New month, new books! Book Light is our Dandelion Chandelier curated list of the most-anticipated new book releases every month, and next up is February 2024. If you ask us, the perfect February read is sweet and spicy and full of heart. So what are the best new new novels, poetry collections, memoirs and other nonfiction books to read coming out in February 2024? Our intrepid team has been exploring and here’s what we found: over 30 new book releases coming soon that we cannot wait to read.
what are the most anticipated new novels and nonfiction book releases for February 2024?
Wondering what to read in February 2024? We’ve surveyed the landscape, and rounded up a list of the best new books coming this February.
The best most anticipated novels and nonfiction book releases with rave reviews to read among the top new books coming out in February 2024.
the best new books coming in February 2024
Here’s our pick of the top new book releases of February 2024 that we cannot wait to read, including novels, poetry collections, memoirs and other nonfiction books. You can pre-order your favorites now, if you like.
The best new books, including novels, other fiction and nonfiction coming in February 2024.
Top new book releases February 6, 2024
1. Greta & Valdin by Rebecca Reilly.
We begin our list of the most anticipated books this February 2024 with a buzzed-about novel. Greta & Valdin follows a sister and brother (the titular characters) as they navigate queerness, multi-racial identity, and the messy dramas of their Maaori-Russian-Catalonian family. It’s already an international best-seller in New Zealand, and highly anticipated here in the U.S. Lit Hub says the book is being described as “Normal People meets Schitt’s Creek.”
“The only Maaori at his office, Valdin has been moping since his boyfriend left him and moved to Buenos Aires. Now he’s living with sister Greta, who is plagued by boyfriend problems of her own and an incomplete and possibly irrelevant master’s thesis to boot. And then work sends Valdin to Buenos Aires.”
2. The Things We Didn’t Know by Elba Iris Pérez.
This debut novel “explores a young girl’s childhood between 1950s Puerto Rico and a small Massachusetts factory town.”
3. Redwood Court: A Novel by DéLana R. A. Dameron.
The award-winning poet’s debut novel, Redwood Court, is set in a cul-de-sac in the all-Black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina. The work chronicles the lives of several generations of one “unforgettable Southern Black family, seen through the eyes of its youngest daughter as she comes of age in the 1990s.”
4. A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the author of Seven Days in June returns with another love story full of smart, striving and gorgeous young Black people in New York City. “Impulsive, artistic Ricki Wilde is the black sheep of her powerful Atlanta family. So when she’s invited to rent the bottom floor of a Harlem brownstone, she jumps at the chance to follow her dream of opening a flower shop. There, she encounters a mysterious stranger with ties to the Harlem Renaissance who knocks her world off kilter.”
5. Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott.
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart is the latest from the author of the breakout novel Thistlefoot: “a collection of dark fairytales and fractured folklore exploring how our passions can save us—or go monstrously wrong.”
6. Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel by The Authors Guild, Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston.
Who says COVID quarantine fiction can’t be fun? “Set in a Lower East Side tenement in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Fourteen Days is a collaborative novel from the Authors Guild, with an unusual twist: each character in this diverse, eccentric cast of New York neighbors has been secretly written by a different, major literary voice—from Margaret Atwood and Celeste Ng to Tommy Orange and John Grisham.”
7. Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford.
The author of Golden Hill delivers “a noirish detective novel set in the 1920s that reimagines how American history would be different if, instead of being decimated, indigenous populations had thrived.” “In an alternate 1920s United States, a corpse is discovered on the roof of a skyscraper. Another straightforward hunt for a killer? Not when the setting is Cahokia, the ancient Indigenous city on the Mississippi that has somehow endured, now flourishing as a vast industrial metropolis vibrant with the sound of jazz and claiming people of every race and creed.”
8. The Road from Belhaven: A Novel by Margot Livesey.
The author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy returns with The Road From Belhaven, a novel about a young woman whose gift of second sight complicates her coming of age in late-nineteenth-century Scotland. “Livesey follows up The Boy in the Field, a New York Times Notable Book. Raising a younger sister in a late 1800’s Glasgow tenement, Samuel Fiddes befriends wealthy Hailey MacIntyre after rescuing her brother from a runaway carriage, then follows her to nascent Seattle—reputedly.”
9. The Woman: A Novel by Kristen Hannah.
The Women is another of the most anticipated new novels coming in February 2024 – in fact, it’s already a bestseller and the pub date isn’t even here yet. It’s the latest historical fiction from the author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds. This one is set in 1965, as America convulses with social change, protest and war. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, our protagonist joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. The war is filled with acts of heroism and horrifying violence. But equally challenging in many ways is coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget about the conflict overseas.
10. Burma Sahib: A Novel by Paul Theroux.
In the new novel Burma Sahib, coming in February 2024, “19-year-old Eton graduate Eric Blair sets sail in 1922 for India, where (much to his consternation) he must train for three years as a servant of the British Empire, eventually overseeing the local policemen in Burma. He steers his way through the empire’s class and racial strictures and returns home, where he begins life as a writer after creating a nom de plume: George Orwell.”
11. Dixon, Descending: A Novel by Karen Outen.
What better topic for a most anticipated new novel for February 2024 than a fictional account of climbing Mt Everest that is propulsive a read as Into Thin Air? In Dixon, Descending, an Olympic-level runner who missed getting on the team by two-tenths of a second impulsively decides to take up mountain climbing. When his brother suggests that they seek to become the first Black American men to summit Mount Everest, he leaves behind family, friends, and his school psychologist job for what feels like a second chance at making history.
12. Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti.
Lit Hub recommends this new nonfiction book coming in February 2024 from the acclaimed writer as “an entirely new reading experience, and a better portrait of growing into one’s self than most coming-of-age novels.” The author “kept a record of her thoughts over a ten-year period, then arranged the sentences from A to Z. Passionate and reflective, joyful and despairing, these are her alphabetical diaries.”
13. Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America by Joy-Ann Reid.
The MSNBC host, political analyst and activist has written a dual biography, Medgar and Myrlie. One of the most anticipated new nonfiction books of February 2024, Amazon named it an Editor’s Pick. This new book “traces the extraordinary lives and legacy of civil rights icons Medgar and Myrlie Evers, situating Medgar Evers’s assassination as a catalyzing moment in American history.”
14. Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See by Bianca Bosker.
The author of the charming account of her explorations as a novice in the world of fine wine, Cork Dork, is back. This time she’s diving into the art world, with Get the Picture.
Top new book releases February 13, 2024
15. The Book of Love: A Novel by Kelly Link.
Lit Hub praises this highly anticipated new work as “a nimble, clever, and deeply satisfying novel, in which a handful of teenagers, most of them recently dead, get dragged into an age-old grudge match between mythic creatures of unending (or possibly ending, but no spoilers) power. All of it is rendered in Link’s trademark winking, personable prose, which tends to deliver something pleasurable on every page.”
“From the Pulitzer Prize–winning Link, past master of the edgy short story, The Book of Love is a debut novel features three dead teenagers who could return to their seaside Massachusetts lives if they complete a series of magical tasks.”
16. Neighbors and Other Stories by Diane Oliver.
Neighbors is a debut story collection that follows various characters as they navigate the day-to-day perils of Jim Crow racism from Diane Oliver, a missing figure in the canon of twentieth-century African American literature who tragically died in 1966 at the age of 22. “The first Black student at a newly integrated college finds herself literally disappearing, an older sister frets over a brother set to desegregate his school, and an interracial couple struggles with the hostility of those around them.”
17. The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers: A Novel by Sarah Tomlinson.
Perfect for fans of Daisy Jones and the Six and The Final Revival of Opal and Nev (and that would include us) comes The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers. It’s a debut novel about the complicated legacy of a legendary rock band, an unsolved murder, and the ghostwriter telling their story.
18. The Kamogawa Food Detectives: A Novel by Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood.
The first in a new series of cozy mystery novels from the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, The Kamogawa Food Detectives has a premise that’s hard to resist, especially on a cold winter’s night.
“Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason customers stop by . . . The father-daughter duo are ‘food detectives’. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories – dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.”
19. What Have We Here? Portraits of a Life by Billy Dee Williams.
In his new memoir, What Have We Here, Billy Dee Williams recounts his prolific career, starring in such cultural touchstones as Brian’s Song and the original Star Wars trilogy.
20. Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday’s Last Year by Paul Alexander.
In Bitter Crop, a former Time reporter looks at the last, challenging years of iconic jazz singer Billie Holiday, with flashbacks to key events in her life.
21. My Side of the River: A Memoir by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez.
In My Side of the River, the author tells of her experience living in the U.S. when her parents were forced back to Mexico when she was just 15 years old. On the cusp of entering her freshman year in high school as the number one student, her parents’ visas expire and they’re forced to return to Mexico. Leaving her to parent her younger brother and find a way to build a new life without the help of any loving adult.
“Left to care for her younger brother and get herself through school, she eventually attended the University of Pennsylvania and is currently serving as a product manager at a Big Tech company. Here she discusses separation trauma, the opportunities and costs of staying in the United States, and the love between her and her brother, who’s pursuing his own dreams.”
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Top new book releases February 20, 2024
22. Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story by Leslie Jamison.
Without question, one of the most-anticipated new novels and nonfiction books to read in February 2024 is this one. For instance, it’s an Editor’s Pick for the month from Amazon. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Recovering and The Empathy Exams comes “the riveting story of rebuilding a life after the end of a marriage—an exploration of motherhood, art, and new love.”
23. Ours: A Novel by Phillip B. Williams.
“In his debut novel, Ours, an award-winning poet transports us back to the antebellum South—but with a liberatory, supernatural twist. A woman named Saint has the power to ‘conjure’ the destruction of plantations, rescue the enslaved laborers, and transport them to a magically shrouded haven: an all-Black town called ‘Ours.’ The formerly enslaved inhabitants of Ours are free, but ‘freedom didn’t mean safety.'” As her powers to protect the community wane, its members are left to ask: what is freedom if you can’t leave?
24. Daybreak: A Novel by Matt Gallagher.
“U.S. army veteran Luke “Pax” Paxton has been stumbling along for a decade when an old army buddy suggests that they go to Ukraine to help counter the Russian invasion. His motives aren’t all humanitarian: he wants to find a Ukrainian woman named Svitlana he knew from his soldiering days. ” Inspired by the author’s time in Ukraine, Daybreak is a love story and an exploration of the struggle to find meaning and redemption in the midst of war.
25. The Turtle House: A Novel by Amanda Churchill.
In The Turtle House, it’s spring 1999, and “young architect Lia Cope returns to her small-town Texas home with no explanation and ends up in nightly conversations with her grandmother Mineko, who came to Texas as a Japanese war bride and now speaks wistfully of the man she left behind and the Turtle House, where their relationship unfolded.”
26. This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life by Lyz Lenz.
Through a vivid mix of research, reporting, and personal anecdote, in This American Ex-Wife the author “reveals the power imbalances inherent to traditional heterosexual marriage, and calls for a radical act of refusal by women who have been too-long defined by their relationships to men.”
Top new book releases February 27, 2024
27. Wandering Stars: A Novel by Tommy Orange.
The prize-winning author of There There returns with Wandering Stars, a new novel that “traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous.”
“A follow-up to his beloved debut, in Wandering Stars we meet the characters where they left off and trace their stories back to the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The novel winds readers through the interconnected stories of three generations of a Native American family, highlighting the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.”
28. No Better Time: A Novel of the Spirited Women of the Six Triple Eight Central Postal Directory Battalion by Sheila Williams.
No Better Time is a fictional account of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only all-Black battalion of the Women’s Army Corps during World War II. Spelman graduate and librarian Dorothy Thom journeys from basic training through a rough North Atlantic crossing to service in England and France.
29. The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin.
The American Daughters is one of the most anticipated new novels in the historical fiction genre coming in February 2024. It’s set during the Civil War from the author of We Cast a Shadow. A young Black girl joins a clandestine society of spies called the Daughters, a sisterhood working to undermine the Confederates in the French Quarter in New Orleans.
30. Dead Weight: Essays on Hunger and Harm by Emmeline Clein.
In Dead Weight, the author “recounts her struggle with disordered eating alongside the stories of other women: historical figures, pop culture celebrities, and the girls she’s known and loved. Through the story of her own sickness, the raw recollections of interview subjects, and dispatches from social media rabbit holes, Clein challenges stereotypes and renders statistics and science deeply personal and urgent.”
31. The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians by Carlos Lozada.
In The Washington Book, the Pulitzer Prize–winning opinion columnist at The New York Times explores how people in power reveal themselves through their books and writings and, in so doing, illuminates the personal, political, and cultural conflicts driving Washington and the nation.
32. Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley.
We wrap our list of the most anticipated new nonfiction books this February 2024 with Grief is for People, a personal history of loss and renewal. One of our favorite essayists, author of sassy works on many topics about modern life returns with a sober rumination on grief. “After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, the author looks for answers in philosophy and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.”
the best new novels and non-fiction books coming in February 2024
If you’re wondering what to read in February 2024, we hope you’ve got some ideas now! That’s our take on the best, most anticipated novels and non-fiction book releases to read among the top new books coming out in February 2024. What’s at the top of your list, dear reader?
