rapidly changing human world…Publication Date: June 8, 2021
  3.97 out of 5 on Goodreads
historical fiction series 2021 releases
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Sally Rooney
What It’s About: Beautiful World, Where Are You is a new novel by Sally Rooney, the bestselling author of Normal People and Conversations with Friends.
Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood…Publication Date: September 7, 2021
  4.35 out of 5 on Goodreads
to buy contemporary 2021 release
AmazonThe Good Sister
Sally Hepworth
What It’s About: From the outside, everyone might think Fern and Rose are as close as twin sisters can be: Rose is the responsible one and Fern is the quirky one. But the sisters are devoted to one another and Rose has always been Fern’s protector from the time they were small.
Fern needed protecting because their mother was a true sociopath who hid her true nature from the world, and only Rose could see it
Publication Date: April 13, 2021
  4.23 out of 5 on Goodreads
thriller mystery mystery thriller
Later
Stephen King
What It’s About: The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine – as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave
Publication Date: March 2, 2021
  4.08 out of 5 on Goodreads
horror stephen king thriller
Hamlet Retelling (Hogarth Shakespeare)
Gillian Flynn
What It’s About: Coming in 2021. Gillian Flynn, author of the bestseller Gone Girl, is to write a new twist on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Flynn is the latest author to be commissioned by the Hogarth Shakespeare project to rewrite the Bard’s works. The series launches in 2016 to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
Publication Date: Not Available
out of 5 on Goodreads
2021 New Releases, Young Adult
A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4)
Sarah J. Maas
What It’s About: Sarah J. Maas’s sexy, richly imagined Court of Thorns and Roses series continues with the journey of Feyre’s fiery sister, Nesta.
Nesta Archeron has always been prickly – proud, swift to anger and slow to forgive. And since the war – since being made High Fae against her will – she’s struggled to forget the horrors she endured and find a place for herself within the strange and deadly Night Court…Publication Date: February 16, 2021
  4.43 out of 5 on Goodreads
fantasy romance new adult
Chain of Iron (The Last Hours #2)
Cassandra Clare
What It’s About: The Shadowhunters must catch a killer in Edwardian London in this dangerous and romantic sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling novel Chain of Gold, from New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Cassandra Clare. Chain of Iron is a Shadowhunters novel.
Cordelia Carstairs seems to have everything she ever wanted…Publication Date: March 2, 2021
  4.49 out of 5 on Goodreads
fantasy young adult 2021 releases
Concrete Rose (The Hate U Give #0)
Angie Thomas
What It’s About: International phenomenon Angie Thomas revisits Garden Heights seventeen years before the events of The Hate U Give in this searing and poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood.
If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family…Publication Date: January 12, 2021
  4.46 out of 5 on Goodreads
young adult 2021 releases contemporary
The Fire Keeper’s Daughter
Angeline Boulley
What It’s About: An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.
With four starred reviews, Angeline Boulley’s debut novel, Firekeeper’s Daughter, is a groundbreaking YA thriller about a Native teen who must root out the corruption in her community, perfect for readers of Angie Thomas and Tommy Orange…Publication Date: March 16, 2021
  4.47 out of 5 on Goodreads
young adult mystery 2021 releases
Lore
Alexandra Bracken
What It’s About: From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Darkest Minds comes a sweepingly ambitious, high-octane tale of power, destiny, love and redemption.
Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals, hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality…Publication Date: January 5, 2021
  3.89 out of 5 on Goodreads
fantasy mythology 2021 releases
You’ll Be the Death of Me
Karen A. McManus
What It’s About: A YA murder mystery meets Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, about three estranged friends who skip school and get caught up in a crime they can’t solve without exposing their secrets. Publication Date: November 30, 2021
  4.76 out of 5 on Goodreads
young adult mystery thriller
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It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
