Dare We Say You’ll Fall Hard for These New Autumn Books

The Three Graces of Pearl Street by Elizabeth Wellington Rollins

Release: September 1

Three generations under one roof is bound to be a place of love and a whole lot of fraught emotions. That is certainly the case with The Three Graces of Pearl Street, which follows three relatives—a 96-year-old Italian American matriarch, her newly-divorced daughter and college dropout granddaughter—living together in New York. Beautifully capturing the complicated dynamics loved ones often share, the novel is deeply empathetic, full of warmth and nuance as Graces explore what life has to offer and how it leads them back to each other.

Under Story by Chloe Benjamin

Release: September 1

Scientist-turned-dishwasher Laurel self-exiled to a remote research station on Antarctica to escape her past, which catches up with her anyway when her ex-husband Eli arrives with a team of scientists to examine a mysterious light. Believing the captivating light may lead to an alternate existence, the pair set off on an adventure, which forces them to look back on the tragedy that shaped them and how they could possibly find a path forward together.

The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman

Release: September 8

This may be the season of Hoffman—and not just because her novel The Book of Magic has been transformed for the screen into Practical Magic 2. She’s also delivering a delightful blend of witchiness and dark academia in this McCarthy era-set novel following Ava and Lauren who are recruited into a society of witches during their first year at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

However, as members of the Lilith Society begin to go missing, the two are forced to reckon the state’s witch trial past—and whether it’s followed them into the present.

The Pirate Queen by Ariel Lawhon

Release: September 8 

The legend of Grace O’Malley, the 16th century Irish heroine is well-documented, from James Joyce’s references in Finnegan’s Wake to Anne Chambers’ definitive 1979 biography, Gráinne Ní Mháille. (O’Malley is often referred to in Irish as Gráinne Mhaol.) Now, Lawhon is taking O’Malley’s life and rebellious legacy as inspiration into her new novel, an action-packed, epic reimagining of the woman often remembered as the Pirate Queen of Ireland.

Queenie Is Working on It by Candice Carty-Williams

Release: September 8

Eight years has gone by since Queenie’s extremely difficult year. Now 33, she’s thriving as the editorial director at a leading media network. But when unexpected news about her fertility is revealed, Queenie has to confront jarring questions about what she wants her future to look like—and who will be by her side during it. And she is doing so with her loving, if a bit overbearing friends and family at her side. Once again, Carty-Williams delivers a flawed, relatable main character navigating the confusing crossroads so many of her readers also face. Sure, Queenie is still working on it, and for that we are grateful.

We Chase Shadows by Richard Osman

Release: September 15

Two years after introducing his Thursday Murder Club fans to another team of crime-solvers, this new trio—retired police officer Steve, his private security guard daughter-in-law Amy and beloved thriller writer Rosie—and their ever-broadening group of allies are back on the case. 

This time, they’re trying to find out why the life of a low-level criminal is being threatened. That is, until, the bodies begin piling up, sending them on a world-wide adventure that makes it clear there is more to this criminal enterprise than fake vitamins.

Dead Beat by Leigh Bardugo

Release: September 15
Galaxy Stern has literally made it to hell and back, but her most dangerous battle may still lie on this side of the veil. Bardugo’s third and final edition in the Ninth House series, Dead Beat, will see Alex and her friends—including the newly demonically-enhanced Darlington—fight to reclaim Yale from the monsters that have been unleashed upon New Haven from Underworld.

After all, she was the one who left the door open. 

Call Off the Dark by Hallie Shepherd

Release: September 22

Yesteryear meets The Turn of the Screw in this spooky debut. Helen has sought refuge in isolation and in the arms of a new man after her husband Tyler is killed in a horrific murder. But while her secluded, simple life in the woods with her new husband Wade—whom she married impulsively in the wake of Tyler’s death—seems like Helen’s path towards healing, everything is turned upside down when Wade’s younger brother Isaac shows up one day.

The problem? Wade says Isaac has been dead for years. 

Ply by Hernan Diaz

American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee

Release: September 29

Nearly a decade after her beloved, sweeping historical fiction novel Pachinko, Lee is back with another mesmerizing family saga. Following the Koh family—parents John and Helen and three kids Bo, DH and Mido—as they depart their native South Korea for Australia and later Southern California following a scandal and the 1997 financial crisis.

Tracking the Kohs throughout the ‘90s and into the late aughts, the novel explores the hagwon education system, price of ambition, and what it means to find success—and fulfillment—in life.

I Want to be Famous by Bobby Finger and Lindsay Weber

Release: September 29

The landscape of celebrity—and the criteria of what it means to be one—is ever-evolving, and at times perplexing. Luckily, Finger and Weber have spent the last decade breaking it down with their beloved podcast Who? Weekly, through their concept of Whos (the wannabe A-listers) and the Thems (the true stars).

Like their podcast, I Want to be Famous, is funny and engaging, but it’s also thoughtful in how it explores pop culture and how social media has changed the meaning of celebrity—plus its effect on the Who/Them binary. Though the book is just as excellent for non-listeners of their podcasts, the Wholigans can rest easy knowing the pair’s reverence for Rita Ora and all she is up to follows them onto the page. 

Partita by Barbara Kingsolver

Release: October 6

In 1989, Livia had fled the confines of her Tennessee farm for a prestigious music scholarship on her quest to become a concert pianist. Decades later, she’s back in her Tennessee hometown, married to a childhood friend and making a living teaching piano—her past firmly in the rearview. That is, until a fateful phone call from an ex brings it all back. Weaving between two timelines, the book retraces her coming of age and the incident that ended her musical ambitions—as her present-day self looks back on that pivotal period in her life. 

Bad Words by Rioghnach Robinson

Release: October 6

It starts with a bitter feud between a novelist and a critic. Parker Navarro blames Selina Chan for the failure of his book four years prior. With his new work set for release, she is once again ready to eviscerate it. Only this time around, between the blistering online barbs, it leads to a private reckoning that neither are prepared for.

The Sixth Faction by Veronica Roth

Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus

Release: October 13

The Pecks may just be the most ruthless editors you’ll ever meet. In Garmus’ sophomore outing, Batter Gray is aimlessly navigating post-grad life in ’82, until the poetry fiend earns a position at prestigious literary magazine Peck & Peck, where he soon becomes entangled with the warring brothers who lead the publication. Plus, he gets a front-row seat to the baffling lengths staffers will go to find the latest poetry great. 

Wench by Erynne Rivers

Release: October 13

Wench takes the legend of Robin Hood you know and love and ages it up into a lush, magical and, we’ll say it, sexy new novel.

This time, Maid Marian is thrust into the arms of fate when her carriage—while whisking her towards Sheriff Nottingham, the evil despot to whom she’s been betrothed—is robbed by the Merry Men, a group of lethal fae. But while Marian has been taught to fear and revile the fae above all else, her time in Sherwood Forest (and alongside its mysterious yet inexplicably alluring leader Robin Hood) will challenge everything she thought she knew about good and evil and love.