National Book Award winner Choi (Trust Exercise) delivers a moving family novel about the mother and daughter left behind when a father disappears at the beach, presumably drowned. Alternating perspectives between the Korean-born Japanese man, his American wife Anne, and their daughter Louise, the tender and captivating story examines history, estrangement and even geopolitics. It spans decades and historical events – such as North Korean military abductions of Japanese citizens in the late 1970s, and was first published as a short story in the New Yorker. (June 3)

As the author of sensations Daisy Jones & The Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo recently told Time, “It just felt like time for me to write a very high-stakes, dramatic love story.” To that end, Atmosphere takes place in the NASA space program of 1980s Houston and toggles between astrophysicist Joan’s training period and a nail-biting, catastrophic shuttle mission four years later. Like The Six, Loren Grush’s group portrait of America’s first female astronauts, Jenkins Reid chronicles the challenges of navigating sexism in STEM – a realistic antidote to the faux feminism of Blue Origin’s latest space tourism (a publicity stunt featuring all-female passengers they billed as a “mission”). Although fictional, technical aspects are deeply researched (the novel is dedicated to consultant Paul Dye, the longest-serving flight director in NASA history). It’s got the adventure of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, grounded in emotion. (June 3)

Against the backdrop of Ukraine on the cusp of Russia’s 2022 invasion, sisters Nastia and Solimaya go undercover in the foreign bride industry, trying to locate their missing activist mother. Vancouver-based, Ukraine-born writer Riva, whose Good Citizens Need Not Fear was nominated for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, offers a portrait of contemporary Ukraine through absurdist fiction as the sisters kidnap a gaggle of men visiting on a “romance tour” and embark on a road trip with a biologist trying to save Lefty, the last of the country’s snail species. (June 3)

British playwright Mel Pennant draws on Afro-Caribbean traditions and the strength of the Windrush generation community for her cosy crime series set in Birmingham. The fearless titular amateur sleuth is a retired nurse and avid gardener who emigrated from Jamaica in 1960, and she helped found a local group of Black investors. On the eve of the millennium, one of the members is found dead. With a sprinkling of Marple and Murder, She Wrote, the major debut (publishers fought over it!) has drawn praise from none other than No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency scribe Alexander McCall Smith. (June 10)

What if a person could just run away from the crushing “political, social, ecological, existential dread” of modern living? Walter (Beautiful Ruins) tells PW that that premise set the novel in motion. Years ago Rhys Kinnick got into an argument with his right-wing son-in-law, threw his smartphone away and moved to an off-grid cabin in the woods, like Thoreau. The reclusive journalist is drawn out of retirement to help track down his missing daughter and keep his grandkids safe; it’s both road trip and emotional journey, rendered in crystalline prose. (June 10)

This shining debut about race, class and queerness from the Atlanta-born author, who teaches writing at New York’s School of Visual Arts, has been likened to Jay McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City), and that’s not only because there’s a protagonist careening through cocaine-fuelled parties (but full disclosure: it does concern ambitious young New Yorkers). Raw and at times harrowing, the novel is year in the life of a Black Stanford graduate after he’s arrested with drugs, and considers life lived at the intersection of privilege and marginalization.

(June 10)

Taking a page from Bridget Jones, the Canadian lifestyle journalist, cookbook author and Zoomer contributor’s first foray into fiction is written as diary entries. Using an inheritance from her grandmother to pursue her passion for food, Ruthie Cohen enrols in culinary school. While documenting the meals she prepares, Ruthie also chronicles her romantic misadventures, chiefly between two love interests (though neither is as compelling as her friendships), for a breezy summer romance that whets the appetite. (June 17)

The acclaimed author of Sing Her Down returns to the subject of female rage in this dark feminist retelling of ancient Greek tragedy (it’s a trend: see also, Booker winner Pat Barker’s skillfully reimagined Women of Troy trilogy). Former party girl Lena has endured a circumscribed life with her controlling property developer husband of 35 years when she suddenly finds herself widowed. While visiting her son Drew’s resort project on Naxos, she’s drawn to a beach encampment of women who live with abandon. Beguiled by their lifestyle, she begins to rediscover herself as the novel flips the script on Euripides’ The Bacchae, and on who ends up punished by Dionysus, god of wine, revelry and religious ecstasy. (June 17)

The destructive lure of money is at the core of the Edgar winner’s psychologically astute new novel, inspired by a true crime docuseries about murder and multi-level marketing.

Three sisters in the affluent Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe, each at different stages in their lives, are lured into a scheme that targets financially-vulnerable middle aged women. As with hits such as Dare Me and The Turnout, Abbott plumbs an insular subculture to explore the myriad motivations for crime. (June 24)

When something seems too good to be true, it probably is. So goes the adage, and so learn the people who tangle with Nick, a man with many names and identities who targets older women with money. The British author’s latest thriller introduces several families entangled in deception and secrets, in order to probe themes of manipulation and gaslighting and, as with her previous bestsellers like The Family Upstairs, there are satisfying reversals and reveals. (June 24)

Nondescript retired widow Mrs. Blossom, the investigative assistant with a minor role in Lippman’s bestselling PI Tess Monaghan series, finally gets a starring role. She uses a winning lottery ticket to take her first overseas trip – a Seine river cruise – and is swiftly plunged into the world of international art theft when one of the stolen artefacts turns up in her luggage. Both Paris and the art milieu come to life (midcentury artist Joan Mitchell, of the New York School, figures in the story) in this lighthearted mystery. (June 17)

At 73, the investigative journalist and activist (once called “Canada’s Michael Moore”) brings reportage to her fiction debut. It’s a historical novel set in the 1837 Rebellions, bringing both 1830s Scotland and Upper Canada to life as we follow the journey of a 15-year-old named Callandra who marries into a wealthy Glasgow clan for the sake of her family. Her cruel clergyman husband takes a post in Goderich so they cross the Atlantic, together with a household servant. Tensions are brewing between the church, people, and the Canada Company, the corrupt British land development colonizing the region, as tragedy strikes and the household adapts and deceives in order to survive. (June 17)