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A new book by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is cause for celebration. Her bestselling novels, including Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys, have illuminated our most tender relationships. Now, in My Name Is Lucy Barton, this extraordinary writer shows how a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all—the one between mother and daughter. {Release Date: January 5, 2016}

A “brilliantly done” (Sunday Times, London) comedy of manners that explores the unease behind the manicured lawns of suburban America from the Orange Prize–winning author of A Crime in the Neighborhood. Littlefield, Massachusetts, named one of the Ten Best Places to Live in America, full of psychologists and college professors, is proud of its fine schools, its girls’ soccer teams, its leafy streets, and charming village center. Yet no sooner has sociologist Dr. Clarice Watkins arrived to study the elements of “good quality of life” than someone begins poisoning the town’s dogs. Filled wtih suspense and social commentary, readers will love Suzanne Berne’s The Dogs of Littlefield. {Release Date: January 12, 2016}

Reclusive literary legend M. M. “Mimi” Banning has been holed up in her Bel Air mansion for years. But after falling prey to a Bernie Madoff–style Ponzi scheme, she’s flat broke. Now Mimi must write a new book for the first time in decades, and to ensure the timely delivery of her manuscript, her New York publisher sends an assistant to monitor her progress. Julia Claiborne Johnson. {Release Date: February 2, 2016}

Aidan Donnelley Rowley’s second novel, The Ramblers, will take your breath away. It focuses on three very different people who are struggling to find themselves in New York City in the week leading up to Thanksgiving. They must face their pasts in order to understand where they are going. Fans of J. Courtney Sullivan, Meg Wolitzer, Claire Messud, and Emma Straub, will devour this gorgeous and absorbing novel. Rowley writes regularly on her blog, Ivy League Insecurities, and is the founder of the Happier Hours Literary Salon. {Release Date: February 9, 2016}

A fiercely independent divorce lawyer learns the power of family and connection when she receives a cryptic message from her estranged mother in this bittersweet, witty novel from Joshilyn Jackson, the nationally bestselling author of Someone Else’s Love Story and gods in Alabama. The Opposite of Everyone is an emotionally resonant tale about the endurance of love and the power of stories to shape and transform our lives. {Release Date: February 16, 2016}

Life After Yes by Aidan Donnelley Rowley

Newly engaged and facing the inevitable cold feet that can accompany any major life change, Prudence “Quinn” O’Malley is desperately trying to adjust to her new status in life, engaged, while still trying to balance all of the other roles she plays on a daily basis; sister, daughter, friend, lawyer. What happens after “yes,” when the ring has been purchased, the question has been asked and the wedding is ON?

I discovered Aidan through her website Ivy League Insecurities, where she profoundly explores the nuances of life, both large and small, from friendship and marriage, success and insecurity,  and ultimately love and babies. What most of the movies and television shows don’t show you, and what Rowley so bravely and honestly portrays in her debut novel, is that moment in life when you realize something that is supposed to be perfect, like getting married and being in love, is so often one of the most imperfect things you will ever experience. The doubts, the questions, the inner monologue of all the things that are wrong with you and your “soul mate” and all the reasons why this union will never work. Quinn is trapped in a world filled with roles, roles that she isn’t even sure she understands, let alone fits into.

Quinn is truly in love with her fiance, Sage, but she can’t help but listen to the tiny voices that creep into her psyche and haunt her dreams. Quinn is such a relatable and lovable character that you find yourself experiencing her doubts and rising with her when she shines. She is what many women are, an analyzer, an “over-thinker” (if there really is such a thing), a woman with great introspection. Rowley’s portrayal of Quinn’s struggle to find herself in a world that is continually changing is both inspiring and heart-wrenching. I can’t say exactly what my favorite part of the story was, but I would have to guess that it was the writing. Rowley writes some of the most gorgeous and poetic prose I have ever read. I savored every sweet word and thought-provoking analogy and when I finished LIFE AFTER YES, I flipped to the beginning and started re-reading it. (And knowing how large my TBR pile is, you know this is something I almost NEVER do). Rowley left me feeling inspired, uplifted, and understood. I can’t wait until her next book because I know it will be as amazing as her first.