New Novels to Read This Spring

Skip to content Skip to site index 32 Novels We’re Excited About This Spring New novels from Tana French, Emma Straub, Ben Lerner, Solvej Balle, Shannon Chakraborty, Tom Perrotta, Elizabeth Strout — and plenty more. Credit... The New York Times Supported by SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Share full article March historical fiction The Beheading Game by Rebecca Lehmann Anne Boleyn is dead; long live Anne Boleyn. In Lehmann’s playful revision of history, Henry VIII’s second wife wakes up in a box after her execution, sews her head back on with a needle and thread and gets down to the business of assuring her daughter Elizabeth’s ascendance to the throne. Literary fiction The Complex by Karan Mahajan Mahajan follows the descendants of an Indian politician in his new novel, a sweeping tale of political machinations, family drama, betrayal and social transformation. Among the scions is Laxman Chopra, a hapless businessman who struts and frets his way onto the national stage by joining the far right. Literary Fiction A Good Person by Kirsten King A misanthropic and possibly alcoholic 29-year-old marketing manager named Lillian (read: not necessarily A Good Person) is doing her best to turn a bad situationship into a boyfriend when she is abruptly dumped. Days after their ugly breakup, the man turns up dead, stabbed outside a bar. Did she manifest his end? thriller The Keeper by Tana French In the third and final volume of French’s detective series starring Cal Hooper, a young woman’s drowning brings to light the ugliest secrets of a small town in western Ireland. Longstanding feuds and rivalries implicate nearly everyone in the search for the truth behind her death. family drama Lake Effect by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney Rochester, N.Y., circa 1977: beef Wellington on the dinner table, “The Joy of Sex” stashed on a high bookshelf. Then a love affair between neighbors introduces a wrecking ball, leading to two divorces and a remarriage; the effects of that rift play out over the next seve...