8 Book releases that we’re excited about for 2024

After her deliciously disturbing domestic horror Motherthing, Ainslie Hogarth is back with Normal Women which promises to be a darkly comic tale investigating the meaning of women’s work. The novel follows new mum Dani who was more than ready to be a stay-at-home mother but now finds herself increasingly concerned about what will happen if her healthy husband drops dead.

Then she discovers The Temple, a yoga centre dedicated to helping people reach their full potential, which brings with it a way for her to do some meaningful work and gain economic independence. Just as she readies herself to join The Temple, its guardian Renata disappears, and Dani finds herself stepping into the role of detective to find out what happened to her.

After a deep dive into the nature of motherhood with Motherthing, here’s hoping Hogarth will deliver another gripping story with some twists and turns that will keep us up at night!

A previously "lost" work by the esteemed writer Gabriel García Márquez, a literary giant hailed as one of Colombia's finest, will see the light of day this March—a decade after the author’s passing. In the twilight of his life, grappling with dementia, Márquez chose to keep this book unpublished posthumously, possibly influenced by the lukewarm reception of his last work released during his lifetime. 

However, defying his wishes, his two sons have decided to share this literary treasure with the world. The ethical predicament surrounding the release of an author's posthumous works without their explicit consent has long sparked debate across various artistic realms. The question arises: should we prioritise honouring the creator's wishes, or does the public deserve the chance to experience one last creation from a beloved genius? 

It's a profound query, one that may find clarity only after delving into the pages of Until August. The book tells the story of a woman who returns to an island every year to commemorate her mother's passing, navigating themes of freedom, regret, and, of course, love. 

Retellings are all the rage right now, and Booker Prize-shortlisted author Percival Everett has thrown his hat into the ring with a reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. While Mark Twain’s original work is largely sympathetic to the plight of enslaved people, it is still a product of its time and has garnered some criticism for its stereotypical portrayal of runaway slave Jim. 

Everett brings new dimension to the character in James, giving him voice and agency while retaining the spirit of the original book. 

Following his debut novel There There, Tommy Orange returns to explores the treatment of Native Americans in America in his new book Wandering Stars. Starting with the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and leading up to the aftermath of the tragic events in There There, Orange tackles themes of displacement, addiction and hope.

Native American himself, Orange's debut There There masterfully navigated the complexities of urban Native American identity and community. Wandering Stars looks like it will shine a little more light on the brutal history of violence against its own people that still haunts America to this day. 

Beloved yet not uncontroversial author Salman Rushdie is best known for his fiction that blends history with magical realism (his captivating fifteenth novel Victory City was one of our favourite books of 2023), but this year he is offering us less magic and more realism in his third memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.

Rushdie is no stranger to death threats—a fatwā was issued on him after the publication of his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, which was followed by a failed assassination attempt in 1989. His new memoir comes after a more recent murder attempt by 24-year-old Hadi Matar, who attacked the acclaimed author at a lecture in New York in 2022. Rushdie was stabbed multiple times and ultimately lost sight in one eye and the use of one hand, though thankfully kept his life. Now, he reflects on the experience in intimate detail. 

Colm Tóibín won the 2009 Costa Novel Award for his beautiful historical novel Brooklyn, which explores the Irish immigrant experience through the story of Eilis, an Irish woman who moves to New York to find work in the 1950s. 

This year will see the publication of its long-awaited sequel, Long Island, in which a man with an Irish accent knocks on the door of Eilis’s Long Island home and prompts her to turn back to the past and to Ireland. Tóibín’s fans will be delighted to revisit the characters of Brooklyn, who were brought to vivid life in the 2015 adaptation by Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson. 

Booker Prize-shortlisted author Elif Shafak has tackled all manner of topics, from motherhood and violence against women to the persecution of Yazidis and the Armenian genocide. Her new novel, There Are Rivers in the Sky, is a sweeping story that explores how three characters, living on the banks of the River Thames and the River Tigris, are affected by the Epic of Gilgamesh.

An epic poem from Mesopotamia, the Epic of Gilgamesh tells the story of Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, and his quest to find fame and immortality which ultimately ends in acceptance of the inevitability of death. How exactly it will fit into Shafak’s upcoming novel remains to be seen, but it should be an enchanting read!

We’ve had a slew of feminist Greek myth retellings in recent years, but Pat Barker’s are undoubtedly among the most compelling. 

In The Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy, Barker told the story of Brisei, the Trojan princess turned slave, who is handed to Achilles as spoils of his war on Lyrnessus. Through her eyes, and the women she meets in the Greeks’ camp on Troy’s beaches, the drama of The Iliad is rendered in human detail.

When the Greeks’ ships set sail for Troy, that’s usually the end of it, but not for Barker’s adaptation—in her next, the trilogy’s conclusion, we will follow the soothsayer Cassandra and her capture by Mycenaen king Agamemnon. 

Between Cassandra’s well-warranted thirst for revenge and Agamemnon’s ruthless actions in war coming home to roost, there is ample room for fraught emotional drama, complicated alliances and violence. In Barker’s hands, we should see a gripping new angle to Troy’s well-trodden myth.