Winter Reads 2021

Mateo Askaripour’s Black Buck is set to send up the world of corporate America in this sharp debut about a young Black man who reinvents himself as a skilled salesman on a mission. At 20, Darren is living at home with his mom and working at a Starbucks when the CEO of New York’s hottest tech startup offers him a job. Once he begins climbing the corporate ladder, Darren comes up with a plan to help young people of color enter the sales force from inside the system.

Out Jan. 5

Written by sisters Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite, One of the Good Ones is set to be one of 2021’s most powerful YA novels. Sisters Happi and Genny are left reeling when their activist sister Kezi is killed as a result of police brutality. In the aftermath of Kezi’s death, the sisters become frustrated by the way the world talks about her, and they set out on a road trip to memorialize their sister in their own way — and make an unexpected discovery in the process.

Out Jan. 5

Emma Lord’s debut novel, Tweet Cute, was the charming YA rom-com readers needed in 2020, and her second book, You Have a Match, is set to be every bit as much fun as her first. When Abby signs up for a DNA service, her goal is simply to catch the attention of her crush and best friend Leo, but things get complicated when she discovers she has an older sister she didn’t know existed.

Out Jan. 5

Set 17 years before the events of Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, Concrete Rose paints a complex portrait of Black manhood as seen through the eyes of 17-year-old Maverick Carter. The son of a former gang member, Maverick is working two jobs to help his mom while his father is in prison when he makes the unexpected discovery that he’s a father to a baby named Seven.

Out Jan. 12

What if you had to piece together the story of your life using nothing but your phone and social media accounts? That’s the hook of Siri, Who Am I? by Sam Tschida. After a head injury leaves Instagram influencer Mia with amnesia, she uses her online presence to piece together the story of her life, and the more she digs, the less impressed she is by the person in all of those carefully staged photos.

Out Jan. 12

Told across four decades and two continents, Bride of the Sea by Eman Quotah is a beautifully intricate family drama about a young woman torn between her parents and two worlds. Shortly after Muneer and Saeedah settle into their lives in America, the couple divorce, leading Muneer to make a life-altering choice when she flees to Saudi Arabia with her daughter, Hanadi. By the time Hanadi discovers what her mother did, she’s faced with the impossible question of how she can exist between two continents and two parents with such different ideas about what her future should look like.

Out Jan. 26

If you love the fake-dating trope, just wait until you read Rachel Lynn Solomon’s novel about the bickering and bantering between fake exes in The Ex Talk. Public radio producer Shay comes up with the brilliant idea for a show where exes deliver relationship advice live on air, but unfortunately, her boss wants her to host the show with the station’s newest employee — a man whom she’s never actually dated before and whom she doesn’t particularly like.

Out Jan. 26

Bestselling author Kristin Hannah returns with The Four Winds, a sweeping novel set against the backdrop of the Great Depression. As the Dust Bowl begins to ravage her land, Elsa Martinelli is faced with a choice that will change her life forever: leave her Texas home behind for the chance of a better life in California or stay put and fight for the land she loves.

Out Feb. 2

Girls With Bright Futures by Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman is a thriller for the post-college-admission-scandal age. Top-tier high school Elliott Bay Academy is known for its stellar record of getting kids into Ivy League schools, but when Stanford informs the school that it will only be taking one of its students this year, three desperate mothers take matters into their hands to secure their daughters’ futures, no matter the cost.

Out Feb. 2

Writing under the name Lily Menon, YA rom-com superstar Sandhya Menon is releasing her first adult romance novel, Make Up Break Up, in February. The steamy and hilarious novel focuses on rival app developers Annika Dev, who is devoted to helping people make their relationships work, and Hudson Craft, whose app helps people break up as quickly and efficiently as possible. Now that the unlikely pair are being forced to share an office building and compete for funding, things are bound to get interesting fast.

Out Feb. 2