43 Of My Must-Read Adult Fiction Books For 2021

The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr
Out January 5, 2021

This one looks like it’s going to hurt but also looks like an incredibly powerful and moving literary historical fiction novel about two slaves and their forbidden love and intimacy they’ve found together and the betrayal that turns things ugly on the plantation for them and the solace they’ve found there together — all told from the point of view of various characters.

Honestly it seems like one that is sure to be much talked about and become a hard-hitting classic!

The Push by Ashley Audrain
Out January 5, 2021

This one is going to elicit some strong, strong feelings and has already been polarizing among early readers.

It’s a dark and unsettling psychological thriller about a mother and her daughter, exploring the many facets of motherhood and mother/daughter relationships, and the life-changing tragedy that upends their life.

Definitely is going to be one of those picks for a book club if you want something to get your book club talking in 2021 and beyond.

A lot of triggering content so highly recommend checking out reviews that contain content warnings/talk about those triggers because this one is dark and disturbing.

You May Also Like: Ideas To Refresh Your Book Club In 2021

The Divines by Ellie Eaton
Out January 19, 2021

I love a good dark academia book (especially boarding school books) and this one looks so good.

It’s about a girl who was part of a rebellious mean-girl type clique growing up at her boarding school but hasn’t spoken to any of the girls since the school closed its doors in disgrace.

Now in her thirties, she finds herself back at her old school and unearthed memories and a new understanding of what happened in those final weeks before the scandal, threaten to shake everything she thought to be true of herself and her past. 

Faye, Faraway by Helen Fisher
Out January 26, 2021

I’ve been craving all the time travel after Oona Out of Order really reminded me how much I love it and this one is definitely going to be a must-read book for me in 2021! Not only the fact that it’s time travel but it’s a story about grief as well as mothers and daughters.

The main character, a woman who has children and lost her own mom when she was only 7, finds herself in 1977 — the year before her mom died — meeting her mom and her younger self and becoming close with her on this little trips back in time.

She struggles with knowing if she should disclose the truth and how that would impact her present day as she already starts to wonder if these trips affect it.

I’m really drawn to this premise as someone who wonders what it would be like to know my mom as an adult and can’t…but it also makes me a bit weepy thinking about it. 

The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Out January 26, 2021

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The Heiress Gets A Duke by Harper St. George
Out January 26, 2021

If you’ve followed this blog for a while you know I love romance novels and dabble in historical romance (though contemporary is my most favorite).

I have a feeling historical romances are going to get the appreciation they deserve FINALLY, thanks to the popularity of Bridgerton, and I think readers will be eating up new releases like this one.

This one is a Victorian era romance about the battle of wills between a strong young American heiress  who wants her family’s business more than she wants a husband and the Duke who NEEDS this match with her family and their new money….but neither sister wants to marry him and he only has eyes for one.

Other books by Harper St. George: Blood and Glory series, Viking Warriors series

You May Also Like: Best Books For Fans of Bridgerton

Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano
Out February 2, 2021

If you like your mysteries a little more fun and a lot less dark than some of what’s popular, check this one out — it’s the first in a new series!

It’s about a struggling suspense writer and mother whose real life is looking a lot more similar to her books when she gets tangled up, after someone misunderstands a conversation they hear her having, in a murder for hire plot (that could help her financial woes) for an awful man and hijinx ensue.

Other books by Elle Cosimano: Nearly Gone, Seasons of the Storm, Holding Smoke, The Suffering Tree

Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan
Out February 2, 2021

I love me some deep dive into the dark side of suburbia type books.

This one is about neighborhood gossip and rumors gone really wrong when a family is ostracized, an accusation is leveled and rumors take on a life of their own….told in a mixed media style with newspaper clippings and such. It’s been compared to Little Fires Everywhere.

Other books by Sarah Langan: The Keeper, Audrey’s Door

How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones
Out February 2, 2021

This book was put on my radar by a bookstagrammer named BookofCinz!

Set in a small beach town in Barbados and, primarily following a young woman named Lala though told from multiple viewpoints, it tells the story of a thwarted burglary that leads to a violent act in this town that houses both wealthy tourists and struggling locals and the ripple effects from it. 

Looks hard-hitting and heart-wrenching — definitely a heavy read!

This Close To Okay by Leesa-Cross Smith
Out February 2, 2021

A Book of the Month pick and definitely a new adult fiction release I’ve been anticipating!

This book is about a woman, newly divorced and a therapist, who comes across a man ready to jump off a bridge on her way home from work.

She gets him to walk away and go for coffee with him and then, upon coming back to her home, the two are in for an emotionally charged weekend where they start to help one another heal, reveal their own secrets and get to the truth of why he was on that bridge.

Other books by Leena-Cross Smith: Whiskey & Ribbons

We Can Only Save Ourselves by Alison Wisdom
Out February 2, 2021

Like chilling cult-centered books? Check this debut out for 2021!

It’s about a well-loved and shining star teenage girl who, right before she’s supposed to be crowned homecoming queen, commits an act of vandalism and disappears with a charismatic man to his bungalow where she discovers other women there seeking the same path she was promised.

Along with her story of indoctrination into this cult is the story of what happens after, told by a chorus of mothers who knew her, in her suburban town and the reverberations it has on it. Another one I think will be a book club hit!

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Out February 2, 2021

Historical fiction fans and fans of Kristin Hannah’s brand of emotional reads, rejoice!

In an immersive and sweeping fashion, Kristin Hannah takes us to Great Depression era Texas during the Dust Bowl and tells the story of a woman named Elsa Martinelli who, like many others, must make the impossible choice of whether she and her family will stay and endure in her home in awful conditions or head west to California for hope of a better life and work.

Bleak and will weigh on you but ultimately a portrait of strength, grit and courage during such a devastating time. 

Other books by Kristin Hannah: Firefly Lane, The Great Alone, The Nightingale, Winter Garden, Night Road, Magic Hour,

The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson
Out February 9, 2021

Love books that tackle hefty things without being heavy-handed? Books where two unlikely people befriend one another? Check out this novel about race, class, identity, and motherhood.

This one, set in 2008 after Obama is elected, is about an Ivy League-educated Black engineer who is married to a wonderful man who wants to start a family but the secret of the baby she gave up as a teenager weighs heavy on her and their future.

Searching for the son she gave up to pursue the life she has, she finds herself back in the dying Indiana factory town she grew up in and finds an unlikely connection with a young white 11 year old boy with a troubled past.

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles
Out February 9, 2021

A book that will be appreciated by book lovers, this one is based on the true story of the heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris during World War II mingled with a storyline in the 80’s about a teenager who finds a kinship and love of words with her solitary elderly neighbor whose mysterious past and story intrigues her.

An ode to the enduring power of books and the spaces devoted to them that bring refuge and community from within the pages and beyond.

Other books by this author: Moonlight in Odessa

The Love Proof by Madeleine Henry
Out February 9, 2021

I love unique and fresh sounding love stories like this!

This one is about an all consuming relationship between a brilliant girl who is an academic genius poised to make moves in the world of physics and the boy she falls for who is charging forward for a career in finance.

As their love story deepens and becomes more intense, one of them realizes it is coming at a cost which leaves physics to be the only thing that can help her make sense of love, loss and connection and all of life’s big questions.

Other books by this author: Breathe In, Cash Out

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers
Out February 23, 2021

I love books that examine the messiness of adulthood especially during those years in your 20’s when you are trying to figure everything out.

Honey Girl is about a high achieving, does-things-by-the-book 28 year old woman named Grace who goes and drunkenly gets married to a woman she doesn’t even know during a girls’ weekend in Vegas to celebrate her newly earned PhD.

The impulsive and out of character act makes Grace question everything about how she truly feels about her perfectly ordered life, that should make her feel great, but instead makes her feel burnt out, unfulfilled and imposed by the weight of other expectations.

Fleeing these thoughts and what it means for her future, she heads off to New York to spend the summer with her wife she doesn’t even know but whom she falls for when she does get to know her. But she can only run for so long before reality comes breathing down her neck.

Quiet In Her Bones by Nalini Singh
Out February 23, 2021

A wealthy socialite, from an exclusive neighborhood, goes missing 10 years ago with a hefty sum of money. Everyone assumes, because she wasn’t particularly well-liked, that she took the money and bounced from her life until 10 years later her bones are found in the forest near where they live.

Desperate for answers and suspicious of many in the neighborhood who may have had motive to kill, her son and the only person to hear her scream that night so long ago, sets out to solve his mother’s case.

If you like unreliable narrators and thrillers where there are a large pool of people to point the finger at, check it out!

Other books by this author: Guild Hunter series, Psy-Changling series

Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews
Out March 2, 2021

If you like character driven thrillers, check this very anticipated one out!

It’s about a wannabe writer from a small town who becomes the assistant to a very famous and private pseudonym-using author (a la Elena Ferrante) and thinks it will finally be the break she needs to launch her career.

Helen, the real name of the author, invites her on a research trip for her book and, while on the trip, they get into a car accident that leaves Helen dead and Florence imagining what it might be like to have Helen’s life and career.

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
Out March 2, 2021

“A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them—setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course.”

I only had to read the first paragraph of the summary on Goodreads to hit “want to read.”

There’s an intertwining, dual timeline — one in 1791, of the woman who makes the poisons and an unlikely customer,  and the other in the present where a woman, fresh off discovering her husband’s infidelity, finds a relic of the past that she finds out that it just might be a link to the mystery of the apothecary from centuries before.

Float Plan by Trish Doller
Out March 2, 2021

I’ve been anticipating this one SO MUCH because I love Trish’s YA books a ton since I first read her debut when it came out.

She’s been talking about this story for years on social media and AH it’s finally so close to being here. Her characters ALWAYS leave a mark and this one is going to be no different, I can tell, in this story of starting over in the face of loss.

It’s about a woman who is lost and numb in grief after losing her fiance and decides to embark solo on the sailing trip they were supposed to take together.

After an awful first night trying to sail solo, she realizes doing it on her own isn’t going to happen and so she hires a professional to help her complete the trip.

Other books by this author: Something Like Normal, Where The Stars Still Shine, The Devil You Know, In A Perfect World

We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker
Out March 2, 2021

I found myself anticipating this so much after a friend RAVED about it. Part literary crime drama and coming of age story, it’s about two unlikely allies — a 13 year old self proclaimed outlaw who has had to grow up too soon because her mother is unfit  and a chief of police who has a complicated relationship with a man being released from jail and going back into Duchess’s, the 13 year old, life.

Other books by this author: Tall Oaks, All The Wicked Girls

Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
Out March 9, 2021

I LOVED both books in this romance series and so this is definitely very high on my must read new releases list for sure.

So excited for Eve’s book — she’s equal parts charm and chaos and I can’t WAIT to see this romance between her and an uptight, put-together man who does not want this human tornado anywhere near him or his B&B kitchen as chef but is forced to accept her help when, erm, a little accident occurs!!

You can totally read these out of order but I highly recommend reading both Chloe and Dani (one of my fave books from last year).

Other books by this author: Get a Life Chloe Brown, Take a Hint Dani Brown, Ravenswood series, Just For Him series

Meet Me In Paradise by Libby Hubscher
Out March 23, 2021

It hurts a little to read travel-y books right now but I enjoy the armchair adventures!

This one is about a woman who doesn’t travel anymore after her mother, a journalist, died on assignment but reluctantly agrees to join her sister on a spa trip in a tropical location.

Already out of her comfort zone traveling, things get worse when her sister doesn’t make the flight and she’s on her own to explore the island. But not totally on her own thanks to a bout of turbulence that has her landing into the lap of the man who now has her sister’s seat.

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
Out March 30, 2021

Y’all know I can’t resist an inter-generational story of women and mothers and how the choices of the ones before affect the ones to come. I simply cannot.

This one spans multiple generations of women in a family in multiple countries from Cuba to Miami and tells, in vignette style, the trials, the choices, the betrayals,  the love found and lost and the relationships as mothers and daughters. HYPED.

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
Out March 30, 2021

Every since Daisy Jones and the Six I have been craving all the gritty music fiction.

This one takes us into the fictional oral history of the Afropunk rock and roll duo who shot to fame in the 1970’s — the rise, the fall and the dark secret at the heart of it bubbling to the surface that could ruin the chance of any potential reunion for the duo.

GUYS. We need it ASAP, right?

Astrid Sees All by Natalie Standiford
Out April 6, 2021

Natalie Standiford’s YA novel How To Say Goodbye in Robot is a book I love with my whole soul and so this is certainly a must read novel for me in 2021!

With a gritty 1980’s New York City underground nightlife scene, it’s about a young girl’s walk down a dark, spiral-y path as she struggles to find herself and find her place in the world.

Honestly love a good book about newly minted adults trying to figure out their crap and making very questionable decisions along the way…probably my own 20-something years were way less dramatic and bad choice-y on a grand scale.

Other books by this author: How To Stay Goodbye in Robot, Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters, The Boy On the Bridge

Anywhere For You by Abbie Greaves
Out April 6, 2021

Looks like a romantic one but a doozy on the heart! A young reporter is fascinated by a woman she sees sitting at the same train station every day with a sign that says “come home Jim.”

She asks her story and learns the woman met her soulmate and love of her life, and then after six years together, he disappeared seven years ago and she’s been waiting for him ever since.

Most think he just left, she believes he would never have just up and left plus she’s been receiving some grainy phone calls she thinks are from him. Interested in her story and their love story, the young reporter begins to look into his disappearance. 

Other books by this author: The Silent Treatment

Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne
Out April 13, 2021

The Hating Game by Sally Throne is one of my fave romcoms so I’m looking forward to this one!

It’s about a young girl who spends all her life devoted to the folks at the retiree center she works at and the tattooed and hot mess son of the property’s developer who has been given a place to stay there if he helps out around the center.

Hoping to chase him off by making him be the personal assistant to two of the wealthiest and eccentric residents (whose assistants never stay), she realizes that she (and those women) have met their match.

Other books by this author: The Hating Game, 99 Percent Mine

Meet Me In Another Life by Catriona Silvey
Out April 27, 2021

I am so excited for this speculative, time-travel-y romance.

It’s about Santiago and Thora who meet on a trip in a foreign city but days later he is killed in an accident. It won’t be the last time she sees him as they will  keep meeting in different realities, but never the same versions of themselves.

Definitely one of the books to read in 2021 if you enjoy things like The Time Traveler’s Wife or The Midnight Library.

Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Out April 27, 2021

Looking for something quirky and delightful? This one is a mashup of a murder mystery and a romcom with a whole big dose of meddling aunties! Fun, right?

An accidental murder + a corpse where it shouldn’t be + a huge wedding the family business has to pull off + an ex making a surprise appearance…ALL OF THE HIJINX.


Other books by this author: The Obsession

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Out May 4, 2021

After watching The Midnight Sky on Netflix, which was OKAY, I really have been craving space things. Especially things where humanity rests on the fate of one person.

This one is about an astronaut who awakes, millions of miles from home and with two corpses, and can’t remember the mission he was on. As his memory comes back slowly and fuzzily, he realizes he is on an impossible mission to save humanity.


Other books by this author: The Martian, Artemis

Leda and the Swan by Anna Caritj
Out May 4, 2021

This one is about a college student who wakes after a wild campus party to find she isn’t exactly sure what happened with the guy she went home with, and can’t recall the last words she spoke to a girl who is now missing.

Things start to make her wonder if she’s in danger when she realizes the guy she is into had a connection to the missing girl and she becomes more and more obsessed with the missing girl and what happened to her.

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Out May 4, 2021

You know I love two parallel stories separated by time! This one is a sweeping story about a daring aviatrix named Marian who is determined to be the first to fly around the globe and then, 60 years later, the actress who will play Marian in a movie centering around her disappearance in a movie she will help redefine her career.


Other books by this author: Seating Arrangements, Astonish Me

A Special Place For Women by Laura Hankin
Out May 11, 2021

Last year Happy and You Know It by Laurie Hankin was one of the most surprising books for me of 2020 and I’m eager to read another one from her.

This one is about a woman reporter trying to infiltrate, and expose, a secret society of powerful women who have their hand in a lot of things in NYC.


Other books by this author: Happy and You Know It, The Summer Time Girls

People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry
Out May 11, 2021

Beach Read, by this author, was one of my favorite books of 2020 so I am excited about this opposites attract, second chance romance between two former best friends that had a falling out. So many of my fave tropes there.

The setting is going to be fun because the trip, once an annual thing before they stopped talking, is meant to be a last ditch effort to finally get them talking again.


Other books by this author: Beach Read, A Million Junes, The Love That Split The World, When The Sky Fell On Splendor

You May Also Like: Best Beach Reads For 2021

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Out May 25, 2021

It’s always a good year when one of your all-time fave authors comes out with a new book so of course it’s one of my most anticipated adult fiction books for 2021! I’d read it regardless of genre or what it was about.

This one transports us to the 1980’s at the anticipated epic end-of-summer bash thrown by four super famous siblings, who are the offspring of the 3rd husband in Reid’s Evelyn Hugo, which will end with the mansion going up in flames by morning.

But somewhere between the anticipation of the party and the flames is where everything comes undone and family secrets come flowing out amidst the lavish party.


Other books by this author: Maybe in Another Life, Forever Interrupted, After I Do, One True Loves, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones and the Six

The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary
Out June 1, 2021

Alert, alert! Highly anticipated out of all the upcoming new book releases!! Eagerly awaiting this latest release from Beth O’Leary after ADORING The Flatshare and The Switch.

This author has been the queen of smile-inducing reads for me lately. This one is about two exes forced to smoosh in for a road trip together to get to a wedding after an accident leaves one of them stranded. 


Other books by this author: The Flatshare, The Switch

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
Out June 1, 2021

A twisty thriller that intertwines Greek mythology? Salivating for it.

It’s about a troubled group therapist who sets out to prove that the ADORED, especially by a all-female secret society on campus, Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University is actually a murderer when a friend of her niece is murdered on campus.


Other books by this author: The Silent Patient

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Out June 1, 2021

“Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada in this electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing”

Sounds good RIGHT? A dark and sinister office thriller is something I am very into.

The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid
Out June 8, 2021

Dark fantasy, inspired by Hungarian history and Jewish mythology, in the same vein of Naomi Novick and Katherine Arden? VERY intriguing!

The main character is a motherless woman who is ostracized by her pagan community because she doesn’t have powers. When soldiers of the king come to take a pagan girl as sacrifice, they choose her.

But before that can happen, they are attacked by monsters leaving only her and an unlikely ally who must work together to overthrow the tyrant.

Songs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie
Out June 22, 2021

I realize that several of my must read books for 2021 have something to do with music in some way and I cannot explain why I am really drawn to those storylines right now but this is how it goes with me. Maybe I’ve been craving it since I read Daisy Jones when it came out.

This one is another one set in the 1970’s about a singer who comes into fame and also into a love affair with a folk legend and the dark side to fame and his music.

Lady Sunshine by Amy Mason Doan
Out June 29, 2021

A family drama (you know, my faves) set in 1970’s California about a young girl who spends a summer of freedom with her uncle and his bohemian group of musician and artist friends at his estate — a summer that ends in tragedy and the abrupt departure of the cousin she become close with that summer.

Twenty years later, after inheriting the estate and preparing to sell, she comes back as a tribute album to her uncle is being produced there and she’s forced to confront everything that happened that summer long ago.


Other books by this author: The Summer List, Summer Hours

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
Out June 29, 2021

Books about infidelity are a mixed bag for me but this book looks to be about so much more and to be such a layered story.

It’s about a happily married woman and mom trying to grapple with a decision she must make, in the span of 24 hours, after the night prior she and her childhood friend (and first love) Jonas had sex for the first time while the spouses are all inside: stay with the life she made with her husband or the life she had always imagined with Jonas that was ripped away after a tragic event.