The 10 Most Exciting Fiction Books Coming Out in May

A seemingly random event propels the story of The Second Coming: a young girl drops her phone on the subway tracks. Her estranged father gets a call and returns to New York, fearing she is in danger. “At its core, this is a tale of the love that makes a family and how it does so," said Booklist in its starred review. Inventive and heartfelt, this novel begs the question of whether the people we love can truly change.

Writer, director, and actor Miranda July returns with All Fours, a novel of midlife anxiety. A semi-famous artist abandons her husband and child to check into a seedy motel off the highway, where she pursues a much younger man and his girlfriend. Turning the midlife crisis trope on its head, July's sexy, surprising novel delights at every turn.

"The sweeping tale of a family – the Cassars – whose life takes them from second world war Paris to the US, Cuba, Australia and beyond over the decades that follow. It’s almost unbearably moving, wise and full of the most gorgeous prose," praised the Guardian, naming This Strange Eventful History as one of the top books to look out for in 2024.

An artist, struggling to survive as an essential worker during the pandemic, unexpectedly quarantines with his now-wealthy ex-girlfriend, the man she left him for, an eccentric gallery owner, and his girlfriend. This gripping novel moves through time as Jay revisits his past lives. "Kunzru’s portrait of the pandemic is tipped to be the most gripping COVID-noir novel yet." —The Conversation

Using real letters and documents from Dr. Silas Weir, the father of Gyno-Psychiatry, National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Oates masterfully weaves the story of a woman's asylum and the doctor who experimented upon the women inside. Oates spares no one in this story of the horror and human cost of medical progress.

Long Island follows the complex heroine of Tóibín’s novel, Brooklyn, from 20 years earlier. Unfulfilled in her marriage and longing for her native Ireland, Eilis Lacey's life is turned upside down when a man shows up at her doorstop saying that his wife is pregnant with her husband's child. Eilis is left examining her life's choices and the paths she didn't take in this elegiac novel.

Don't dare a master of horror for more. In twelve new terrifying stories, including a sequel to 1981's Cujo, Stephen King proves once again that no one can delve into the dark side of humanity like he does.

Harper's Bazaar calls this hotly-anticipated part spy, part romance novel a "multi-faceted joyride." The Ministry of Time follows a group of expat time travelers – a captain from a doomed Arctic exploration, a WWI soldier, a plague victim – and their 21st-century "bridges," tasked with guiding them through modern world. Sharp, sexy, and surprising, it's no wonder that A24 snapped up the TV rights on sight.

In this highly anticipated follow-up to 2018's The Incendiaries, Exhibit follows three Korean women, including a photographer and injured ballerina, as they pursue sex, desire, and pleasure in a culture that is steeped in shame. On the inspiration for the cover, the novel's art director told Lit Hub, “R.O. Kwon’s writing is incredibly vivid and haunting in the best way, and the novel is so very visceral."

"My First Book manages to somehow be based, redpilled, woke, cringe, and, above all else, brilliant all at the same time," says New York magazine features writer Brock Coylar. In her debut collection, at once surreal and tender, Honor Levy examines growing up online as society burns around you.