2017 Sep 29
So far, 2017 has brought us a wide range of new novels in every genre. However, some of the most anticipated novels of this year will be released in the latter part of the year from September to December. As such, we have compiled a list of the most awaited releases below.
1. Sing, Unburied, Sing – Jesmyn Ward
Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm in Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high; Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man. When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.
Ward is an award-winning novelist, who won a National Book Award for Salvage the Bones, written in 2011. Set in the rural South, this is a story of the past and the present in an epic tale of hope and struggle. The novel has already received much critical acclaim in her poetic saga about race and the American family life.
Release date: September 5
2. Origin – Dan Brown
Robert Langdon arrives at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend the unveiling of a discovery that “will change the face of science forever.” The evening’s host Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old billionaire is about to reveal an astonishing breakthrough . . . one that will answer two of the fundamental questions of human existence. The evening suddenly erupts into chaos, and Kirsch’s precious discovery teeters on the brink of being lost forever. Langdon is forced into a desperate bid to escape with Ambra Vidal, the elegant museum director. Together they flee to Barcelona on a perilous quest to locate a cryptic password that will unlock Kirsch’s secret. They must evade a tormented enemy whose all-knowing power seems to emanate from Spain’s Royal Palace itself . . . and who will stop at nothing to silence them.
Dan Brown is one of the world’s most celebrated and controversial authors of the 21st century. His books are always filled with suspense, cryptic puzzles, adrenaline charged chases through foreign countries, and a powerful secret which sparks attention and controversy. Origin seems highly promising and is a highly anticipated novel.
Release date: October 3
3. Bluebird, Bluebird – Attica Locke
When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules–a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home. When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders have stirred up a hornet’s nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes–and save himself in the process–before Lark’s long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.
Written by a writer and producer of the award-winning TV show Empire, this novel is a powerful thriller which delves into the connection between love, race, and justice. This timely story will be released at a time where racial prejudice in America is becoming an increasingly sensitive subject and social issue. As such, it will be highly interesting to observe the impact of this story on its target audience and the fresh perspective it may bring.
Release date: September 12
4. Gnomon – Nick Harkaway
Gnomon features: a detective who finds herself investigating the very society she believes in, urged on by a suspect who may be an assassin or an ally, hunting through the dreams of a torture victim in search of the key to something she does not yet understand; a banker who is pursued by a shark that swallows Fortune 500 companies; Saint Augustine’s jilted mistress who reshapes the world with miracles; a refugee grandfather turned games designer who must remember how to walk through walls or be burned alive by fascists; and a sociopath who falls backwards through time in order to commit a murder.
A novel which took more than three years to complete, the anticipation for Gnomon is certainly high! The book was pitched as “a mind-bending Borgesian puzzle box of identity, meaning and reality in which the solution steps sideways as you approach it”. The storyline is expected to consist of layers within layers of artfully constructed mystery.
Release date: October 19
5. The White Book – Han Kang
Written while on a writer’s residency in Warsaw, the narrator finds herself haunted by the story of her older sister, who died a mere two hours after birth. A fragmented exploration of white things – the swaddling bands that were also her shroud, the breast milk she did not live to drink, the blank page on which the narrator herself attempts to reconstruct the story – unfold in a powerfully poetic distillation. As she walks the unfamiliar, snow-streaked streets, lined by buildings formerly obliterated in the Second World War, their identities blur and overlap as the narrator wonders, ‘Can I give this life to you?’
The celebrated and prize-winning author of ‘The Vegetarian’, Han Kang, is back with another explosive novel. ‘The White Book’ has been described as “a meditation on a colour, on the tenacity and fragility of the human spirit, and our attempts to graft new life from the ashes of destruction”. This mixture of autobiographical and fictional work is a departure from Kang’s usual storytelling methods, and will definitely be an interesting read.
Release date: November 2
6. Heather, the Totality – Matthew Weiner
The Breakstone family arrange themselves around their daughter Heather, and the world seems to follow: beautiful, compassionate, entrancing, she is the greatest blessing in their lives of Manhattan luxury. But as Heather grows-and her empathy sharpens to a point, and her radiance attracts more and more dark interest-their perfect existence starts to fracture. Meanwhile a very different life, one raised in poverty and in violence, is beginning its own malign orbit around Heather.
From the creator of the popular television show Mad Men, comes an extraordinary first novel about the human qualities that tether society together and break it apart. The novel has been described as dark, disturbing, and surprisingly short. Thus, leading to an intense curiosity for readers across the world to get their hands on a copy!
Release date: November 1
7. The Vanishing Season – Joanna Schaffhausen
Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She’s an officer in sleepy Woodbury, MA, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number seventeen in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only victim who lived. When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around the day she was kidnapped so long ago, Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next. She contacts the one man she knows will believe her: the FBI agent who saved her from a killer’s closet all those years ago.
Well-renowned crime and mystery writer Joanna Schaffhausen has penned a predictable bestseller, with a thrilling storyline from the beginning till the end. The Vanishing Season is indeed a true mystery novel which will keep the reader guessing. Pre-release reviews of the novel are increasingly positive, and this is certainly a book to look out for.
Release date: December 5
