The Most Anticipated Women’s Fiction of 2026

Best friends have one week in paradise to fix their friendship or fall apart in this heart-stopping, utterly romantic new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After and One Golden Summer.

A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage — Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy.

From New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow, an irresistible story about what happens when your teenage fantasy comes true after you’re already an adult. In a smart and incisive book packed with laugh-out-loud reflections on fame, aging, marriage, and middle age, Emma Straub delivers a richly textured story that shows us real passion is never truly lost, that what we love makes us who we are, and that deep meaning can sometimes be found in a sea of screaming fans.

A woman confronts the surprising results of an ancestry test and begins to question the meaning of family and friendship in this wise, tender novel teeming with life — from the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling author of After Annie. Written with Anna Quindlen’s trademark warmth, humor, and insight into the power of love and hope, More Than Enough explores how we find ourselves again and again through the relationships that define us.

A nearly divorced trophy wife enrolls in culinary school to win back her husband, only to find a fresh start in the unlikeliest of places in this new novel from the USA Today bestselling author of Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.

You know my name, but you do not know me. Your historians call me seductress, but I was ever in love’s thrall. Your playwrights speak of witchcraft, but my talents came from the gods themselves. Your poets sing of my bloodlust, but I was always protecting my children. How willfully they refuse to concede that a woman could be powerful, strategic, and divinely blessed to rule. Death will silence me no longer. This is not the story of how I died. But how I lived … Cleopatra tells her own story in this evocative and sensuous historical epic from the bestselling and award-winning author of Faebound and The Final Strife.

A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1855 — where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.

A woman finds herself torn between her first love and her devoted husband in this extraordinary debut novel that asks the question: Can one heart hold two great loves? Laws of Love and Logic explores love’s enduring power and the human spirit’s capacity for forgiveness and redemption.

A gripping novel of two women fighting for survival on the edge of the wilderness, and the love that simultaneously sustains them and threatens their very existence, from the author of the Good Morning America Book Club pick River Sing Me Home.

A rollicking debut novel about a cautious daughter and her eccentric, estranged mother venturing west in search of buried treasure — and a way back to each other — before they run out of patience, money, and options. Populated with unforgettable characters and set against one of the world’s most oddly enrapturing landscapes, Scavengers is a funny and heartbreaking novel about old injuries, new beginnings, and the lengths to which we’ll go to find, escape, and reinvent ourselves.

In this captivating cat-and-mouse thriller, a struggling actress is only just beginning to enjoy the life she’s always wanted after inadvertently killing her rival — but now she must contend with the woman who threatens to take it all away.

When Poppy discovers unanswered messages from a charming stranger in her late sister’s dating app, she makes an impulsive choice: She’ll meet him, just once, on what would have been Dandelion’s fortieth birthday. It’s exactly the kind of wild adventure her vivacious sister would have pushed her toward. But every moment with Jake feels genuine, electric, and totally right — despite the fact they’re tangled in deceit … With sparkling wit and aching tenderness, debut author Rosie Storey gives us a modern love story about the courage it takes to live again after loss and finding hope in the most unexpected places.

Rainy March is a proud, third-generation Book Witch, sworn to defend works of fiction from all foes real and imaginary. Book Witches live by a strict code: Real people belong in the real world; fictional characters belong in works of fiction. Do not eat, drink, or sleep inside a fictional world, lest you become part of the story. Falling in love with a fictional character? Don’t even think about it … Come along with the Book Witch in this magical and inspiring love letter to reading from the USA Today bestselling author of The Wishing Game.

Two diametrically different sisters — one calculating and egotistical, the other honorable, kind, and compassionate — clash in this compelling novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel.

Caught between a relentless tech job, her adoring fiancé, and an unexpected new flame, Mei must learn what it means to choose herself.

When Fliss, the eccentric grown daughter of the powerful Fitzmaurice clan, is found dead on a beach in Bali, what seems like a tragic accident stirs more suspicion than closure for those who’ve traded favors with — and within — her family for decades. Delivering incisive commentary on the hypocrisies of the elite, this juicy ensemble drama about old friends and dazzling wealth perfectly captures the uneasy balance between personal ambition and collective responsibility. One of Us is a page-turner with teeth, a mash-up of The Wedding People and Succession — darkly comic and cutting, as well as unexpectedly hopeful.

In this crackling portrayal of friendship in peril, a young woman’s world is upended when a tragedy in her best friend’s life tests the boundaries of their sisterhood — a sharp and compelling debut novel from a Ghanaian-American writer.

In Five Years meets a millennial The Joy Luck Club in the adult debut from the author of YA Reese Pick Throwback — a funny and fresh love story of a woman thrown a curveball by fate, and the family secret that will make her question everything.

Told over nine charged days, Sheer is the gripping tale of a controversial beauty mogul’s insatiable ambition and the slippery ground between empowerment and abuse of power. Who has she become in her relentless pursuit of success? And what will happen if she loses it all?

From Mieko Kawakami, award-winning author of Breasts and Eggs, comes a bold novel of sacrifice and the tumultuous bonds of sisterhood, set in the gritty Tokyo of the 1990s. A story of enduring friendship and deep betrayal, Sisters in Yellow is a masterpiece of teenage dreams and adult cruelties that confirms Mieko Kawakami as one of the great writers of her generation.