The Biggest Book Releases To Look Forward To In 2023

Whether you’re an avid bookworm or you’re embarking on a New Year’s resolution, a BookTok connoisseur or looking to jump on the hype, get ahead in 2023 with the year’s hottest book releases. From thrillers to romances to Prince Harry’s autobiography, here are the shiny new reads we’re looking forward to in 2023.

New Books Being Released In 2023

Spare by Prince Harry

10 January, Penguin

Following the release of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan, Spare is likely to be one of 2023’s biggest memoirs – and it’s being released right at the start of the year. Raw and unflinching, Prince Harry tells his side of the story about life within the Royal Family with his characteristic warmth and honesty. Proceeds from the book will be donated to childrens’ charities across the globe.

Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey

17 January 2023, HarperCollins

From the Schitt’s Creek screenwriter comes a fiction debut. Maggie’s marriage has ended just 608 days after it started, but she’s fine – she’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s alone for the first time in her life, can’t afford her rent and her obscure PhD is going nowhere… but at the age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new status as a Surprisingly Young Divorcee™.

Those People Next Door by Kia Abdullah

19 January 2023, HarperCollins

Founder of Asian Booklist – a not-for-profit organisation advocating for diversity in publishing – Kia Abdullah’s fourth novel will be published early in 2023. A gripping thriller about nightmare neighbours, Those People Next Door explores the loss of innocence and how far we’re prepared to go to defend ourselves and the people we love.

People Change by Sara Jafari

2 February 2023, Penguin

From the editor of literary art magazine TOKEN and the author of The Mismatch comes a new romance novel. When Shirin bumps into Kian at a house party in Brixton, she is taken aback by the feelings that resurface. They last saw one another ten years ago as sixteen-year-olds at school in Hull, and the weight of everything left unsaid since then still hangs between them.

Victory City by Salman Rushdie

9 February 2023, Penguin

From the internationally bestselling author comes a new epic tale of a woman who breathes a fantastical empire into existence, only to be consumed by it over the centuries.

Maame by Jessica George

14 February 2023, Hachette

Maddie’s life in London is far from rewarding: her mother spends most of her time in Ghana, she is the primary caretaker for her father, and her boss is a nightmare, with Maddie tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting. So, when her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living.

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

16 February, HarperCollins

Georgina Moore’s evocative debut will transport readers to the golden Isle of Wight beaches, brimming with family secrets, betrayal, and the bonds of sisterhood.

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

13 March 2023, Penguin

From the bestselling author of Dear Edward comes a new tale of four sisters. The Padavano girls – Julia, Sylvie, Cecelia and Emmeline – are seen as inseparable by everyone in their close-knit Italian-American neighbourhood. When Julia falls in love with William Waters, a history student and college sports star, she’s delighted by the way her plans for adulthood are coming to fruition: a husband, a house, a family of her own. But when darkness from William’s past begins to block the light of his future, it is Sylvie, not Julia, who becomes his closest confidante – and the ensuing betrayal tears the sisters apart.

Strictly Friends by Frances Mensah Williams

16 March 2023, Lake Union

Rom-com fiction writer Frances Mensah Williams will publish another novel in 2023, Strictly Friends. When Ruby Lamont’s young son Jake starts telling tall tales about the dad who walked out on them six years ago, she realises that, for her son’s sake, it’s time to find out the truth.

Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

30 March 2023, Hachette

Set in a not-so-distant North American future of global warming and climate refugees, Camp Zero, Michelle Min Sterling’s debut novel, will ask some urgent questions about gender, class, race and the politics of catastrophe alongside trust, deception, and the courage it takes to fall in love.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

6 April 2023, Penguin

The bestselling author of Rodham and American Wife returns with an enthralling, humorous and subversive tale set in the world of a live TV comedy show. Sally Milz is a script writer who has given up on romance, and finds her world upended by an unexpected encounter with a pop-star with a penchant for dating models.

The Trackers by Charles Frazier

11 April 2023, HarperCollins

Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, painter Val Welch travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of luck, he’s landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural representing the region for their new post office. A wealthy art lover named John Long and his wife Eve have agreed to host Val at their sprawling ranch. Rumours and intrigue surround the couple. When, one day, Eve flees home with a valuable painting in tow, John recruits Val to hit the road with a mission of tracking her down.

Carmen and Grace by Melissa Coss Aquino

13 April 2023, Head of Zeus

A Bronx-set, Latinx debut drama about two cousins – who are more akin to sisters – lured into the underground drug trade. Centering their inextricable bond, along with the sisterhood felt with their peer embroiled women, we see one woman seek power while the other wants nothing but to escape it. Switching between voices, sliding between past and present, this is a moving meditation on womanhood, sisterhood, and legacies of violence. Unputdownable.

Happy Place by Emily Henry

27 April 2023, Penguin

From the author of one of BookTok’s most popular reads for 2022, People We Meet On Vacation, Emily Henry will return in 2023 with Happy Place. Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple – they go together like bread and butter, gin and tonic, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Except, now they don’t. They broke up six months ago. And they still haven’t told anyone.

Ultra Processed People by Chris van Tulleken

27 April, Penguin

If you have children, you’ll no doubt recognise him as one of the twin doctors from brilliant kids’ medical programme Operation Ouch, but in Chris van Tulleken’s groundbreaking new book (which reads like the scariest thriller), he dives deep into how our food (or at least seventy to eighty percent of it) is killing us. It is utterly devastating, yet also a reminder that these ultra processed foods (from Pringles and oven pizzas to colas and protein bars) were created to resemble food through smell, texture and taste, but are ticking time bombs for our health. It might just change your life.

The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks

9 May 2023, Penguin

From Hollywood legend Tom Hanks comes a debut novel spanning eight decades, as a multimillion-dollar superhero movie inspired by a classic comic nears completion.

The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop

11 May 2023, Penguin

From journalist and author Katie Bishop, The Girls of Summer is one of Penguin’s buzziest debuts for 2023. Rachel has been in love with Alistair since she was seventeen. Even though she hasn’t seen him for sixteen years and she’s now married to someone else. Even though she was a teenager when they met. Even though he is twenty years older than her. She’s found it impossible to forget their summer together on a remote, sun-trapped Greek island. Until now.

Messalina by Honor Cargill Martin

11 May 2023, Head of Zeus

Lovers of the recent influx of Greek and Roman historical retellings should try Honor Cargill Martin’s electric exploration of the life of Messalina, the third wife of Emperor Claudius, and one of history’s most notorious women. In this non-fiction chronicle, we look at Messalina’s life in the context of her time, with Cargill Martin reclaiming the humanity of a life story previously defined by currents of high politics and patriarchy.

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

25 May 2023, HarperCollins

From the bestselling author of Babel comes a new satirical thriller. Athena Liu is a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories by basic white girls anyway? But now Athena is dead. And June has her unfinished manuscript…

Pageboy by Elliot Page

6 June 2023, Penguin

The acclaimed Juno actor and trans activist, Eliot Page, is releasing an autobiography that will reflect on gender, mental health and Hollywood with honesty and passion.

Hokey Pokey by Kate Mascarenhas

8 June 2023, Head of Zeus

From the author of The Psychology of Time Travel comes another genre-bending tale. A grand hotel, a famous opera star and a psychoanalyst with a hidden agenda, all set in 1920s Birmingham; expect a glamorous, thrilling ride through murder, madness and the darkest recesses of the mind.

Tiger Work by Ben Okri

20 June 2023, Head of Zeus

From the renowned Booker Prize winner comes a new collection blending fiction, essay and poetry. Inspired by environmental activism, this is a powerful and very personal appeal for change.

The Trial by Rob Rinder

22 June 2023, Penguin

Hoping to follow the successful trail Richard Osman has left, Judge Rinder’s debut novel will follow Adam Green, a barrister-in-training on his first case that will take him from the murky world of Chambers to the splendour of the Old Bailey.

Four Seasons in Japan by Nick Bradley

22 June 2023, Doubleday

From the author of The Cat and the City, Four Seasons in Japan doubles as a love letter to Japanese culture, its landscape, and literature, exploring the comfort found in books and the (mis)understanding between generations. Flo is a despondent American translator who’s translation work has dried up and her relationship has run its course. She’s unsure what to do next, until she stumbles across a book left on the Tokyo subway. Beginning to translate it, she realises she has much more in common with the book’s characters than she could have imagined.

The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane

6 July 2023, Penguin

From the New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes, The Half Moon will follow bartender Malcolm, who dreams of running a bar of his own while his wife, Jess, begins to face the possibility that she might never be a mother. When a blizzard hits their upstate New York town on the same day that Malcolm learns some shocking news about Jess, and a regular at the bar goes missing, everyone is frozen in place for a single, pivotal week.

Defiant Dreams by Sola Mahfouz & Malaina Kapoor

13 July 2023, Doubleday

An inspiring memoir from an Afghan girl who dared to ask for me. Growing up under Taliban rule, Sola’s freedoms of childhood were stripped away as they threatened any girl who continued their education with acid attacks, kidnapping, or worse. Realising her only option was to succumb to a life of restriction, or find a way out, she chose the latter.

Nineteen Steps by Millie Bobby Brown

12 September 2023, HQ

From actor to makeup brand founder to author – is there anything Millie Bobby Brown can’t do? Inspired by true events in her own family history, Brown’s debut novel – which she worked on with author Kathleen McGurl – will whisk readers back to 1942. Despite the raging war, 18-year-old Nellie Morris lives a quiet life in tight-knit Bethnal Green. Her family and friends all tease that she will marry air raid warden Billy, the boy next door, who’s always been sweet on her. But the arrival of Ray, a handsome American airman stationed nearby, causes Nellie to question everything she thought she knew about her future.

Featured image: 2023 book releases, (L-R) HarperCollins, Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette, Penguin, Vintage.