The Most Anticipated Fiction of Summer 2025

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

In this spellbinding historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea and The Wind Knows My Name, a young writer journeys to South America to uncover the truth about her father — and herself.

A poignant, sharp-eyed, and bitterly funny tale of a family struggling to stay together in a country rapidly coming apart, told through the eyes of their wondrous ten-year-old daughter, by the bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Our Country Friends.

The extraordinary novel that asks: Can a name change the course of a life? With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Knapp draws us into the story of one family, told through a prism of what-ifs, causing us to consider the “one, precious life” we are given. The book’s brilliantly imaginative structure, propulsive storytelling, and emotional, gut-wrenching power are certain to make The Names a modern classic.

A sharply observed and tender portrait of sisters, love, and ambition, Spectacular Things is a sweeping story about the impossible choices we’re forced to make in pursuit of our dreams.

In this dazzling debut, Stegner Fellow Jemimah Wei explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out her life. Conor Harkness is thirty-eight, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him … What is wrong meets what feels right in this romance set in Italy by the New York Times bestselling author of Deep End.

Rikki Thunder, twenty-two-year-old drummer for the scorching new ‘80s metal band Whyte Python, is about to have it all: Absurd wealth, global fame, and a dream girlfriend. But an unwitting role as an international spy? That was definitely not part of the plan …

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author Adriana Trigiani, a “dazzling” storyteller (The Washington Post), and a “comedy writer with a heart of gold” (The New York Times), comes a novel about one woman’s quest to build her own life before it’s too late.

Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

A twisty and prescient new thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling Avery Keene series, by nationally renowned author and leader Stacey Abrams, Coded Justice follows Avery down a dark rabbit hole into the breathtaking — and dangerous — use of AI in the medical industry.

From the bestselling and award-winning author of the Patrick Melrose novels, a hilarious and moving story about a group of wildly different characters whose fates are improbably yet inextricably linked — a novel about extinction and survival, inheritance and loss, written with St. Aubyn’s trademark wit and inimitable style.

A tapestry of joyful and startling interconnected stories that celebrate how people from all across America cope with adversity and unexpected changes in a confusing world — from the beloved New York Times bestselling author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

From the author of Oprah’s Book Club pick and New York Times bestseller Nightcrawling, here is an astonishing new novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a small town on the Florida panhandle. Full of heart and life and hope, set against the shifting sands of these friends’ secrets and betrayals, The Girls Who Grew Big confirms Leila Mottley’s promise and offers an explosive new perspective on what it means to be a young woman.

From the author of Once More We Saw Stars comes a gripping novel about four intertwined lives that collide in the wake of a mysterious tragedy. Set in a near-future world where the boundaries between human and AI blur, the story challenges our understanding of consciousness and humanity.

A page-turning, irresistible novel of class, ambition, and bisexuality, this is the breathtaking story of a woman risking everything for a second chance at her first love. A sweeping romance, it is the story of two people trying to forge a path toward hope, bound by a love they discovered when they were too young to understand its power.

From the co-editor of the bestselling anthology Never Whistle at Night, a semi-autobiographical novel that follows a group of teenage gang members as they trek across Chicago to a momentous meeting, inspired by the cult classic The Warriors.

Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. Winner takes all. Lily — a bored, beautiful twenty-something — wakes up on a remote desert compound, alongside nineteen other contestants competing on a massively popular reality show. Cameras are catching all her angles, good and bad, but Lily has no desire to leave: Why would she, when the world outside is falling apart? When the unseen producers raise the stakes, forcing contestants into upsetting, even dangerous situations, the line between playing the game and surviving it begins to blur. If Lily can make it to the end, she’ll receive prizes beyond her wildest dreams — but what will she have to do to win?

A spellbinding novel of literary and psychological suspense about the dark secrets that surface after the shocking disappearance of a charismatic, mercurial teacher at an elite boarding school — by the legendary author “who is surely on any shortlist of America’s greatest living writers” (The New York Times Magazine).

When her first-love-turned-close-friend, Gabe, dies unexpectedly at twenty-nine, thirty-year-old Julia is launched into an intercontinental quest to recover his lost possessions. An emotional mystery spanning years, continents, and relationship statuses, Loved One introduces Aisha Muharrar as a novelist intimately attuned to the intricacies of love, memory, and ambiguous loss. What happens when we admit that the deepest feelings never die? How do we reconcile various — and sometimes contradictory — truths about those closest to us? An engrossing and profoundly moving coming-of-age story with a powerful love at its heart, Loved One is poised to become an instant classic.

A theater critic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe writes a vicious one-star review of a struggling actress he has a one-night stand with in this sharply funny, feminist tinderbox. A brilliant Trojan horse of a book about art, power, misogyny, and female rage, Bring the House Down is a searing, insightful, and often hilarious debut that captures the blurred line between reality and performance.

A devoted mother outrunning a troubled childhood and adapting to an empty nest is tested in ways she never expected in this suspenseful novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel.

A teenage girl breaks free from her father’s world of isolation to discover that her whole life is a lie in this propulsive new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Things and Watch Me Disappear.

It’s not dust she’s looking for … it’s dirt. Esmie is meant to be invisible. A cleaner for an exclusive gated neighborhood in Ireland, Esmie fades into the background, slipping in and out of kitchens and closets, quietly observing her clients’ perfect domestic lives. But Esmie is not a cleaner. She’s come to this neighborhood for one purpose and one purpose only. Revenge.

Enter the world of an elite Chinese couple: A life of luxury, wealth, and around-the-clock service, which includes their trusted nanny, Yu Ling. Slipping in and out of the shadows, meticulous in her care of their only son, she has served the family for years and knows their secrets. But little do they suspect that Yu Ling has secrets of her own … Taut and enthralling, Women, Seated is a high-stakes story of power and privilege, crimes and secrets, and the elusive pursuit of personal freedom.

From a dazzling new talent, the story of a newly divorced young mother forced to reckon with the secrets of her own childhood when she brings her daughters back to the big house where she was raised.

How much of yourself are you willing to sacrifice in order to chase your dreams? An electric coming-of-age novel that explores grief, family, sexuality, and love as an ambitious young woman from Washington Heights tries to make it on Broadway — by a striking new voice in fiction.

The riveting new novel by the author of the 2021 National Book Award winner and bestseller Hell of a Book. In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure. People Like Us is an utter triumph bursting with larger-than-life characters who deliver a very real take on our world. Finishing this novel will leave you absolutely breathless and, at the same time, utterly filled with joy for life, changed forever by characters who are people like us.

Come along on a heartwarming, funny, and perfectly cozy voyage with the charming and relatable passengers — including one dashing dachshund — whose lives intersect and affect each other on one of Japan’s most romantic railway lines from international bestselling author Hiro Arikawa.

A profoundly moving debut novel that follows an elderly man’s struggle to maintain autonomy over his own life: An emotional story of love, friendship, fatherhood, dogs, and atonement that is already an international sensation.

For fans of Alison Espach’s The Wedding People and Dolly Alderton’s Good Material, a delectable comedy of manners about cooking, ambition, and friendship set in the food world as a young and socially awkward writer takes a job ghostwriting the cookbook for a famous (and famously chaotic) Hollywood starlet.

In this fearless novel from the award-winning author of Girls Burn Brighter, a couple from India — so different from generations of what colonialists who came before them — move to Montana, only to discover how brutal and unforgiving hubris can be.

From the Booker Prize finalist and “formidably gifted writer” (The New York Times), a vertiginous novel about a woman’s descent into illness and insanity. Will There Ever Be Another You is the brain-shredding, phosphorescent story of one woman’s dissolution and her attempt to create a new way of thinking, as well as a profound investigation into what keeps us alive in times of unprecedented disorientation and loss, from one of our most original writers.