Hello readers!
So, 2020 is very close now and it’s that time of year when we start thinking about the books that will be published soon and get excited for them! I love reading posts like these and seeing what is new, what will coming out soon and what we’ll have to impatiently, painfully wait for. Around June I will do another post like this, since a lot of second semester releases are announced later into the year, and I am hoping to add a lot more books to the list of most anticipated books of 2020 by then!
Without further ado, here are the books that come out this year that I want to read the most!
Young Adult & New Adult
January 28th A Heart So Fierce and Broken, by Brigid Kemmerer
I’m really looking forward to the sequel to A Curse so Dark and Lonely, which was such an amazing read full of mind-blowing twists. I eagerly await the mental breakdown this book will bring upon me!
February 4th The King of Crows (The Diviners, #4) by Libba Bray
I love this series so much! The dark, atmospheric and with more than a hint of horror books are set in the roaring 20s, and each character is so alive, vibrant, flawed and brave. And so very human. This is one of the best YA series of all time, in my opinion, and I am looking forward to its final installment!
March 3rd House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas
I am not sure how I feel about this book, honestly! But I highly anticipate it and I’m curious to see what people make of it. As far as I know it will be another NA story, like ACOTAR, but I don’t know much more than that.
March 3rd The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett
This is said to be part Anastasia and part Sleeping Beauty, it looks so magical, winter-y and great, I’ve also heard amazing things about it from other bloggers and I’m quite excited to read it!
March 17th The Electric Heir by Victoria Lee
I have an eARC for this one, so I’ll definitely be picking it up! It’s the story of Noam, who has the power to control technology, finding out about his powers and how they could help depose of the despot government in this futuristic country of Carolinia. Book 2 has stakes even higher than book 1, so I’m curious to see how this goes!
May 5th My Calamity Jane (The Lady Janies #3) by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows
I loved the first two books of this series and I’m excited for this one! I don’t know much about Calamity Jane’s story, but I’ll read it up before picking this up.
Unknown Untitled (Empirium, #3) by Claire Legrand
I am excited to see how this series ends – it’s one of the best good-MC-turned-evil I’ve read, so I’m curious to see where it goes. We follow Rielle as she descends into the villain we know she will become and fully embraces being the Blood Queen, and also Eliana, a thousand years later reluctant and unwillingly becoming the Sun Queen and trying to fight the Emperor. This series is SO full of twists, shocking betrayals, magic and I really enjoy it! I will be glad to read its final book this year!
Unknown Untitled (Legacy of Orïsha #3) by Tomi Adeyemi
This is the third and final installment followign Children of Blood and Bone and I’m really excited!! This is such an intense, fast-paced fantasy with West African-inspired world building and magic (including death magic, which is so cool). I highly recommend this series!
Middle Grade
February 4th Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor #3) by Jessica Townsend
This is book 3 in the Nevermoor series, which is a lovely, cozy story that makes me happy every time I pick it up. If you love magic, whimsical stories and a fantastic heroine, you should surely pick this up – it reminds me of the way Harry Potter makes me feel when I read it!
Science Fiction
February 11th Daughter from the Dark, by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko
I have not read Vita Nostra yet, which is a crime, but I am still super excited about this sci-fi with gorgeous cover by the same author.
Unknown Untitled Solarpunk Novella (Untitled Solarpunk Series #1) by Becky Chambers
I love sci-fi, so I’m excited to branch out a bit and try a solarpunk novella, especially because I think Becky Chambers will do a great job with it!
Fantasy
June 2nd Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #2) by Tamsyn Muir
The second installment, following Gideon the Ninth, sounds so, so good and has a wonderful cover! I LOVED book 1, so I’m really hyped for book 2!
October 1st The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) by R. F. Kuang
I am nervous and excited for this last book! This is such an excellent series.
Unknown Jade Legacy (The Green Bone Saga, #3) by Fonda Lee
YES!! This is probably on my Top 3 books I’m excited for! This is one of my favorite fantasy series of all time, with such vibrant world of clans fighting for power, where members train to be able to wield jade in order to gain superpowers from it, like strength, speed etc. It’s such a political series but also full of fight scenes and rich culture, scheming, betrayal, loyalty, murder. I love this and I’m excited for the final installment!
Unknown Moon Witch, Night Devil (The Dark Star Trilogy #2) by Marlon James
The first book of this trilogy was one of my favorite fantasy reads of 2019, so I’m really excited to see the story from another point of view! In this African-inspired fantasy series, we follow a search group whose mission was to rescue a boy, and they failed. Maybe the boy still lives, but he is probably dead. Each one has their own hidden reasons, dark secrets and are utterly untrustworthy. On book 1 we followed Tracker, who can track anything by their smell no matter how far, as he tells his side of the story from a jail cell. On book 2, we hear the side of the story of the witch. I am BEYOND excited, she’s my favorite character!
Historical Fiction
February 6th The Illness Lesson, by Clare Beams
This book tells the story of a school for young women in 1871, in which all students suddenly start getting sick, with rashes and other unexplained symptoms. The Illness Lesson is about women fighting to be believed, about their minds and bodies. Sounds like a powerful feminist book and I look forward to it!
February 11th The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
The Mercies is a feminist 1600 historical fiction in which all the men in an island die and the women are left to rule. I heard about this book from and it just sounds brilliant. It sounds a bit like The Water Cure (which I was lukewarm about), but I think this might be more up my alley.
March The Mirror and the Light (Thomas Cromwell Trilogy #3), by Hilary Mantel
This finally has a release date! In fact this was also on my most anticipated releases of 2019, but I believe the 2020 date is now official so we can definitely expect it to be published!
April 7th Miss Austen by Gill Hornby
This book tells the story of Cassandra, Jane Austen’s sister, several years after Jane’s death. It sounds poignant and so interesting!
Mystery and Thriller
January 14th How Quickly She Disappears by Raymond Fleischmann
This novel is set in a small town in Alaska, where Elisabeth’s sister disappeared twenty years ago. She now must fulfill three requests from a man who just commited cold-blooded murder and is now in jail for it – but who claims to know what happened to Elisabeth’s sister. This sounds like a mystery with a bit of literary fiction in there, too.
January 23rd The Dilemma by B.A. Paris
I haven’t decided if I’ll pick this one up actually, but I think so – Livia is having a birthday party, her daughter won’t be there and her husband has no idea that this isn’t a problem for Livia and she’s actually relieved about it, because she’s got a secret. The synopsis left me curious because there isn’t much of one at all.
February 18th The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
The blurb says this is a ghostly story, which I’m always partial to. A girl who works at the Sun Down Motel decides to investigate mysterious occurrences in the motel that might just be haunted. I love a good story about small towns and big secrets, and this seems to be one of them!
March 3rd You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
I loved the other two books by these authors, and I’ll definitely pick this one up! It’s the story of Shay, who has no job, no place to live and no love life to speak of, and sees herself thinking of ending it all. So when two glamorous sisters offer to help her, she can’t possibly refuse, but what could they want from her?
April 28th He Started It by Samantha Downing
I loved My Lovely Wife! And this book is about a family that gets together after many years of not seeing each other when the grandfather dies and leaves a mysterious note for them. This seems to involve family secrets, murderous tendencies and with inheritance money at stake. Sounds really good and I’m excited!
June 4th Sisters, by Daisy Johnson
This is described as having roots in psychological horror, so I was not sure where to classify it and will leave it as “mystery” for now. It is about two sisters called July and September who have always been very close. Their relationship is to be tested when a boy enters their lives. I loved Everything Under, so I’m really excited to read this!
July 7th Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
I loved loved loved Lock Every Door, and this happens to also be one of my sister’s favorite authors, so I think we’ll probably buddy read this one!!
Contemporary & Literary Fiction
January 14th Cleanness, by Garth Greenwell
All I know about this book is that it’s about “foreignness, obligation, and desire” (as per description in Goodreads) and that the squad wants to read it, so when I saw it in Edelweiss, I could not resist getting an ARC!
January 28th My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth
This is the story of a young woman who, as a teenager, had a relationship with her teacher and now must face her past and decide how much of what she believed to be a beautiful love story was actually predatory. This sounds intense, dark and gripping and I’m excited to read this debut novel!
February 6th Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride
The blurb says this book isn’t written in the same odd, difficult prose of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, so I am quite curious. It’s the story of a woman who goes from one hotel to another, and remembers her own story as she goes.
February 11th Indelicacy, by Amina Cain
This is the story of a woman who works cleaning a museum but dreams of becoming more. To achieve that, she marries a rich man, but that doesn’t really help her fulfill her dreams and her new life is as full of constraint as before. It’s a feminist, ghostly book about class and status quo and I am super excited!
February 25th Apartment, by Teddy Wayne
Apartment is the story of a young man who lives in an apartment his parents got for him so he can go to his writing program. Feeling privileged and guilty, he decides to let a student move in with him, and what starts as a friendship becomes more complicated as the power imbalance between them becomes more apparent.
April 21st If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
This debut novel sounds so gripping, emotional and dangerous: set in Seoul, it tells the story of four people whose lives stand precariously and might depend on each other’s tentative friendships to keep going. It also involves a super-wealthy heir, K-pop stars and extreme plastic surgery, and this novel just sounds amazing.
April 21st Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh
I loved My Year of Rest and Relaxation, so I was going to read any new novel by this author anyway – but Death in Her Hands sounds wonderful. It’s the story of a woman who finds a note about another woman who died in the city she just moved into. As she tries to uncover the secrets of her death, the protagonist becomes obsessed and starts to love her grip in reality. It sounds amazing and I can’t wait to read it!
Romance
March 10th Undercover Bromance (Bromance Book Club #2) by Lyssa Kay Adams
The first book was so much fun, I’m excited to jump into the world of the Bromance Book Club with soft men trying to make their marriages work! This book follows Liv and Mack, who I desperately want to see work out. I love the premise of a book club where men read romance books, and I’m excited to read this!
April 21st Girl Gone Viral (Modern Love series) by Alisha Rai
I’ve been wanting to read something by Alisha Rai in a while, and this book’s synopsis sounds really cool: a shy girl who used to be a model suddenly sees herself becoming viral after someone live-tweets her and a guy she met in a cafe, but they weren’t on an actual date. Sounds cute!
May 5th The Heart Principle (The Kiss Quotient #3) by Helen Hoang
I loved the first two books, and I’m really looking forward to this story!
Naty's Bookshelf 