7 Sequels We Can’t Wait to Read in 2019

The recent announcement that Margaret Atwood was publishing a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale sent us all into a fit of high-fives and happy dances. It also led us to look for more sequels coming out this year. Here are the ones we’ll be sure to pick up.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Release date: September 10, 2019

We won’t spoil the ending of The Handmaid’s Tale (for the few who haven’t read it), but it’s fair to call it an emotional cliffhanger. Offred, the main character who has lost everything important in her life, makes what many readers consider an impossible choice in an attempt to regain control. Finally, 34 long years later, The Testaments answers the burning question, "What happens to Offred?"

The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty
Release date: January 22, 2019

In The City of Brass (2017), we meet Nahri, a con artist running a successful hustle in 18th-century Cairo whose life changes when she accidentally summons a genie and ignites two wars—one supernatural and one political. Now, Nahri must survive the fallout of these battles in The Kingdom of Copper, secure her place in the royal djinn court of Daevabad, and learn to use her new (and suddenly genuine) powers to save the kingdom.

Daughter of Moloka’i by Alan Brennert
Release date: February 19, 2019

Moloka’i Island in Hawaii is home to a leper colony in the late 1800s. Here is where readers first meet Rachel Kalama, who struggles to regain her life after being banished there in Alan Brennert’s bestselling book club favorite, Moloka’i (2003). Sixteen years later, Daughter of Moloka’i follows the life of Ruth—the child Rachel was forced to give away—as she is adopted in California, placed in an internment camp during WWII, and unimaginably reunited with Rachel.

Ruse by Cindy Pon
Release date: March 12, 2019

Want (2017), a YA novel sensation, thrills readers with the story of Jason Zhou who lives in a futuristic, polluted, corrupt version of Taipei. Jason and his friends, young and blindly ambitious, take it upon themselves to save their city from Jin Corporation, the root of so much evil in their lives. Ruse picks up where Want ends—the young freedom fighters have lived to fight another day. But first, they have to figure out who is truly on their side.

Finale by Stephanie Garber
Release date: May 7, 2019

Finale marks the (you guessed it) finale of Garber’s bestselling Caraval trilogy. If you haven’t read Caraval or Legendary yet, we’re jealous that you’ll get to binge-read all three this spring. Caraval is an elaborate, invitation-only, role-playing game steeped in theater and lore. Scarlett is enthralled with the magic of it all, until her sister, Tella, is kidnapped by the game’s mastermind, Legend. In Caraval and Legendary, Scarlett and Tella are forced to continue their roles in the game, with life-or-death stakes. Finale finds Scarlett and Tella with a powerful new mission: end the game for good.

The Dark Above by Jeremy Finley
Release date: July 23, 2019

When Lynn Roseworth’s four-year-old grandson, William, mysteriously disappears, the only clue left behind is an eyewitness who says, "The lights took him." This is the story in The Darkest Time of Night (2018), a paranormal saga of cold case files and buried government secrets. The Dark Above exposes those secrets anew, as William, now nineteen, desperately tries to hide from the factions who want to study his abduction. Unfortunately, he can’t hide from his newest mystery—the prophetic visions he’s having of the future.

The Alienist at Armageddon by Caleb Carr
Release date: September 1, 2019

In 1994, The Alienist introduced us to reporter John Moore and Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—a psychologist, or "alienist." Together, they solve grisly crimes in New York City at the end of the 19th century, as the consciousness of the nation looks toward the 20th. In The Alienist at Armageddon, Moore and Kreizler are reunited, this time in 1915, tracking a series of bombings in the city under the specter of the early days of The Great War.