Black History Month has officially ended, and it was a bit of a hot mess. Still, there are yet more books by Black authors we have for you to add to your TBR, specifically if you like horror. And, if you are doing our Read Harder Challenge this year, recommendations for task #5: Read a nonfiction book about resistance.
As for March’s new releases, there’s an exciting mix of books by debut authors, returning best sellers—a young, death-obsessed woman comes of age, the world of Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning gets expanded through short stories and novellas, and Talia Hibbert returns to adult romance with a nerdy autistic love interest.
Literary Fiction
I Love You Don’t Die by Jade Song
This is a new kind of coming-of-age tale. One that dibbles in Sally Rooney realness and dabbles in Ottessa Moshfegh weirdness. Vicky is our main girl, whose obsession with death has carried her from living above an NYC Chinatown funeral parlor to working at a start-up for bespoke urns. She’s well acquainted with the transience of all things, which may be why she struggles to connect with people other than her only friend, Jen. But then she shakes the table: a dating app romp ends in her getting involved with a throuple that includes an artist and a labor organizer. The love she receives from the dynamic really suits her, but doubt still manages to creep in before long.
More lit fit out this month: Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin, The Shipikisha Club by Mubanga Kalimamukwento, The Encore by Juliet Izon, and Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Laurel Taylor and Hitomi Yoshio.
Sci-Fi
River of Bones and Other Stories by Rebecca Roanhorse
The award-winning author of the Between Earth and Sky series and Trail of Lightning, among others, returns with a dazzling collection of speculative stories and a new novella that takes place in the same world of Trail of Lightning. —Liberty Hardy
More sci-fi out this month: Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall;
New Books
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Nonfiction
Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution by Anand Gopal
Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist Anand Gopal is back, this time with the story of six Syrians fighting for freedom. In a northern Syrian city, revolutionaries throw off a dictator and risk everything for their dream of freedom. Gopal follows six of these men and women, detailing their lives during this time. —Kendra Winchester
More nonfiction coming out this month: Shut Up and Read: A Memoir from Harriett’s Bookshop by Jeannine A. Cook, Cosmic Music: The Life, Art, and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane by Andy Beta, and Judy Blume: A Life by Mark Oppenheimer.
Romance
A Girl Like Her by Talia Hibbert
If Talia Hibbert has no fans, I’m dead. Seriously, her Brown Sisters trilogy is as soul-fortifying as it is steamy, and this latest promises much of the same. In it, we have Ruth Kabbah, who’s autistic, nerdy, a little cranky, and a bit of an outcast in her small town. Then the confident Evan Miller arrives in town, becomes Ruth’s neighbor, and she thinks he might kinda sorta…like her. But she’s been hurt before, and she doesn’t know if this time will be any different.
More romances coming out this month: Thirty Love by Tom Vellner and How Simi Got Her Groom Back by Sonali Dev.
Graphic Novel/Manga
Bad Kid: My Life as a “Troubled Teen” by Sofia Szamosi
What exactly does being a “troubled teen” mean? When she was just 13, Szamosi found out the hard way that it means whatever the facilities that make money “reforming” such children want it to mean. This memoir is an unvarnished look at Szamosi’s experiences in these facilities and how she has learned to cope with her experiences. —Eileen Gonzalez
Mystery, Thriller, or True Crime
Whidbey by T Kira Madden
For readers of multiple pov crime novels that explore the long reach of sexual trauma.
The memoirist of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls has jumped into crime novel writing with an exploration of trauma. Birdie Chang was assaulted and videotaped as a child by Calvin Boyer. Now, as an adult, she has to renew an order of protection against Boyer yearly, the closest she’s gotten to justice since the original case was dismissed, and deal with another victim’s memoir publishing information from her own case. Then Boyer is murdered, and multiple women are further plunged into dealing with Boyer’s actions and seeking answers. —Jamie Canaves
More mystery, thriller, or true crime out this month: Hooked: A Novel of Obsession by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton, My Grandfather, the Master Detective by Masateru Konishi, Louise Heal Kawai, and Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips.
Fantasy
Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories by Amal El-Mohtar
After having read the gorgeous and lilting sci-fi novella This Is How You Lose the Time War, I’ll read anything by Amal El-Mohtar. This collection by her is full of award-winning stories that get told through letters, folktales, poetry, and even diary entries. Each of them offers a peek into fairy tale worlds that have just enough bite.
More fantasy out this month: Nonesuch by Francis Spufford, The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White, and The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu.
Historical Fiction
The Quarter Queen by Kayla Hardy
Inspired by the life of Marie Laveau, The Quarter Queen is a story of nineteenth-century New Orleans and its Voodoo high priestess. The novel is a powerful blend of historical fiction and fantasy, blending fact and fiction told in alternating perspectives between Marie’s rise in the 1820s and her daughter’s attempts to understand—and save—her comatose mother twenty-five years later. —Rachel Brittain
More historical fiction out this month: Now I Surrender by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer,
Horror
Indigent by Briana N. Cox
Briana N. Cox’s debut horror novel is a chilling examination of racism, classism, and gentrification. Leigh Pierce Estates is a low-income housing complex located in a quickly gentrifying area of Atlanta. Xavier is a young handyman living and working at the Estates who becomes infected with a strange disease that leaves him with an insatiable hunger. —Emily Martin
Young Adult
Estela, Undrowning by René Peña-Govea
Estela Morales was accepted into one of San Francisco’s top high schools, and she’s among the only Latinas in the building. Her only goal for the year is to get through things and keep her head down. She doesn’t want a fight, even if her Spanish teacher is low-key racist.
But then Estela places second in the Latine Heritage Poetry Contest. The person who beat her? Not Latine. Now Estela has been thrown into a debate over identity and diversity that is taking over the entire city.
That’s not the whole of her life this year, though. She and her family are also facing eviction.
With comps to Elizabeth Acevedo, this debut verse novel looks outstanding. —Kelly Jensen
More YA out this month: Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions by Ahmad Saber, The Dragon and the Sun Lotus (The Three Realms) by Amélie Wen Zhao,
Children’s/Middle Grade
Songbird in the Light by Billy Porter with Chris Clarkson and illustrated by Charly Palmer
Multi-talented, multi-award-winning Billy Porter has written an inspiring story about finding the unique voice inside yourself and how to share it. —Liberty Hardy
Another middle grade book out this month: Red River Rose by Carole Lindstrom
Other Book Riot New Releases Resources:
- All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved.
- The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz.
- Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot’s New Release Index! That’s where I find 90% of new releases, and you can filter by trending books, Rioters’ picks, and even LGBTQ new releases!
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