The Best New Book Releases Out January 30, 2024

When Daniel de La Luna starts his life at an undergraduate student at an elite East Coast school, it’s with a bit of baggage. As a scholarship student — and someone who carries the weight of his late uncle’s name — he’s a bit burdened. But then he meets Sam, his roommate, who changes everything. As their friendship changes into something more, Sam starts to pull away, and Daniel is met with tragedy. A trip back to his family’s ancestral home in México will have him reevaluating things. Hopefully for the better.

Ever wonder if you’re a bad person? Enid has. She also just has a lot going on. She’s obsessed with space, serially dates women on dating apps, is trying to reconnect with the estranged half-sisters she has courtesy of a recently departed absentee father, and listens to her favorite true crime podcasts on repeat…which may or may not have contributed to her fear of bald men. What’s more, she’s just entered into her first serious relationship, and she thinks someone is following her. Enid makes for such an engaging, funny character as she tries to battle her demons.

This ticks off a lot of boxes for me. It’s set in 1921 Chicago, has an investigation, a romance, and a depiction of both wealthy and everyday Black life during this time. It follows Nelly Sawyer, who is suddenly thrust into the role of wealthy debutante when her brother’s death makes her the sole heir to the fortune of “the wealthiest Negro in America.” But she’s not really cut out for the socialite life. Instead, she’s set on continuing her work as an investigative journalist, with her latest story being on a vice lord called “The Mayor of Maxwell Street.” That’s where Alabama-born Jay Shorey comes in. Seeing as he belongs to the same underworld as the Mayor, Nelly recruits him to help expose details of all the corruption un the city. But he — and the budding romance between them — ends up being more than she bargained for.

Interestingly, this is the second book I know of coming out this year that looks at time and how it relates to love, the other being The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang (out in March). Here, neuroscientist Mariana Pineda is grieving the death of her best friend when something inexplicable happens: a man named Carter Cho, who she’s never seen before, stops her and says he knows her. He knows why she’s grieving, who she is, and even what she’s doing now. What’s more, he needs Mariana to remember him, too, before time loops. When it does, Monday morning comes again, and it becomes clear that Mariana and Carter are stuck in a repeating cycle. As they adapt, a wrench is thrown into their new routine — Carter’s memories are starting to deteriorate, and now their only chance to be together is to get out of the loop.

The latest by poet and novelist Michaels is both spectral and ethereal. It opens in 1917 as John, a British soldier, lies barely holding onto life on a battlefield in France. As he lies there, memories play on loop — his coastal childhood, chance pub encounters, and time spent in hot baths with lovers. When he returns home, he’s reunited with his artist wife, Helena, and reopens a photography business. But the past keeps resurfacing, in his own trauma, but in another way as well — he can see faint images of the loved ones of photography subjects. As the narrative continues on — including both fictional and historical figures like the Curies — the thin space between life and death are explored through John and generations of his descendants.

Here, 37 poets weave stories of tradition, heritage, pain, and joy into a vast and complex narrative of the Black experience geared towards YA readers. Hate is transformed to self love, grandmothers tell stories of trickster spiders from the homeland, and aunties make delicious 7Up cakes. In addition to the editors, contributors include everyone from James Baldwin to Kwame Alexander, Ibi Zoboi, Nikki Giovanni, and more.