Hello Fall Reading. Grab a pumpkin spice something and check out these 20 Fall books.
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medi- September 1st
“Elikem married me in absentia; he did not come to our wedding.” How can you not read a book with that sentence!Â
His Only Wife is a deceptively breezy narrative that invites readers into the intimate world of its heroine, Afi—a world that straddles traditional expectations and modern desires. At its heart, the novel is a story of a young woman coming into her own and finding her voice. A brilliant scholar and a fierce advocate for women’s rights, author Peace Adzo Medie infuses her debut novel with intelligence and humor.
I Have Something To Tell You: A Memoir by Chasten Buttigieg- September 1st
A moving, hopeful, and refreshingly candid memoir by the husband of former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg about growing up gay in his small Midwestern town, his relationship with Pete, and his hope for America’s future.Â
He recounts his coming out and how he’s healed from revealing his secret to his family, friends, community, and the world. And he tells the story of meeting his boyfriend, whom he would marry and who would eventually become a major Democratic leader. I saw Chasten in person last year and his commitment to education and youth is amazing.
The Paris Children by Gloria Goldreich- September 1st
Inspired by the true story of one woman’s fight to survive during the 20th century’s darkest hour. An amazing woman’s story.
Paris, 1935. Young Madeleine Levy—granddaughter of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish World War I hero—steps bravely into a new wave of resistance and becomes the guardian of lost children. When Madeleine meets a small girl in a tattered coat with the hollow look of one forced to live a nightmare—a young Jewish refugee from Germany named Anna—she cannot stand by. Paris is full of children like Anna and Madeleine offers them comfort and strength while working with other members of the resistance to smuggle them into safer territories.
Anxious People by Frederik Backman- September 8th
From the bestselling author of A Man Called Ove comes a poignant, charming novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.
It is like 2020 knew that we needed a Frederik Backman novel!
Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers, a wealthy bank director and a young couple. Add to the mix an unflappable eighty-seven-year-old woman, a flustered real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom, and you’ve got the worst group of hostages in the world. Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue.Â
Don’t Look For Me by Wendy Walker- September 15th
In pure Wendy Walker thriller fashion, the greatest risk isn’t running away. It’s running out of time. Walker never fails to up her thriller game.
One night, Molly Clarke walked away from her life. She doesn’t want to be found. Or at least, that’s the story. The car abandoned miles from home. The note found at a nearby hotel. The shattered family that couldn’t be put back together. They called it a “walk away.” It happens all the time. Women disappear, desperate to leave their lives behind and start over. But is that what really happened to Molly Clarke?
The White Coat Diaries by Madi Sinha- September 15thÂ
Grey’s Anatomy meets Scrubs in this brilliant debut novel about a young doctor’s struggle to survive residency, love, and life. Absolutely fabulous! I loved it!
Having spent the last twenty-something years with her nose in a textbook, Norah Kapadia has just landed the medical residency of her dreams. But after a disastrous first day, she’s ready to quit. Enter chief resident Ethan Cantor. He’s everything Norah aspires to be: respected by the attending physicians, calm during emergencies, and charismatic with his patients. And as he morphs from Norah’s mentor to something more, it seems her luck is finally changing. But when a fatal medical mistake is made, pulling Norah into a cover-up, she must decide how far she’s willing to go to protect the secret. What if “doing no harm” means putting herself at risk?
The Three Mrs. Wrights by Linda Keir- September 29th
Mr. Wright has everything. All that’s left to give him is what he deserves. This is an outstanding novel!
Lark has good things coming: a career as a board-game designer and a whirlwind romance with a handsome investor. Trip is so compassionate and supportive, he’s almost too good to be true. Jessica has always been cautious, but she can’t resist Jonathan. The brilliant TED-talking visionary has big plans for his inspiring medical start-up. Holly has settled into a comfortable life with Jack, her husband of nearly twenty years. Lark, Jessica, and Holly are three strangers with so much in common it hurts. Their one and only is one and the same.Â
Ties That Tether by Jane Igharo- September 29th
When a Nigerian woman falls for a man she knows will break her mother’s heart, she must choose between love and her family.
At twelve years old, Azere promised her dying father she would marry a Nigerian man and preserve her culture, even after immigrating to Canada. But when another match-made-by-mom goes wrong, Azere ends up at a bar, enjoying the company and later sharing the bed of Rafael Castellano, a man who is tall, handsome, and…white. When their one-night stand unexpectedly evolves into something serious, Azere is caught between her feelings for Rafael and the compulsive need to please her mother. Can she be with him without compromising her identity?Â
Welcome to the United States of Anxiety by Jen Lancaster- October 1st
Bestselling author Jen Lancaster is here to help you chill the hell out and oh do we need it in 2020. Inhale every page!
When did USA become shorthand for the United States of Anxiety? From the moment Americans wake up, we’re bombarded with all-new terrifying news about crime, the environment, politics, and stroke-inducing foods we’ve been enjoying for years. We’re judged by social media’s faceless masses, pressured into maintaining a Pinterest-perfect home, and expected to base our self-worth on retweets, faves, likes, and followers. Jen Lancaster is here to take a hard look at our elevating anxieties, and with self-deprecating wit and levelheaded wisdom, she charts a path out of the quagmire that keeps us frightened of the future and ashamed of our imperfectly perfect human lives.Â
The Code for Love and Heartbreak by Jillian Cantor- October 6th
A wonderful contemporary romcom retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma. There’s nothing more complex—or unpredictable—than love. A delightful book!
When math genius Emma and her coding club co-president, George, are tasked with brainstorming a new project, The Code for Love is born. George disapproves of Emma’s idea of creating a matchmaking app, accusing her of meddling in people’s lives. But all the happy new couples at school are proof that the app works. At least at first. Emma’s code is flawless. So why is it that perfectly matched couples start breaking up, the wrong people keep falling for each other, and Emma’s own feelings defy any algorithm? Cantor interprets Emma in the most delightful 2020 way!
In A Holidaze by Christina Lauren – October 6th
2020 requires a monthly Chistina Lauren release! One Christmas wish, two brothers, and a lifetime of hope are on the line in In a Holidaze, the quintessential holiday romantic novel.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions. But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy. The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again
When We Were Young and Brave by Hazel Gaynor- October 6th
Gaynor has written an unforgettable novel set in China during WWII, inspired by true events surrounding the Japanese Army’s internment of teachers and children from a British-run missionary school.
China, December 1941. Teacher Elspeth Kent is now anxious to return home from China to help the war effort. Ten-year-old Nancy Plummer has always felt safe at Chefoo School, protected by her British status. But when Japan declares war on Britain and America, Japanese forces take control of the school. Now the enemy, and separated from their parents, the children look to their teachers – to Miss Kent and her new Girl Guide patrol especially – to provide a sense of unity and safety. Faced with the relentless challenges of oppression, the school community must rely on their courage, faith and friendships as they pray for liberation – but worse is to come when they are sent to a distant internment camp where even greater uncertainty and danger await . . .
Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell- October 13th
Lisa Jewell returns with another taut and white-knuckled thriller following a group of people whose lives shockingly intersect when a young woman disappears. Jewell is the Thriller Queen!
Owen Pick’s life is falling apart. In his thirties, a virgin, and living in his aunt’s spare bedroom, he has just been suspended from his job as a computer science teacher after accusations of sexual misconduct, which he strongly denies. Searching for professional advice online, he is inadvertently sucked into the dark world of incel—involuntary celibate—forums, where he meets the charismatic, mysterious, and sinister Bryn. Across the street from Owen lives the Fours family, headed by mom Cate, a physiotherapist, and dad Roan, a child psychologist. But the Fours family have a bad feeling about their neighbor Owen. Meanwhile, young Saffyre Maddox spent three years as a patient of Roan Fours. Feeling abandoned when their therapy ends, she searches for other ways to maintain her connection with him, Then, on Valentine’s night, Saffyre Maddox disappears—and the last person to see her alive is Owen Pick.
Reviving The Hawthorn Sisters by Emily Carpenter- October 20th
The bestselling author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls returns to uncover a faith healer’s elusive and haunted past. Read it in one sitting!
Dove Jarrod was a renowned evangelist and faith healer but her granddaughter, Eve Candler, knows that Dove was a con artist. In the eight years since Dove’s death, Eve has maintained Dove’s charitable foundation—and her lies. But just as a documentary team wraps up a shoot about the miracle worker, Eve is assaulted by a vengeful stranger intent on exposing what could be Dove’s darkest secret: murder. Now, to protect her family, Eve will join forces with the investigative filmmaker and one of Dove’s friends, risking everything to unravel the truth behind the accusations against her grandmother. But will the truth set her free or set her world on fire?
Stories From Suffragette City – October 27th With an introduction by Kristin Hannah and stories from Lisa Wingate, M.J. Rose, Steve Berry, Paula McLain, Katherine J. Chen, Christina Baker Kline, Jamie Ford, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Megan Chance, Alyson Richman, Chris Bohjalian and Fiona Davis
One City. One Movement. A World of Stories. A glorious tribute to women getting the right to vote. An amazing anthology!
Stories from Suffragette City is a collection of short stories that all take place on a single day: October 23, 1915. It’s the day when tens of thousands of women marched up Fifth Avenue, demanding the right to vote in New York City. Thirteen of today’s bestselling authors have taken this moment as inspiration to raise the voices of history and breathe fresh life into their struggles and triumphs. We follow a young woman who is swept up in the protests when all she expected was to come sell her apples in the city. We see Ava Vanderbilt as her white-gloved sensibility is transformed. Ida B. Wells battles for racial justice in the women’s suffrage. Each story stands on its own, but together Stories From Suffragette City beomes a symphony, painting a portrait of a country looking for a fight and ever restless for progress and equality.
The Girls of Brackenhill by Kate Moretti- November 1st
Haunted by her sister’s disappearance, a troubled woman becomes consumed by past secrets in this gripping thriller.
When Hannah Maloney’s aunt dies in a car accident, she returns to her family’s castle in the Catskills and the epicenter of a childhood trauma: her sister’s unsolved disappearance. It’s been seventeen years, and though desperate to start a new life with her fiancé, Hannah is compelled to question the events of her last summer at Brackenhill. When a human bone is found near the estate, Hannah is convinced it belongs to her long-lost sister. She launches her own investigation into that magical summer that ended in a nightmare. As strange happenings plague the castle, Hannah uncovers disturbing details about the past and startling realizations about her own repressed childhood memories.
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany by Lori Nelson Spielman- November 17th
In the most delightful book of the year, a trio of second-born daughters sets out on a whirlwind journey through the lush Italian countryside to break the family curse that says they’ll never find love. This is amore!
Since the day Filomena Fontana cast a curse upon her sister more than two hundred years ago, not one second-born Fontana daughter has found lasting love. Some, like second-born Emilia, the happily single baker at her grandfather’s Brooklyn deli, claim it’s an odd coincidence. Others, like her sexy, desperate-for-love cousin Lucy, insist it’s a true hex. But both are bewildered when their great-aunt calls with an astounding proposition: If they accompany her to her homeland of Italy, Aunt Poppy vows she’ll meet the love of her life on the steps of the Ravello Cathedral on her eightieth birthday, and break the Fontana Second-Daughter Curse once and for all. Against the backdrop of wandering Venetian canals, rolling Tuscan fields, and enchanting Amalfi Coast villages, romance blooms, destinies are found, and family secrets are unearthed—secrets that could threaten the family far more than a centuries-old curse.
The Lady Upstairs by Halley Sutton- November 17th
This dark debut thriller tells the story of a woman who makes a living taking down terrible men…then finds herself in over her head and with blood on her hands. The only way out? Pull off one final con.
Jo’s job is blackmailing the most lecherous men in Los Angeles–handsy Hollywood producers, adulterous actors, corrupt cops. Eager to prove herself to her coworker Lou and their enigmatic boss, known only as the Lady Upstairs, Jo takes on bigger and riskier jobs. When one of her targets is murdered, both the Lady Upstairs and the LAPD have Jo in their sights. Desperate to escape the consequences of her failed job, she decides to take on just one more sting–bringing down a rising political star. But Jo soon learns that Lou and the Lady have secrets of their own, and that no woman is safe when there is a life-changing payout on the line.
Admission by Julie Buxbaum- December 1st
A novel that peeks inside the private lives of the hypercompetitive and the hyperprivileged and takes on the college admissions bribery scandal that rocked the country. Buxbaum nails it!
It’s good to be Chloe Wynn Berringer. She’s headed off to the college of her dreams and going to prom with the boy she’s had a crush on since middle school. It’s good to be Chloe Wynn Berringer–at least, it was, until the FBI came knocking on her front door, guns at the ready, and her future went up in smoke. Now her mother is under arrest in a massive college admissions bribery scandal. Chloe, too, might be facing charges, and even time behind bars. As she loses everything, she’s long taken for granted, Chloe must reckon not only with the truth of what happened, but also with the examination of her own guilt.Â
The War Widow by Tara Moss- December 20, 2020
The war may be officially over, but journalist Billie Walker’s search for a missing young immigrant man will plunge her right back into the danger and drama she thought she’d left behind in Europe in this thrilling tale of courage and secrets set in glamorous postwar Sydney
Sydney, 1946. Billie is a survivor and she’s determined to take control of her own future. So she reopens her late father’s business, a private investigation agency, and, slowly, the women of Sydney come knocking. At first, Billie’s bread and butter is tailing cheating husbands. Then, a young man, the son of European immigrants, goes missing, and Billie finds herself on a dangerous new trail. What is the young man’s connection to an exclusive dance club and a high -class auction house? As the danger mounts and Billie realizes that much more than one young man’s life is at stake, it becomes clear that though the war was won, it is far from over.
