Tag archieven: American Novel

New American novels

New American novels and stories. What new novels from US writers are coming out soon? Who is the author of the new novel or the stories from the United States? When will the book be released and by which publisher? Who is the author of the novel?

What new American novels are coming out?

This page provides an overview of new American novels and stories that are being released or will soon be available in bookstores. Besides information about the books’ content, you’ll also find information about the author, the publication, and ordering options. Published reviews of the thrillers are also included.

New American novels and stories 2025

The list of new novels in 2025 from American writers is organized by publication date, with the newest books at the top. Links lead to detailed information about the book, ordering options, and often to reviews.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore Terry Dactyl reviewMattilda Bernstein Sycamore – Terry Dactyl

American feminist novel
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Released: November, 11, 2025
Length: 305 pages
Format: paperback / ebook
Prize: € 15,95
Order book from: Amazon
Terry Dactyl has lived many lives. Raised by boisterous lesbian mothers in Seattle, she comes of age as a trans girl in the 1980s in a world of dancing queens and late-night house parties just as the AIDS crisis ravages their world. After moving to New York City, Terry finds a new family among gender-bending club kids bonded by pageantry and drugs, fiercely loyal and unapologetic. She lands a job at a Soho gallery, where, after partying all night, she spends her days bringing club culture to the elite art world…read on >

Eshani Surya Ravishing reviewEshani Surya – Ravishing

Debut novel
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Released: November 11, 2025
Length: 320 pages
Format: hardback / ebook
Prize: $ 28.00
Order book from: Amazon / Bol
A provocative, razor-sharp novel about two Indian American siblings caught in the clutches of a beauty tech company, Ravishing is an incisive portrait of a predatory industry and its dangerous ability to capitalize on our deepest insecurities. Full of heart and vulnerability, Eshani Surya’s dazzling debut shines a light on the dark enticements of wellness culture and the ill-fated pursuit of perfection…read on >

John Irving Queen Esther novel reviewJohn Irving – Queen Esther

American novel
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Released: November 6, 2025
Length: 256 pages
Format: hardcover / ebook / luisterboek
Prize: $ 30.00 / $ 14.99 / $ 16.99
Order book from: Amazon / Bol
Dutch translation: Queen Esther
John Irving’s sixteenth novel is a testament to his enduring ability to weave complex characters and intricate narratives that challenge and captivate. Queen Esther is not just a story of survival but a profound exploration of identity, belonging, and the enduring impact of history on our personal lives showcasing why Irving remains one of the world’s most beloved, provocative, and entertaining authors—a storyteller of our time and for all time…read on >

Brigitte Dale The Good Daughters reviewBrigitte Dale – The Good Daughters

historical novel
Author: Brigitte Dale (United States)
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Released: November 4, 2025
Length: 352 pages
Format: hardcover/ ebook
Prize: $ 27.95 / $ 18.99
Order book from: Amazon / Bol
A moving and vivid story of three suffragettes in London and the battle for equality that tests the strength of their will and the bonds of their friendship. In 1912, three young women from wildly different backgrounds are bound together by their desire to have a say in their future. With the dangerous stakes of the suffrage campaign becoming a fight for the women’s bodies and lives, they enter a treacherous world where the laws and justice system are stacked against them. They face violent protests, hunger strikes, and brutal forced feedings, and the women must decide how much they are willing to risk for their freedom and for each other…read on >

Aja Gabel Lightbreakers reviewAja Gabel – Lightbreakers

American novel
Publisher: Riverhead Books
To be released: November 4, 2025
Length: 332 pages
Format: paperback / ebook
Prize: $ 30.00
Order book from: Amazon / Bol
Maya, an artist, and Noah, a quantum physicist, share an insatiable curiosity about the world. But their happy marriage has a shadow over it: Serena, the child Noah had with his first wife, who died before she turned four. When Noah is invited by the Janus Project to unravel the secrets of time travel, he jumps at the opportunity. At a laboratory deep in the Texas desert, he begins participating in a dangerous experiment that could result in something he thought impossible: seeing his daughter again…read on >

Anika Jade Levy Flat Earth reviewAnika Jade Levy – Flat Earth

American novel, debut novel
Author: Anika Jade Levy (United States)
Publisher: Catapult
Released: November 4, 2025
Length: 224 pages
Format: hardback / ebook
Prize: € 26.00
Order book from: Amazon / Bol
Avery is a grad student in New York working on a collection of cultural reports and flailing financially and emotionally. She dates older men for money, and others for the oblivion their egos offer. In an act of desperation, Avery takes a job at a right-wing dating app. The “white-paper” she is tasked to write for the startup eventually merges with her dissertation, resulting in a metafictional text that reveals itself over the course of the novel…read on >

Salman Rushdie The Eleventh HourSalman Rushdie – The Eleventh Hour

Stories
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Released: 4 November 2025
Do we accommodate ourselves to death, or rail against it? How can we bid farewell to the places that we have made home? How do we achieve fulfilment with our lives if we don’t know the end of our own stories? The Eleventh Hour ponders life and death, legacy and identity with the penetrating insight and boundless imagination that have made Salman Rushdie one of the most celebrated writers of our time…read on >

Gish Jen Bad Bad Girl reviewGish Jen – Bad Bad Girl

autobiographical novel
Publisher: Knopf
Released: 21 October 2025
The award-winning author of The Resisters returns with an engrossing, blisteringly funny-sad autobiographical novel tracing a tumultuous mother-daughter relationship. Spanning continents, generations, and cultures, Bad Bad Girl is a novel only Gish Jen could have written: genre-bending, courageous, wise, and as immensely incisive as it is compassionate…read on >

Ha Jin Looking for Tank Man reviewHa Jin – Looking for Tank Man

novel about Tiananmen Square protests
Publisher: Other Press
Released: 21 October 2025
When the Chinese premier visits Harvard, international student Pei Lulu encounters a lone protester, who will drastically change her understanding of the People’s Republic and her own place in the world. For the first time, Lulu learns of the 1989 protest movement and the government’s violent response. Determined to find out more, she seeks answers from her family, who share surprising stories of their involvement, and from a formative university course based on powerful firsthand accounts…read on >

Thomas McGuane A Wooded Shore reviewThomas McGuane – A Wooded Shore

American stories
Publisher: Knopf
Released: 14 October 2025
Nine shattering, hilarious tales of men on the outskirts of America, habituating the motels, hot dog stands, and dive bars time forgot, grappling with a world that is swiftly changing, and dreaming of a return to the wooded shores of their youth. In these nine peerless stories, a family boating trip veers into emotional disaster while very narrowly avoiding the physical; a would-be cheater hands over his car—his prized possession—for a shot with a pretty girl; a furniture magnate and his filmmaker daughter visit his impoverished hometown…read on >

Brandon Taylor Minor Black Figures reviewBrandon Taylor – Minor Black Figures

American novel
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Released: 14 October 2025
The story of a gay Black painter navigating the worlds of art, desire, and creativity. New York simmers with heat and unrest as Wyeth, a painter, finds himself at an impasse in his own work. After attending a dubious show put on by a collective of careerist artists, he retreats to a bar in the West Village where he meets Keating, a former seminarian. Over the long summer, as the two get to know each another, they talk and argue about God, sex, and art. Meanwhile, at his job working for an art restorer, Wyeth begins to investigate the life and career of a forgotten, minor black artist…read on >

Ron Rindo Life, and Death, and Giants reviewRon Rindo – Life, and Death, and Giants

American novel, Wisconsin novel
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Released: 11 October 2025
In Life, and Death, and Giants, Gabriel’s extraordinary, timeless story is told by those whose lives are transformed by him: the veterinarian who delivers him and becomes his mentor; his grandmother, who is troubled by a deep void in her faith; the salty bar owner who acts as a bridge between the Amish and English communities in Lakota; and the football coach who tries to counsel Gabriel as his fame explodes, with consequences that no one could have anticipated…read on >

Shannon Bowring In a Distant Valley reviewShannon Bowring – In a Distant Valley

Maine novel, winter novel
Publisher: Europa Editions
Released: 8 October 2025
Both a love letter and a window into the rural places that have shaped many, In a Distant Valley sets the stage for a final act to play out across a deep winter in snowy Maine…read on >

Chris Kraus The Four Spent the Day Together reviewChris Kraus – The Four Spent the Day Together

American novel
Publisher: Scribner
Released: 7 October 2025
On the Iron Range of northern Minnesota, at the end of the last decade, three teenagers shot and killed an older acquaintance after spending the day with him. In a cold, depressed town, on the fringes of the so-called “meth community,” the three young people were quickly arrested and imprisoned. At the time of the murder, Catt Greene and her husband, Paul Garcia, are living nearby in a house they’d bought years earlier as a summer escape from Los Angeles,,,read on >

Thomas Pynchon Shadow Ticket reviewThomas Pynchon – Shadow Ticket

Milwaukee novel, crime novel
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Released: 7 October 2025
Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation business shifting from labour-management relations to the more domestic kind. Hicks McTaggart, a onetime strikebreaker turned private eye, thinks he’s found job security until he gets sent out on what should be a routine case, locating and bringing back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune who’s taken a mind to go wandering…read on >

Jerome Charyn Maria La Divina reviewJerome Charyn – Maria La Divina

biographical of opera singer Maria Callas
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Released: 16 September 2025
Maria Callas, called La Divina, is widely recognized as the greatest diva who ever lived. Jerome Charyn’s Callas springs to life as the headstrong, mercurial, and charismatic artist who captivated generations of fans, thrilling audiences with her brilliant performances and defiant personality…read on >

Catherine Dang What Hunger reviewCatherine Dang – What Hunger

American novel
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Released: 12 August 2025
A haunting coming-of-age tale following the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, Ronny Nguyen, as she grapples with the weight of generational trauma while navigating the violent power of teenage girlhood…read on >

Nick Fuller Googins The Frequency of Living Things reviewNick Fuller Googins – The Frequency of Living Things

Family novel
Publisher: Atria Books
Released: 12 August 2025
A heartbreaking American epic about three sisters who unearth lifetimes of family tensions as they are forced to rescue one of their own from peril, testing the limits of sacrifice, sisterhood, and forgiveness…read on >

C. Mallon Dogs reviewC. Mallon – Dogs

Debut novel
Publisher: Scribner
Released: 12 August 2025
A singular, devastating debut novel, Dogs traces the fallout of one catastrophic night in the lives of five high school wrestlers, asking what can survive in the blast radius of latent trauma and violence…read on >

Princess Joy L. Perry This Here Is Love reviewPrincess Joy L. Perry – This Here Is Love

debut novel
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Released: 5 August 2025
A breathtaking, haunting, and epic saga, This Here Is Love intimately intertwines us with these beautifully drawn, unforgettable American characters. Bless, taken to serve the slaveowner’s daughter, must decide where she belongs: with the enslaved or above them…read on >

Victor Suthammanont Hollow Spaces reviewVictor Suthammanont – Hollow Spaces

American novel
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
Released: 5 August 2025
The only Asian American partner at a prestigious law firm sees his professional and personal life demolished when he is put on trial for murder. Three decades later, his children reunite to uncover the truth and try to salvage what remains of their family…read on >

Ivonne Lamazares The Tilting House reviewIvonne Lamazares – The Tilting House

Cuba novel
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
Released: 22 July 2025
Spanning two countries and three decades, The Tilting House explores identity and family loyalty, the effects of losing one’s mother and motherland, the scars of political and historical upheaval, and an immigrant’s complex quest both to return “home” and to be free from the past. Through her long journey, Yuri comes to understand that the past cannot be fully recovered, or fully escaped, even as she approaches the possibility of compassion for Mariela, for Ruth, for others, and for herself…lees verder >

Katie Yee Maggie reviewKatie Yee – Maggie

or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar
debut novel
Publisher: S&S/Summit Books
Released: 22 July 2025
A Chinese American woman spins tragedy into comedy when her life falls apart in a taut, wry debut novel that grapples with grief, motherhood, and myths…read on >

Joyce Maynard How the Light Gets In reviewJoyce Maynard – How the Light Gets In

American novel
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Released: 17 July 2025
How the Light Gets In follows Eleanor and her family through fifteen years (2010 to 2024) as their story plays out against a uniquely American backdrop and the events that transform their world (climate change, the January 6th insurrection, school violence) and shape their lives (later-life love, parental alienation, steadfast)…read on >

Susan Choi Flashlight reviewSusan Choi – Flashlight

American novel
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Released: 10 July 2025
Shortlist Booker Prize 2025
The astonishing story of one family swept up in the tides of the twentieth century, ranging from post-war Japan to suburban America and the North Korean regime…read on >

New American novels in 2026

The list of new novels in 2026 from American writers is organized by publication date, with the newest books at the top. Links lead to detailed information about the book, ordering options, and often to reviews.

Colson Whitehead Cool Machine reviewColson Whitehead – Cool Machine

Harlem trilogy part 3
American novel
Publisher: Doublesher
Released: July 21, 2026
With his usual pitch-perfect prose Whitehead paints a portrait of a city in transition, where shimmering skyscrapers rise to the heavens as displaced people huddle in abandoned tunnels below. In a dazzling display of protean imagination, Cool Machine roves all over the city, from Windows on the World to the Meadowlands, to show that in New York, and in the lives of Whitehead’s vivid characters, it’s what’s below the surface that reveals the truth…read on >

Portia Elan Homebound reviewPortia Elan – Homebound

coming-of-age novel, debut novel
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Released: 7 May 2026
It’s 1983 and Becks can’t wait to get the hell out of Cincinnati. In the meantime, she has work to do: her uncle, the only person who understood her, has left her a half-finished game to complete. What Becks is coding will outlast her by centuries and shape the lives of a scientist, an astronaut and a desperate sea captain in ways she cannot imagine. It will connect these four pioneering women across time, vast oceans and far-distant planets and introduce them to a remarkable robot destined to gather together this disparate crew and bring them home…read on >

Jay McInerney See You on the Other Side reviewJay McInerney – See You on the Other Side

American novel
Publisher: Knopf
Released: April 14, 2026
The celebration of the thirty-fifth wedding anniversary of Russell Calloway’s best friend, Washington Lee—the least likely monogamist of his acquaintance somehow having become over the years a model husband and father—at the Odeon in the Spring of 2020 sparks an at once funny and moving autumnal reckoning with mortality as the specter of the Covid-19 virus spreads…read on >

Jennifer Niven Meet the Newmans reviewJennifer Niven – Meet the Newmans

American Family Novel
Publisher: Pan macmillan
Released: January 15, 2026
Los Angeles, 1964. For two decades, Del and Dinah Newman and their sons, Guy and Shep, have ruled television as America’s Favourite Family. Millions of viewers tune in every week to watch them play flawless, black-and-white versions of themselves. But now the Sixties are in full swing, and the Newmans’ perfection suddenly feels woefully out of touch. Ratings are in free fall, as are the Newmans themselves…read on >

Sara Levine The Hitch reviewSara Levine – The Hitch

American novel, comic novel
Publisher: Roxanne Gay Books
Released: 13 January 2026
Rose Cutler defines herself by her exacting standards. As an anti-racist, Jewish secular feminist eco-warrior, she is convinced she knows the right way to do everything, including parent her six-year-old nephew Nathan. When Rose offers to look after him while his parents visit Mexico for a week, her brother and sister-in-law reluctantly agree, provided she understands the rules—routine, bedtime, homework—and doesn’t overstep. But when Rose’s Newfoundland attacks and kills a corgi at the park, Nathan starts acting strangely…read on >

Related books and information

Afbeelding bovenzijde: The Last Bookstore, South Spring Street, Los Angeles (I. Shalyminov, Unsplash)

Eshani Surya – Ravishing

Eshani Surya Ravishing review and information of the content of the debut novel by the Indian American writer. Grove Atlantic will publish the first Eshani Surya novel, on November 11, 2025. 

Eshani Surya Ravishing review

  • “Ravishing is a marvel of a debut that hums with the ache of becoming—a place where even the mirror is a battleground and every shimmer of beauty carries the weight of longing: for love, for a face we can call our own, and for a world less cruel. Surya expertly reminds us that even though the body remembers grief and abandonment, there can also be a chance to bloom.” (Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author)
  • “This debut is thoughtful in its handling of tricky themes of identity, belonging, and, perhaps most compellingly, the intersection of wellness culture and chronic illness. Surya handles this latter with unflinching—even discomfiting—clarity. A speculative take on the all-too-real rot at the heart of the beauty and wellness industry.” (Kirkus Reviews)
  • “How far will you go to keep running from yourself? Eshani Surya’s Ravishing takes this question to new heights, conjuring a dazzling dystopia even as it points a hard finger at our present. You will never look in the mirror the same way again.” (Mira Jacob, author)

Eshani Surya Ravishing

Ravising

  • Author: Eshani Surya (United States)
  • Book type: debut novel
  • Publisher: Grove Atlantic
  • Released: 11 November 2025
  • Length: 320 pages
  • Format: hardback / ebook
  • Prize: $ 28.00
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the debut novel by Eshani Surya

A provocative, razor-sharp novel about two Indian American siblings caught in the clutches of a beauty tech company, Ravishing is an incisive portrait of a predatory industry and its dangerous ability to capitalize on our deepest insecurities. Full of heart and vulnerability, Eshani Surya’s dazzling debut shines a light on the dark enticements of wellness culture and the ill-fated pursuit of perfection.

For teenage Kashmira, it’s painful to look in the mirror; she has her father’s face, and every feature is a reminder of his abandonment. When a friend introduces her to Evolvoir, a beauty product that changes users’ features, Kashmira is quickly seduced by its ability to erase the triggers of her grief. Meanwhile, at Evolvoir corporate, Kashmira’s estranged brother Nikhil sees the product as an opportunity to make a difference, but is quickly mired in complicity as reports surface of severe side effects in some users. As Kashmira becomes more dependent on the escape the product offers, she is hospitalized with inexplicable symptoms and must negotiate the constraints of her new reality, while Nikhil uncovers a vicious truth that forces him to decide where his loyalties lie.

Deftly excavating the repercussions of living in white spaces, and fearlessly examining the realities of what it means to live with chronic illness,

Eshani Surya is a chronically ill South Asian writer living in Philadelphia. She holds an MFA from the University of Arizona, and is a 2022 Asian Women Writer’s Workshop mentee, a 2022 Kenyon Review Writer’s Workshop scholarship recipient, and a 2021 Mae Fellowship recipient. Ravishing is her first book.

Matching books

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore – Terry Dactyl

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore Terry Dactyl review and information of the content of the new novel by the American author and activist. Coffee House Press will publish the new Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore novel, on November 11, 2025. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore Terry Dactyl review

  • “By turns perceptive, touching, and occasionally funny, [Terry Dactyl] is a deep dive into what it means to live authentically as a queer progressive.” (Eleanor Bader, The Indypendent)
  • “Terry Dactyl made me cry and made me laugh out loud. It has all the pain and joy, struggle and delight of the lives of those who color outside the lines. It’s a book about family and friendship and love and knowing when and how to change your life.” (McKenzie Wark, author of Love and Money, Sex and Death)
  • “Full of glitter and grit … Sycamore’s prose is fluid and funny, tender and propulsive, as she brings us along on Terry’s journey of love, loss, and finding herself.” (Rebecca Hopman, Booklist)

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore Terry Dactyl

Terry Dactyl

  • Author: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (United States)
  • Book type: American novel, feminist novel
  • Publisher: Coffee House Press
  • Released: November 11, 2025
  • Length: 305 pages
  • Format: paperback / ebook
  • Prize: € 15,95
  • Order book from: Amazon

Blurb of the new book by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

From iconic author and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore comes a breathless search for intimacy and connection, ranging from club culture to the art world, from the AIDS crisis to COVID-19.

Terry Dactyl has lived many lives. Raised by boisterous lesbian mothers in Seattle, she comes of age as a trans girl in the 1980s in a world of dancing queens and late-night house parties just as the AIDS crisis ravages their world. After moving to New York City, Terry finds a new family among gender-bending club kids bonded by pageantry and drugs, fiercely loyal and unapologetic. She lands a job at a Soho gallery, where, after partying all night, she spends her days bringing club culture to the elite art world.

Twenty years later, in a panic during the COVID-19 lockdown, Terry returns to a Seattle stifled by gentrification and pandemic isolation until resistance erupts following the murder of George Floyd, and her search for community ignites once again.

In propulsive, intoxicating prose, Terry Dactyl traces an extraordinary journey from adolescence to adulthood, delivering a vital portrait of queer identity in all its peril and possibility.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is born May 31, 1973 in Washington, D.C. She is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of seven books, and the editor of six anthologies. Her most recent title, Touching the Art, was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award and a Pacific Northwest Book Award. Her previous title, The Freezer Door, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Her new novel is Terry Dactyl.

Matching books

Anika Jade Levy – Flat Earth

Anika Jade Levy Flat Earth review and information of the content of the first novel by the American author. Catapult will publish the new Anika Jade Levy novel, on November 4, 2025. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.

Anika Jade Levy Flat Earth review

  • “Anika Jade Levy’s Flat Earth exudes ennui and sadness, each chapter prefaced by a mordant precis of bizarre fads and news stories to set against its heroine’s apathy and dysfunction . . . There is a glum kind of humour woven into the despair, and the hopelessness is rendered strangely hypnotic in crisp, pitiless prose.” (Suzi Feay, Financial Times)
  • “Reading Flat Earth feels like opening your best friend’s diary and finding out what she really thinks about you, and then falling even more in love with her—realizing that love is something darker and more consuming than you’d let yourself believe. Flat Earth is fierce, hungry, hurting, on fire. The prose in this book makes other books feel like dull knives. This is a book about friendship and imperfect care—about the ways we love not despite but through our brokenness, because it’s what we have. I read this book in a night, breathless and enraptured—wanting to save everyone in it, and wanting to watch them burn forever.” (Leslie Jamison, author)
  • “In a city that eternally produces young, hot, smart, special girls with curatorial-level taste and then discards them when they’ve aged out of the proverbial pleated skirt, even the most delusional woman’s sense of uniqueness and superiority can begin to falter. Unless they manage to produce something aesthetically or culturally relevant that garners attention, fame, and money, these girls fear they may be on the chopping block next—if not today, whenever their amphetamine and Wellbutrin prescriptions run dry.” (Jen George)
  • “Brilliant … In Avery’s narrative voice, Levy has achieved a fantastic yet paradoxical triumph: It’s a voice that manages to carry intimations as acerbic as they are full of longing, as strident as they are vulnerable, and as tart as they are unguarded . . . With her own hyperarticulate, stimulant-driven style, Avery (and Levy behind her) runs into her own life, helter-skelter, as if it were a door she’d forgotten to open. You’ll want to keep reading just to see what she says next. Levy’s utterly original sendup of contemporary life seems destined to become a cult classic.” (Kirkus Reviews)

Anika Jade Levy Flat Earth

Flat Earth

  • Author: Anika Jade Levy (United States)
  • Book type: American novel
  • Publisher: Catapult
  • Released: November 4, 2025
  • Length: 224 pages
  • Format: hardback / ebook
  • Prize: € 26.00
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the Anika Jade Levy novel

A young woman struggles with the artistic success of her more privileged, beautiful best friend in this ruthless portrait of the New York art scene in which relationships are transactional, men are vampiric, and women have limited time to trade on their youth, beauty, and talent—it’s Renata Adler’s Speedboat for the Adderall generation.

Avery is a grad student in New York working on a collection of cultural reports and flailing financially and emotionally. She dates older men for money, and others for the oblivion their egos offer. In an act of desperation, Avery takes a job at a right-wing dating app. The “white-paper” she is tasked to write for the startup eventually merges with her dissertation, resulting in a metafictional text that reveals itself over the course of the novel.

Meanwhile, her best friend, Frances, an effortlessly chic emerging filmmaker from a wealthy Southern family, drops out of grad school, gets married, and somehow still manages to finish her first feature documentary. Frances’s triumphant return to New York as the toast of the art world sends Avery into a final tailspin, pushing her to make a series of devastating decisions.

In this generational portrait, attention spans are at an all-time low and dopamine tolerance is at an all-time high. Flat Earth is a story of coming of age in America, a novel about commodification, conspiracy theories, mimetic desire, and the difficulties of female friendship that’s as sharp and sardonic as it is heartbreaking.

Anika Jade Levy is a writer from Colorado. She is a founding editor of Forever Magazine and teaches in the Writing program at Pratt Institute. Her fiction and criticism has appeared in Interview, Magazine, Nylon, Flaunt, Grand, and elsewhere. Flat Earth is her first book.

Matching books

Aja Gabel – Lightbreakers

Aja Gabel Lightbreakers review en information about the new novel by the American author. Riverhead Books will publish the second Aja Gabel novel, on November 4, 2025. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.

Aja Gabel Lightbreakers reviews

  • “Compassionate and prismatic, an intellectual adventure as well as a deeply human meditation on memory, family, and reinvention. Aja Gabel’s second novel is my favorite kind: soulful science fiction that speaks to the mind as well as the heart.” (Chloe Benjamin, author of The Immortalists)
  • “Exists in a category all its own: a novel about grief, ambition, and love that is somehow both gripping and deeply felt, as breath-taking as it is mind-bending. Aja Gabel’s prose is like music, vivid with wisdom, curiosity, and emotion.” (Rachel Khong, author of Real Americans)
  • “Gabel beautifully explores the ways the past echoes endlessly in the present and into the future—and the unimaginable lure of being with the ones we love no matter the cost. A poignant and sharp novel about love, loss, and finding light in the darkness.” (Kirkus Reviews)

Aja Gabel Lightbreakers

Lightbreakers

  • Author: Aja Gabel (United States)
  • Book type: American novel
  • Publisher: Riverhead Books
  • To be released: November 4, 2025
  • Length: 332 pages
  • Format: paperback / ebook
  • Prize: $ 30.00
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the new Aha Gabel Novel

What would you give to relive the past?

Maya, an artist, and Noah, a quantum physicist, share an insatiable curiosity about the world. But their happy marriage has a shadow over it: Serena, the child Noah had with his first wife, who died before she turned four.

When Noah is invited by the Janus Project to unravel the secrets of time travel, he jumps at the opportunity. At a laboratory deep in the Texas desert, he begins participating in a dangerous experiment that could result in something he thought impossible: seeing his daughter again.

Meanwhile, Maya embarks on a journey back to her own past in Japan, and to a formative lover who once shattered her heart. As Noah and Maya grapple with hope and despair, new information emerges that the experiments might not be exactly what they seems.

A heartachingly moving novel, Lightbreakers plumbs the mysteries of human connection, and explores how to love in a world where time is both a healer and a thief.

Aja Gabel is the author of the novel The Ensemble. Her prose can be found in The Cut, the Los Angeles TimesOprah Daily, and elsewhere. She studied writing at Wesleyan University and the University of Virginia, and has a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. Aja has been the recipient of awards from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her short story “Little Fish” was adapted into a feature film, and she has written extensively for television. She lives and writes in Los Angeles.

Matching books

Davey Davis – Casanova 20 or, Hot World

Davey Davis Casanova 20 or, Hot World review and information of the content of the new novel by the American author. Catapult will publish the new Davey Davis novel, on December 2, 2025. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.

Davey Davis Casanova 20 or, Hot World reviews

  • “A story that digs unflinchingly into the intimacy of both sex and illness … Davis’s characters are so haunted by the past that it often becomes syntactically interwoven with the present … Casanova 20 achieves this interjectory effect, punching through the well-charted terrains of sex, death, art, pleasure, and beauty with hedonistically lived-in details and incisive observations that rub the reader right up against the skin and the bedpan.” (Annie Lou Martin, The Whitney Review)
  • “The novel’s conceit is big, its prose attention-grabbing, its sexual joie de vivre propulsive, but, in the end, the most compelling part is the tender nuance of its central characters as they love both each other and the world. The result is a rare gem of a book—afraid of neither joy nor sorrow and patient enough to find the human heart inside all its gorgeous language. A show-stopping novel that carries within it a quiet, steadfast heart.” (Kirkus Review)

Davey Davis Casanova 20 or, Hor World

Casanova 20

or, Hot World

  • Author: Davey Davis (United States)
  • Book type: American novel
  • Publisher: Catapult
  • Released: December 2, 2025
  • Length: 304 pages
  • Format: paperback / ebook
  • Prize: $ 17.95 / $ 12,99
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the new Davey Davis novel

A novel about art, desire, and mortality, Casanova 20: Or, Hot World follows a young man isolated by his extraordinary beauty and his strange friendship with an older painter.

Cursed by an extreme and unrelenting beauty, Adrian has drawn the frenzied attention of adoring strangers since childhood. As a twenty-nine-year-old in New York City, he spends his days drifting between affairs with women (and occasionally men) who provide him with everything he needs, from spending money to luxurious vacations to even, once, a mini yacht. With this generosity comes a dangerous possessiveness that often puts him at risk of much worse than heartbreak. But as people begin removing their masks in the spring of 2021, Adrian’s aimless sexual availability is interrupted by a shocking discovery: He is no longer beautiful.

Across the country, Adrian’s best friend and companion, Mark, a world-famous painter, has returned to the family home in rural Northern California. He’s faced with his own horrible revelation: He’s dying from the same mysterious disease that will soon take his mother and sister.

Despite the depth of their platonic romance, neither man reveals his fate to the other. Feeling as if he’s disappearing from sight, Adrian searches for answers among his thousands of lovers. In a race against his failing body, Mark becomes obsessed with watching fifty-two VHS tapes of unknown origin, left to him by his sister, before it’s too late.

Davey Davis is the author of X and the earthquake room. They write a weekly newsletter and mutual aid fundraiser about art, culture, sexuality, and people named David at itsdavid.substack.com. They live in Brooklyn.

Matching books

American female writers best novels

American female writers best novels. What are the best novels written by female authors from the United States? When was the novel published and what is its content? Which women’s novels from the United States are considered the best?

American female writers best novels

Of course, you can debate at length what the best American novels by female authors are. In fact, every reader will have their own personal preferences. So a top-so list of the best novels by American female authors isn’t entirely useful.

What are the best novels written by female authors from America?

Our editors have chosen to compile an alphabetical overview of American women’s novels that many consider more than worth reading. We will also be adding new, excellent novels by American authors.

Jane Bowles Two Serious Ladies 1943 novel first editionJane Bowles – Two Serious Ladies

1943 novel
Editorial rating: ∗∗∗∗
(excellent)
Miss Goering, an eccentric, impulsive New York heiress, resides in her house and tries not to be unhappy. Mrs Copperfield, an anxious, dutiful married woman, has a great fear of drowning, of lifts, of intruders in the night. Two serious ladies, nothing is natural for them and anything is possible.

Willa Cather The Song of the Lark review en recensieWilla Cather – The Song of the Lark

1915 novel
Editorial rating: ∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
Thea Kronberg, a young girl from a small town in Colorado has a great gift – her beautiful singing voice. Her talent takes her to the great opera houses of Europe, and through ambition and hard work, she forges a life as an artist. But if she can never go home again, nor can she leave behind her past.

Save Me the Waltz Zelda Fitzgerald 1932 novel first editionZelda Fitzgerald – Save Me the Waltz

1932 novel
Editorial Rating∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
One of the great literary curios of the twentieth century Save Me the Waltz is the first and only novel by the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. During the years when Fitzgerald was working on Tender is the Night, Zelda Fitzgerald was preparing her own story, which strangely parallels the narrative of her husband, throwing a fascinating light on Scott Fitzgerald’s life and work.

Hannah Green I Never Promised You a Rose Garden novel 1964 first editionJoanne Greenberg – I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

1984 novel, published as Hannah Green
Editorial Rating∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
Sixteen-year-old Deborah’s identity is shattering, as she retreats further and further from the ‘normal’ world into her imaginary kingdom of Yr, a fantastical inner refuge both lush and horrifying. Sent to a psychiatric hospital, she must, with the help of a gifted psychiatrist, try to find a way back.

Annie John Jamaica Kincaid novel from 1985 first editionJamaica Kincaid – Annie John

1985 coming of age novel uit 1985 about Antigua
Editorial Rating∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
An adored only child growing up in Antigua, Annie has until recently lived a peaceful and content life. She is inseparable from her beautiful mother, a powerful and influential presence, who sits at the very centre of the little girl’s existence. Loved and cherished, Annie grows and thrives within her mother’s shadow. When she turns twelve, however, Annie’s life changes, in ways that are often mysterious to her.

Elaine Kraf I Am Clarence reviewElaine Kraf – I Am Clarence

1969 novel
Editorial Rating∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
For Clarence’s mother, life revolves around her young son; she takes him to see specialists to find the cause of his blindness and developmental delays, protects him from the cruelty of other children, and loves him tenderly. But she has her own struggles too. Her sanity is precarious and fractured, making caregiving increasingly difficult.

Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird Amerikaanse roman uit 1960Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird

1960 novel
Editorial Rating∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
Summers for Scout in the Deep South are long and golden. Her story is one of innocence, and growing up. It is also about justice. When Scout’s father Atticus Finch, a lawyer, agrees to defend a black man against an accusation by a white girl, he takes on the prejudice of the whole town.

Bernice L. McFadden Sugar review en recensieBernice L. McFadden –  Sugar

2000 novel
Editorial Rating∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
When she arrives in the southern town of Bigelow, it isn’t long before the neighbourhood is alight with gossip and suspicion. Sugar fears her past is catching up with her. Then she meets Pearl, a woman trying to forget her own trauma. As these next-door neighbours become unlikely friends, they wonder if their lives could finally be changing for the better. But small towns have long memories.

Toni Morrison – Beloved

1987 novel about slavery
Editorial Rating∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
Sethe is now miles away from Sweet Home – the farm where she was kept as a slave for many years. Unable to forget the unspeakable horrors that took place there, Sethe is haunted by the violent spectre of her dead child, the daughter who died nameless and whose tombstone is etched with a single word, Beloved.

Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged roman uit 1957Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged

1957 novel
Editorial Rating: ∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
Opening with the enigmatic question ‘Who is John Galt?’, Atlas Shrugged envisions a world where the ‘men of talent’ – the great innovators, producers and creators – have mysteriously disappeared. With the US economy now faltering, businesswoman Dagny Taggart is struggling to get the transcontinental railroad up and running. For her John Galt is the enemy, but as she will learn, nothing in this situation is quite as it seems.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 novel first editionBetty Smith – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

1943 Brooklyn novel
Editorial Rating: ∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
The Nolan family are first-generation immigrants to the United States. Originating in Ireland and Austria, their life in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn is poor and deprived, but their sacrifices make it possible for their children to grow up in a land of boundless opportunity. Francie Nolan is the eldest daughter of the family. Alert, imaginative and resourceful, her journey through the first years of a century of profound change is difficult – and transformative…read on >

The Mountain Lion Jean Stafford Novel from 1947 first editionJean Stafford – The Mountain Lion

1947 coming of age novel
Editorial Rating: ∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
Ralph and Molly are inseparable siblings: united against the stupidity of daily routines, their prim mother and prissy older sisters, the world of adult authority. One summer, they are sent from their childhood home in suburban Los Angeles to their uncle’s Colorado mountain ranch, where they write, hunt, roam. But this untamed wilderness soon becomes tainted by dark stirrings of sexual desire.

The Making of Americans Gertrude Stein novel from 1925 first editionGertrude Stein – The Making of Americans

1925 novel
Editorial Rating: ∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
Gertrude Stein sets out to tell “a history of a family’s progress,” radically reworking the traditional family saga novel to encompass her vision of personality and psychological relationships. As the history progresses over three generations, Stein also meditates on her own writing, on the making of The Making of Americans, and on America.

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocense novel from 1920 first editionEdith Wharton – The Age of Innocence

1920 novel
Editorial Rating: ∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
The return of the beautiful Countess Olenska into the rigidly conventional society of New York sends reverberations throughout the upper reaches of society. Newland Archer, an eligible young man of the establishment is about to announce his engagement to May Welland, a pretty ingénue, when May’s cousin, Countess Olenska, is introduced into their circle. The Countess brings with her an aura of European sophistication and a hint of scandal, having left her husband and claimed her independence.

Edith Wharton The Glimpes of the Moon first edition from 1922Edith Wharton – The Glimpses of the Moon

1922 novel
Editorial Rating: ∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
Nick Lansing and Susy Branch are young and attractive, but penniless. Gracefully moving through New York high society, they have the right connections but none of the wealth. When they inconveniently fall in love, Susy devises a plan. They will marry and spend a year flitting across Europe, staying in the homes of their rich friends and living off honeymoon gifts until either one of them meets a better, richer prospect.

Marguerite Young Miss MacIntosh, My Darling review en recensieMarguerite Young – Miss MacIntosh, My Darling

1968 novel
Editorial Rating: ∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
This novel is one of the most ambitious and remarkable literary achievements of our time. It is a picaresque, psychological novel—a novel of the road, a journey or voyage of the human spirit in its search for reality in a world of illusion and nightmare. It is an epic of what might be called the Arabian Nights of American life. Marguerite Young’s method is poetic, imagistic, incantatory; in prose of extraordinary richness she tests the nature of her characters—and the nature of reality.

Matching books

Afbeelding bovenzijde: Zelda Fitzgerald in 1922 (Public domain)

Betty Smith – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Betty Smith A Tree Grows in Brooklyn review and information about the 1943 American novel. In 1943, American author Betty Smith’s novel was published. Here you can read information about the novel’s content, reception, reviews and author.

Betty Smith A Tree Grows in Brooklyn reviews

  • “A profoundly moving novel, and an honest and true one. It cuts right to the heart of life … If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn you will deny yourself a rich experience… It is a poignant and deeply understanding story of childhood and family relationships.” (New York Times)
  • “One of the books of the century.” (New York Public Library)

Betty Smith A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

  • Author: Betty Smith (United States)
  • Book type: 1943 American novel
  • Publisher: Vintage Classics
  • Length: 272 pages
  • Format: paperback / ebook
  • Prize: £ 9.99
  • Editorial Rating∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the 1943 novel by Betty Smith

Betty Smith’s debut novel is universally regarded as a modern classic. The sprawling tale of an immigrant family in early 20th-century Brooklyn, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is one of the great distinctively American novels.

The Nolan family are first-generation immigrants to the United States. Originating in Ireland and Austria, their life in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn is poor and deprived, but their sacrifices make it possible for their children to grow up in a land of boundless opportunity.

Francie Nolan is the eldest daughter of the family. Alert, imaginative and resourceful, her journey through the first years of a century of profound change is difficult – and transformative. But amid the poverty and suffering among the poor of Brooklyn, there is hope, and the prospect of a brighter future.

Betty Smith was born December 15, 1896 in Brooklyn. New York A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 novel first editionCity as  Elisabeth Lillian Wehner. She published four novels: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943), Tomorrow Will Be Better (1947), Maggie-Now (1958) and, Joy in the Morning (1963). She also wrote two plays: Jonica Stars (1930) and Becomes A Woman, originally titled Francie Nolan (1931). She died in died of pneumonia in Shelton, Connecticut on January 17, 1972 in Shelton, Connecticut, at the age of 75.

Matching books

Zelda Fitzgerald – Save Me the Waltz

Zelda Fitzgerald Save Me the Waltz review and information about the 1932 American novel. In 1932, American author Zelda Fitzgerald’s only novel was published. Here you can read information about the novel’s content, reception, reviews and author.

Zelda Fitzgerald Save Me the Waltz reviews

  • “The only published novel of a brave and talented woman who is remembered for het defeats.” (Matthew Bruccoli)
  • “A strangely evocative novel, episodic in structure, painterly in its description, almost hallucinatory in overall effect.” (The New York Times)

Zelda Fitzgerald Save Me the Waltz

Save Me the Waltz

  • Author: Zelda Fitzgerald (United States)
  • Book type: 1932 American novel
  • Publisher: Vintage Classics
  • Length: 272 pages
  • Format: paperback / ebook
  • Prize: £ 9.99
  • Editorial Rating∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the 1932 novel by Zelda Fitzgerald

“We couldn’t go on indefinitely being swept off our feet.”

One of the great literary curios of the twentieth century Save Me the Waltz is the first and only novel by the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. During the years when Fitzgerald was working on Tender is the Night, Zelda Fitzgerald was preparing her own story, which strangely parallels the narrative of her husband, throwing a fascinating light on Scott Fitzgerald’s life and work.

In its own right, it is a vivid and moving story: the confessional of a famous glamour girl of the affluent 1920s and an aspiring ballerina which captures the spirit of an era.

Zelda Fitzgerald was born July 24, 1900,  in Montgomery, Alabama, Save Me the Waltz Zelda Fitzgerald 1932 novel first editionin the United States was an American writer and artist, best known for personifying the carefree ideals of the 1920s flapper and for her tumultuous marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Save Me the Waltz was the only novel she wrote and was published during her lifetime. She died March 10, 1948, at the age of 47 in the Highlight Mental Hospital Asheville, North Carolina during a fire.

Matching books

Jane Bowles – Two Serious Ladies

Jane Bowles Two Serious Ladies review and information about the 1943 American novel. In 1943, American author Jane Bowles’ only novel was published. Here you can read information about the novel’s content, reception, reviews and author.

Jane Bowles Two Serious Ladies reviews

  • “My favourite book. I can”t think of a modern novel that seems more likely to become a classic.” (Tennessee Williams)
  • “Jane Bowles”s literary output, small but perfect, puts her on a stylistic planet all her own.” (The New Yorker)
  • “The book I give as a gift. It feels like giving someone an exotic fruit.” (Sheila Heti)
  • “A modernist cult classic.” (Guardian)

Jane Bowles Two Serious Ladies

Two Serious Ladies

  • Author: Jane Bowles (United States)
  • Book type: American novel from 1943
  • Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson Essentials
  • Length: 272 pages
  • Format: paperback / ebook
  • Prize: £ 9.99
  • Editorial Rating: ∗∗∗∗ (excellent)
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the 1943 novel by Jane Bowles

Miss Goering, an eccentric, impulsive New York heiress, resides in her house and tries not to be unhappy.

Mrs Copperfield, an anxious, dutiful married woman, has a great fear of drowning, of lifts, of intruders in the night.

Two serious ladies, nothing is natural for them and anything is possible.

For Mrs Copperfield – a trip to Panama, where she abandons her husband for love of a local prostitute. For Miss Goering – a move to a squalid little house on an island and a series of sordid encounters with strangers. Both go to pieces -and both realise this is something they’ve wanted to do for years.

Jane Bowles was born as born Jane Sydney Auer, February 22, 1917 Jane Bowles Two Serious Ladies 1943 novel first editionin New York City. She has long had an underground reputation as one of the truly original writers of this century. She lived in Tangier, Morocco, with her husband, writer Paul Bowles, from 1952 until her death on May 4, 1973 in a clinic in Málaga, Spain at the age of 56. She was primarily a playwright and Two Serious Ladies was her only novel.

Matching books