With every new year, I make a commitment to myself — and to Goodreads — that I will finish a certain number of books by the end of the year. Inevitably, this is how it goes: I finish five books in January and pat myself on the back for being ahead of my goal.
By June, this enthusiasm has died off, as life gets in the way of my page-turning.
In September, I’m usually a few novels behind my goal, and by November, I’ve somehow fallen off the wagon completely.
In December, I do nothing but sit around the house and binge-read all the books I’ve started since June and put down before the 100-page mark, thus hitting my goal just in time to start this ritual off again in January.
To add to the excitement (and self-induced stress) of all of this, I’ve curated a list of unmissable books being released in 2020. Join me as I add these to my Goodreads list for next year, to finish sometime in December of next year.
1. Such a Fun Age
by Kiley Reid
A heartfelt page-turner that tackles race and white privilege, Such a Fun Age is the story of Emira Tucker, a black babysitter who looks after a white mummy blogger’s two children. While looking after Alix Nicholson’s toddler one evening, a security guard assumes that Emira has kidnapped the white child, leaving Emira humiliated and furious.
Released: January 2020
2. Before Familiar Woods
by Ian Pisarcik
Just outside a sleepy town, three boys are found dead in a tent. Three years later, their fathers go missing. A haunting mystery about secrets and families, this one will keep you guessing until the end.
Released: March 2020
3. My Dark Vanessa
by Kate Elizabeth Russell
At 15, Vanessa believed her relationship with her 42-year-old teacher, her first love, was consensual. In 2017, as he faces sexual abuse allegations from another former student, forcing Vanessa to reexamine the dynamic between her and the man who professed to only love her.
Released: January 2020
4. American Dirt
by Jeanine Cummins
A novel that’s already being compared to The Grapes of Wrath and dubbed a ‘life-changing’ read, this is a story about people willing to sacrifice it all for a glimmer of hope.
Released: January 2020
5. Death in Her Hands
by Ottessa Moshfegh
An elderly widow’s life is turned upside down when she discovers a note pinned to the ground with a frame of stones. “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body”.
Released: April 2020
6. Sin Eater
by Megan Campisi
Described as The Handmaid’s Tale meets Alice in Wonderland, Sin Eater follows 14-year-old May, a 16th Century orphan who receives a life sentence for stealing a loaf of bread. Her punishment? May must spend her life hearing the final confessions of the dying and take them on as her own, thereby allowing the dying person access into heaven.
Released: April 2020
7. Night Theater
by Vikram Paralkar
A disgraced surgeon flees the city to begin a job at a small practice where he purchases meds out-of-pocket. Things go from weird to weirder when a dead family turn up one night, after being killed in a violent robbery, saying that they will be offered a second chance at life if he is able to fix their wounds by morning.
Released: January 2020
8. The Unsuitable
by Molly Pohlig
A gothic ghost story that’s culturally relevant to life today, this comedy of errors will have you gasping from start to finish.
Iseult Wince is an unmarried Victorian woman, so obviously, her father is trying to marry her off. She’s not making it easy for him, though, what with the fact that she’s terrifically awkward and, oh yeah, believes her dead mother lives in a scar on her neck. It only gets more hectic from there, as she becomes engaged to a man whose medical treatments have turned his skin silver.
Released: April 2020
9. Under the Rainbow
by Celia Laskey
When Big Burr, Kansas, gets labelled “the most homophobic town in America”, activists decide to do their part to try to open the hearts and minds of the townspeople… by moving in. A taskforce of queer people agree to move to the town for two years, and things get complicated from there.
Released: March 2020
10. Long Bright River
by Liz Moore
In a suburb of Philadelphia being torn apart by the opioid epidemic, two sisters are leading parallel, but separate lives. Once close with her sister Mickey, Kacey is now homeless and living in the grip of addition. Mickey spends her time on the same streets, working her job with the police force. When Kacey goes missing, it’s up to Mickey to find her sister, before it’s too late.
Released: January 2020
11.The Glass Hotel
by Emily St. John Mandel
The Glass Hotel is a novel that weaves together money, beauty and white-collar crime. Moving seamlessly between a container ship off the coast of Mauritania, where a woman goes missing, to the wilderness, to the skyscrapers of New York City, this is a story about secrets, greed, guilt and the ghosts of our pasts.
Released: March 2020
