It’s spring(ish) time, and time to turn thoughts to new beginnings. Publishers relish this time of year, as April marks the start of the big push to for new titles. This year is no different, and along with a lot of familiar names, there are plenty of new authors who have been waiting, after the ups and downs of the pandemic years, to see readers back in bookstores and libraries to discover their new works.
--Literary fiction is having a banner month, with new titles coming out from award winners and book club favorites. Jennifer Egan snagged a Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for A Visit From the Goon Squad; she returns to the world of that book with The Candy House. Not exactly a sequel, it promises to be as mind-bending as Goon Squad; it hits shelves early in the month. Emily St. John Mandel wowed readers with her genre busting Station Eleven; her new novel, Sea of Tranquility, draws on elements of science fiction and metaphysics that draws together a story of an exiled aristocrat in the Canadian wilderness, a writer stuck far from her moon-based home, and the detective sent to investigate oddities deep in the forest. Sea of Tranquility is out early April. Douglas Stuart, whose debut novel Shuggie Bain won the 2020 Booker Prize, returns to that book’s working class Glasgow in Young Mungo. Following the lives of two boys drawn together in spite of the violence and sectarian divisions of their city, Young Mungo explores what happens to young men who cannot be entirely accepted in the world in which they grew up when the larger world won’t accept them because of their background. Young Mungo releases on April 27; the same day Stuart will appear in person (all the way from Scotland!) at the Wisconsin Book Festival.
--Genre lovers aren’t left out this April either. Rebecca Roanhorse continues her fantasy series Between Earth and Sky with Fevered Star. It’s pre-Columbian inspired world of the Meridien introduced in Black Sun sees the clans regrouping and many of the enemies in the first book reconsidering alliances in preparation for another clash of magic and power. Alma Katsu has built a reputation for smart literary horror such as The Hunger. She returns to history with The Fervor, set in and around the Japanese internment camps of World War II. Tying together disparate characters—an imprisoned Japanese mother and child, an Oregon pastor and a Nebraskan journalist—the only link seems to be small, strange spiders. But Katsu soon reveals that the real terror is much closer to home. Library Journal calls it a ‘must-read for all, not just genre fans.’ And crime fiction readers can rejoice as two heavy hitters in the genre are both launching new series this month. John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport has entertained readers for decades, but a new generation takes over in the form of his stepdaughter, Letty Davenport. In The Investigator, Letty investigates possible oil theft in Texas, a journey that leads to Blackhawk helicopters over the border and a militia best described as ‘hapless goofs with guns’—it’s out mid-month. Don Winslow launches a new trilogy centered on the dueling families competing for mob supremacy in 1980s Providence, Rhode Island. Booklist calls City on Fire an opening act to a trilogy that ‘possess[es] all the power of Winslow's celebrated Cartel novels.’ Look for it in late April.
--Finally, memoir readers have a lot to look forward to this April. Academy Award-winning actor Viola Davis bows with her memoir Finding Me, exuberant ex-Saturday Night Live star Molly Shannon tells her story in Hello, Molly! and Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness offers his observations in Love That Story: Observations From a Gloriously Queer Life.
--Happy Reading!