My Most-Anticipated Women's Fiction of 2024
My Most-Anticipated Women's Fiction of 2024
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Women's fiction is a genre that focuses on the multifaceted lives and experiences of women, exploring their relationships, aspirations, and personal growth. Unlike other genres that may center on a specific theme or setting, women's fiction is characterized by its broad scope, encompassing a wide array of themes such as friendship, family dynamics, career challenges, and self-discovery. These novels often delve into the complexities of women's lives, addressing issues of identity, empowerment, and the pursuit of happiness. Women's fiction doesn't shy away from tackling difficult topics, offering readers a nuanced and empathetic look into the challenges and triumphs that women face in various stages of life.
One of the strengths of women's fiction lies in its ability to resonate with a diverse readership. The genre transcends traditional stereotypes and provides a platform for authentic and relatable storytelling. Whether exploring the bonds of sisterhood, the intricacies of romantic relationships, or the pursuit of personal fulfillment, women's fiction reflects the rich tapestry of women's experiences. These novels often feature strong and complex female characters who navigate the ups and downs of life, creating narratives that inspire, entertain, and foster a sense of connection among readers. Women's fiction continues to evolve, reflecting the changing roles and perspectives of women in society, making it a dynamic and influential genre in contemporary literature.
If you’re interested in more Women’s Fiction titles, check out the following posts: My Best of Women's Fiction Podcast Fall 2023 Interviews and The Fall 2022 Season of the Best of Women's Fiction Podcast and The 25 Authors I've Interviewed for the Best of Women's Fiction podcast and Books Recommended by the Authors I've interviewed on the Best of Women's Fiction Podcast.
The Waves Take You Home by María Alejandra Barrios Vélez
In this heartfelt story about how the places we run from hold the answers to our deepest challenges, the death of her grandmother brings a young woman home, where she must face the past in order to become the heir of not just the family restaurant, but her own destiny.
Violeta Sanoguera had always done what she was told. She left the man she loved in Colombia in pursuit of a better life for herself and because her mother and grandmother didn’t approve of him. Chasing dreams of education and art in New York City, and with a new love, twenty-eight-year-old Violeta establishes a new life for herself, on her terms. But when her grandmother suddenly dies, everything changes.
After years of being on her own in NYC, Violeta finds herself on a plane back to Colombia, accompanied at all times by the ghost of her grandmother who is sending her messages and signs, to find she is the heir of the failing family restaurant, the very one Abuela told her to run from in the first place. The journey leads her to rediscover her home, her grandmother, and even the flame of an old love.
After Annie by Anna Quindlen
"A wise and heartfelt novel of connection, of loss and love and the power of both."—Amy Bloom
Quindlen’s trademark wisdom on family, emotions, and the secrets of people in a small town are at the center of this novel about triumph over adversity and the power of love to transcend time, by the bestselling author of Alternate Side and Every Last One.
When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her four young children and her closest friend are left to struggle without the woman who centered their lives. Bill Brown finds himself overwhelmed, and Annie’s best friend Annemarie is lost to old bad habits without Annie’s support. It is Annie’s daughter, Ali, forced to try to care for her younger brothers and even her father, who manages to maintain some semblance of their former lives for them all, and who confronts the complicated truths of adulthood.
Yet over the course of the next year, while Annie looms large in their memories, all three are able to grow, to change, even to become stronger and more sure of themselves. The enduring power Annie gave to those who loved her is the power to love, and to go on without her.
Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice, and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is a story that ends with hope, a beautiful novel about how adversity can change us in profound ways.
The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl
Bestselling author Ruth Reichl takes readers on an adventure of food, art, and fashion in 1980s Paris in this dazzling, heartfelt novel
Stella reached for an oyster, tipped her head and tossed it back. It was cool and slippery, the flavor so briny it was like diving into the ocean... Oysters, she thought, where have they been all my life?
When her estranged mother dies, Stella is left with an unusual inheritance: a one-way plane ticket and a note reading Go to Paris. But Stella is hardly cut out for adventure; a childhood trauma has kept her confined to the strict routines of her comfort zone. When her boss encourages her to take time off, Stella resigns herself to honoring her mother’s last wishes.
Alone in a foreign city, Stella falls into old habits, living cautiously and frugally. Then she stumbles across a vintage store where she tries on a fabulous Dior dress. The shopkeeper insists that this dress was meant for Stella and, for the first time in her life, Stella does something impulsive. She buys the dress and together they embark on an adventure.
Her first stop: iconic brasserie Les Deux Magots, where Stella tastes her first oysters, and then meets an octogenarian art collector who decides to take her under his wing. As Jules introduces her to a veritable who’s who of the 1980s Paris literary, art, and culinary worlds, Stella begins to understand what it might mean to live a larger life.
As weeks—and many decadent meals—go by, Stella ends up living as a “tumbleweed” at famed bookstore Shakespeare & Company, uncovers a hundred-year-old mystery in a Manet painting, and discovers a passion for food that may be connected to her past. A feast for the senses, this novel is a testament to living deliciously, taking chances, and finding your true home.
Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams
Two women—separated by decades and continents, and united by a mysterious family heirloom—reclaim family secrets and lost loves in this sweeping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Wives.
New England, 2022. Three years ago, single mother Mallory Dunne received the telephone call every parent dreads—her ten-year-old son Sam had been airlifted from summer camp with acute poisoning from a toxic death cap mushroom, leaving him fighting for his life. Now, in a search for the donor kidney that will give her son a chance for a normal life, Mallory’s forced to confront two harrowing secrets from her past: her mother’s adoption from an infamous Irish orphanage in 1952, and her own all-consuming summer romance fourteen years earlier with her childhood best friend Monk Adams—now one of the world’s most beloved singer-songwriters—a fairytale cut short by an agonizing betrayal.
Cairo, 1951. After suffering tragedy beyond comprehension in the war, Hungarian refugee Hannah Ainsworth has forged a respectable new life for herself—marriage to a wealthy British diplomat, a coveted posting in glamorous Cairo. But a fateful encounter with the enigmatic manager of a hotel bristling with spies leads to a passionate affair that will reawaken Hannah's longing for everything she once lost. As revolution simmers in the Egyptian streets, a pregnant Hannah finds herself snared into a game of intrigue between two men…and an act of sacrifice that will echo down the generations.
Timeless and bittersweet, Husbands And Lovers draws readers on an unforgettable journey of heartbreak and redemption, from the revolutionary fires of midcentury Egypt to the moneyed beaches of contemporary New England. Acclaimed author Beatriz Williams has written a poignant and beautifully voiced novel of deeply human characters entangled by morally complex issues—of privilege, class, and the female experience—inside worlds brought shimmeringly to life.
The Me List by Julee Balko
Ziplining despite being scared of heights. Learning yoga when you're afraid of downward anything. Facing your strained relationship with your mother.
When Olivia writes a ME List, she picks 10 things to get her out of her suburban mom funk. But what she really needs is to figure out how to deal with her next-door neighbor, nemesis, and new boss-Patricia. Patricia is the top realtor in their town and has the perfect life. But when Olivia agrees to be Patricia's assistant, she discovers Patricia's life isn't as perfect as she thought.
The Me List is a touching tale about the complexity of friendship, the importance of reserving judgment, and the rocky path that life takes as we get older. Julee Balko brings snark and heart to this journey of self-improvement with a keen eye for flawed characters.
Can a list change a life?
A Certain Kind of Starlight by Heather Webber
In the face of hardship, two women learn how to rise up again under the bright side of the stars in this magical new book from USA Today bestselling author Heather Webber!Everyone knows that Addie Fullbright can’t keep a secret. Yet, twelve years ago, as her best friend lay dying, she entrusted Addie with the biggest secret of all. One so shattering that Addie felt she had to leave her hometown of Starlight, Alabama, to keep from revealing a devastating truth to someone she cares for deeply. Now she’s living a lonely life, keeping everyone at a distance, not only to protect the secret but also her heart from the pain of losing someone else. But when her beloved aunt, the woman who helped raise her, gets a shocking diagnosis and asks her to come back to Starlight to help run the family bakery, Addie knows it’s finally time to go home again.
Tessa Jane Wingrove-Fullbright feels like she’s failing. She’s always been able to see the lighter side of life but lately darkness has descended. Her world is suddenly in shambles after a painful breakup, her favorite aunt’s unexpected health troubles, and because crushing expectations from the Wingrove side of her family are forcing her to keep secrets and make painful choices. When she’s called back to Starlight to help her aunt, she’s barely holding herself together and fears she’ll never find her way back to who she used to be.
Under the bright side of the stars, Addie and Tessa Jane come to see that magic can be found in trusting yourself, that falling apart is simply a chance to rise up again, stronger than ever, and that the heart usually knows the best path through the darkness.
The Days I Loved you Most by Amy Neff
A timeless tale of unwavering devotion, The Days I Loved You Most is the next great book club sensation and love story for the ages, joining The Notebook, Me Before You, and In Five Years
Joseph and Evelyn’s New England beach homes have been side by side for generations. And in the summer of 1941, on the shores where they were raised, these two childhood friends fell in love.
Now, more than sixty years later, with a lifetime between them, Joseph and Evelyn gather their three grown children to share the stunning news: She has received a tragic diagnosis, and he cannot live without her. So in one year’s time, they will end their lives on their own terms.
As the couple comes to grips with their fate, they retrace their past—the joys and regrets, the laughter and the sorrow—that brought them to this moment. They embark on a journey to create new memories to cherish, to live out their greatest dreams, and to comfort and connect with each of their children before they're gone. But as their final days draw closer, they must confront the stark reality of what they are about to do, and make peace with the legacy they will leave behind for their family.
An unforgettable and deeply romantic debut, The Days I Loved You Most is a moving tribute to the enduring power of love, a celebration of a lifetime spent together, and a reminder that even in the darkest moments, there is always hope and beauty to be found.
The Only Black Girl in the Room by Alex Travis
An ambitious reporter stuck doing diversity checks for her white colleagues gets her big break in this compelling debut novel perfect for fans of Jayne Allen, Jasmine Guillory, and Zakiya Dalila Harris.
Genevieve Francis, a 25-year-old Black reporter, assumed she’d go into her fourth year at her newspaper job with a bigger story than the latest seasonal ice cream flavor. Instead, she’s relegated to doing copy edits and sensitivity reads on the articles her white colleagues write. So when Gen finally gets the opportunity to cover a prominent CEO’s gala, she leaps at the chance—this will be her biggest assignment to date. The only problem: The CEO is her ex, Jude, whose marriage proposal she publicly rejected four years prior.
Following their awkward run-in, Jude personally requests Gen to write the first ever authorized profile of him. The potential for scandal, if anyone digs into their past, is high, but Gen decides to risk it—if she proves herself with this profile, it could jumpstart her dream of writing articles centered on Black voices. But between the racist backlash from her colleagues and her conflicting feelings toward her ex, Gen soon realizes she’s in way over her head. And it may be more than just her career on the line.
Timely and thoughtful, this energetic debut explores what it means to believe in your future when everyone and everything is working against you.
We Carry the Sea in Our Hands by Janie Kim
Told with poetic prose and an imaginative voice, this “beautifully composed [and] original” (Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times bestselling author) debut novel explores family, trauma, and belonging through one woman’s journey to reconnect with her roots.
Abby Rodier was a “drop-box baby,” a Korean orphan whose mother could not take care of her and left her as an infant. Abby’s tumultuous experience in the American foster care system has led her to live a solitary and guarded life, closed off to almost everyone except her best friend Iseul, whose parents took Abby into their home as a child.
Abby’s work studying the origins of life in sea slugs and bacteria leads her to wonder about her birth parents and question her place in this world. It's not long before Abby stumbles upon a biological discovery that will change the course of her life. Meanwhile, Iseul’s devotion to their ill brother leads to an entanglement between her work as an investigative journalist and the murky world of black market medicine.
After a tragic event, Abby’s life is thrown into a tailspin. With the rug pulled from under her feet, she spirals into a disorientation of grief, apparitions, and compulsions. With the help of those around her, Abby must embark on a journey to understand her true roots and make peace with her present.
From an exciting new voice in literary fiction, We Carry the Sea in Our Hands is a complex and layered ode to found family, perfect for fans of The Last Story of Mina Lee and Goodbye, Vitamin.
The Group Trip by Audrey Ingram (cover coming soon!)
Told through dual timelines, Ingram paints a stunning portrait of friendship for fans of Kristy Woodson Harvey.
Sloane and Alden. Chloe and sometimes Luke. Steady Marianne. Distant Wyatt. The six friends met in their freshman year of college and quickly became inseparable as they navigated the bumpy road into adulthood. In the decades since, relationships have fractured and things are not quite as they once were.
Despite this, the group has gathered for a getaway at a luxury property on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Each of the friends are navigating their own challenges, keeping secrets from the people that are supposed to know them best. Between beach bonfires and seafood dinners, the friends struggle to imagine a future together when it seems like they’ve grown apart. The more time they spend swimming in the emerald waters, the more tenuous their bonds become.
For everyone who has felt both the joy and pain of changing friendships, The Group Trip offers a poignant exploration of matters of the heart.
Christa Comes out of Her Shell by Abbi Waxman
After a tumultuous childhood, Christa Liddle has hidden away, both figuratively and literally. Happily studying sea snails in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Christa finds her tranquil existence thrown into chaos when her once-famous father—long thought dead after a plane crash—turns out to be alive, well, and ready to make amends. The world goes wild, fascinated by this real-life saga, pinning Christa and her family under the spotlight. As if that weren’t enough, her reunion with an old childhood friend reveals an intense physical attraction neither was expecting and both want to act on . . . if they can just keep a lid on it. When her father’s story starts to develop cracks, Christa fears she will lose herself, her potential relationship, and—most importantly—any chance of making it back to her snails before they forget her completely.
Aftershock by Zhang Ling
A catastrophic disaster in China triggers a mother’s heartbreaking choice and a daughter’s reconciliation with the past in a powerful novel by the author of A Single Swallow and Where Waters Meet.
In the summer of 1976, an earthquake swallows up the city of Tangshan, China. Among the hundreds of thousands of people scrambling for survival is a mother who makes an agonizing decision that irrevocably changes her life and the lives of her children. In that devastating split second, her seven-year-old daughter, Xiaodeng, is separated from her brother and the mother she loves and trusts. All Xiaodeng remembers of the fateful morning is betrayal.
Thirty years later, Xiaodeng is an acclaimed writer living in Canada with a caring husband and daughter. However, her newfound fame and success do little to cover the deep wounds that disrupt her life, time and again, and edge her toward a breaking point. Xiaodeng realizes the only path toward healing is to return to Tangshan, find her mother, and get closure.
Spanning three decades of the emotional and cultural aftershocks of disaster, Zhang Ling’s intimate epic explores the damage of guilt, the healing pull of family, and the hope of one woman who, after so many years, still longs to be saved.
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The Young of Other Animals by Chris Cander
Shocking family secrets have the power to destroy―or unite―an estranged mother and daughter in an emotional and gripping novel by the author of A Gracious Neighbor.
Mayree and Paula are a mother and daughter drifting apart, separated by grief and more, after the death of Mayree’s husband.
Mayree faces a future with no income, career, or social life. Even ties with her best friend have been severed. Paula, feeling abandoned by the father she loved, is left with only a bitter mother. When Paula reveals that she narrowly escaped a violent assault, Mayree’s initial reaction is dismissal and disbelief. But as details unfold, it’s clear that it was real and not just one random night gone horribly wrong―someone is out to destroy their lives.
With each new threat from Paula’s assailant, harrowing family secrets reemerge that force the mother and daughter to confront the shared traumas of their pasts. Drawing on courage and hope, they must save the relationship they never realized they’d lost.
Reflective, suspenseful, and moving, The Young of Other Animals explores the psychic intergenerational damages that can alter relationships with loved ones forever.
Blank by Zibby Owens
A wife, mother, and frustrated writer faces an impossible deadline for turning her life around in a hilarious debut novel about family, friendship, success, and exhilarating self-(re)discovery.
Pippa Jones is a fortyish former literary sensation who fears she will be a one-hit wonder. After the follow-up book she was almost done writing, Podlusters, had to be tossed (it ended up sharing a plot and title with superstar author Ella Rankin’s summer blockbuster!), she couldn’t write a thing. Months of staring at a blank page made her confidence vanish like a one-night stand. When she finds out that she has only five days left to finish (or rather, start) or repay an advance she’s already spent, Pippa has a brilliantly original idea. Okay, fine, her twelve-year-old son came up with it as a joke, but Pippa and her teenage daughter approved.
Pippa’s not only going to make a bold statement, but she’ll change the book world while she’s at it! Can she pull it off? At this point, she doesn’t have a choice.
When Pippa’s publisher gets intimately involved, it unlocks a series of plot twists she never saw coming. From the courtyards of posh Beverly Hills hotels and Malibu mega-mansions to Brentwood and Santa Monica bookstores, Pippa races against time―in her used Volvo―and discovers more about her career, marriage, family, friends, and herself than she ever could have dreamed up.
