Summer is winding down and I’m ready for fall and the cooler weather, cozy sweaters, pumpkin spice lattes and new books that come with it! Summer is great but there’s nothing like curling up with a good book and a cup of tea to while away a fall afternoon!!
My recommendations for the best books to read fall 2024 include recently published or soon to be published contemporary fiction, historical fiction, romance, and mysteries/thrillers that I have already read or that are on my TBR for this fall.
Have fun planning your fall reading list and enjoy a book-filled season!!
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1. The Berlin Apartment by Bryn Turnbull
Setting: Berlin, Germany
Berlin 1961: When Uli Neumann proposes to Lise Bauer, she has every reason to accept. He offers her love, respect, and a life beyond the strict bounds of the East German society in which she was raised — which she longs to leave more than anything. But only two short days after their engagement, Lise and Uli are torn violently apart when barbed wire is rolled across Berlin, splitting the city into two hostile halves: capitalist West Berlin, an island of western influence isolated far beyond the iron curtain; and the socialist East, a country determined to control its citizens by any means necessary.
Soon, Uli and his friends in West Berlin hatch a plan to get Lise and her unborn child out of East Germany, but as distance and suspicion bleed into their lives and as weeks turn to months, how long can true love survive in the divided city?
2. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Setting: Ireland
Publication Date: September 24, 2024
Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.
Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties―successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women―his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.
Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.
For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude―a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.
3. Moon Road by Sarah Leipciger
Setting: Cross-Canada Road Trip (Ontario to British Columbia)
Briefly married more than 40 years ago, Kathleen and Yannick haven’t spoken to each other in 19 years. They were happily divorced while they raised their daughter, Una, but then a disagreement caused them to walk away from each other and never look back. Until now.
Unexpected news about Una arrives from the West Coast and Yannick turns up in the small town where Kathleen still lives asking her to drive to British Columbia with him. Kathleen reluctantly agrees and the two head out in Yannick’s old pickup truck on the long road trip across Canada from Ontario to Vancouver Island.
Moon Road alternates point-of-view between Kathleen and Yannick with a few short chapters from Una’s pov slowly unfurling the couple’s past history as they travel more than 2,000 miles across the country. I don’t want to give away any of the story so I’ll just say that this is a sensitive depiction of unimaginable loss and of a couple finally laying their grief to rest. Compelling and unforgettable – a story about family, marriage, parenthood, loss, hope and healing – this is sure to be one of my best reads of the year.
4. The Starlets by Lee Kelly & Jennifer Thorne
Setting: Italy, Monaco
Publication Date: November 12, 2024
Summer, 1958. Vivienne Rhodes thinks she’s finally landed her break playing Helen of Troy in Apex Pictures’ big-budget epic, A Thousand Ships, an anticipated blockbuster meant to resurrect the failing studio. Naturally, she’s devastated when she arrives on the remote Italian island of Tavalli and finds herself cast as the secondary character, Cassandra—while her nemesis, the fiancée-stealing Lottie Lawrence, America’s supposed “sweetheart,” is playing the lead role instead.
The tension on set, though, turns deadly when the ladies discover that members of the crew are using the production as a front for something decidedly illegal—and that they are willing to kill to keep their dealings under wraps. When the two women find themselves on the run and holding key evidence, Vivienne and Lottie frantically agree to work together to deliver the proof to Interpol, hoping to protect both their lives and their careers.
Staying one step ahead of corrupt cops and looming mobsters, the archrivals flee across the seas. Their journey leads them into Monaco’s casinos, Grace Kelly’s palace, on a road trip through the Alps—even onto another film set, before a final showdown back on Tavalli, where the lives of the entire cast and crew hang in the balance. Vivienne and Lottie finally have the chance to be real heroines—to save the day, the film, maybe even each other—but only if they can first figure out how to share the spotlight.
Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Muse for sending a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
5. Peggy: A Novel by Rebecca Godfrey with Leslie Jamison
Setting: New York City, Europe
I thoroughly enjoyed this intriguing historical fiction novel about American heiress and art philanthropist Peggy Guggenheim by Rebecca Godfrey with Leslie Jamison. The novel itself has a fascinating backstory as Godfrey, an acclaimed novelist and true crime writer, had been working on the novel for a decade but died before she could finish it and her friend and colleague, Leslie Jamison, was asked to complete the book.
The story is told from Peggy’s point-of-view and is divided into three parts spanning the years 1912-1938. Part I: The Old Masters begins in 1912 when Peggy is a young teenager and covers her adolescence and coming-of-age in New York City. Part II: Surrealism picks up in 1922 when Peggy has moved to Paris and encompasses her turbulent marriage to Laurence Vail and their lives in France through the 1920s. Part III: Modernism skips ahead to 1938 when Peggy is nearly 40 and using her inheritance to establish an art gallery in London, socializing with various famous people including James Joyce and involved in a love affair with Samuel Beckett. The main novel ends before she purchases the palazzo in Venice where the Peggy Guggenheim Collection now resides, however, an epilogue in 1958 has her reflecting on the city of Venice, her life and loves and her art collection.
A slow-paced, character-driven novel that has been meticulously researched, Peggy is a richly drawn portrait of an incredible groundbreaking woman that provides the reader an opportunity to get to know Peggy Guggenheim the woman behind the name. I knew very little about her beyond the basic facts before reading this novel and was fascinated by this fictional reimagining of the woman, her personal life and her philanthropy. A compelling read about a woman who came into her own over a period of many years and discovered what she wanted from her life and what she wanted her legacy to be!
Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for sending an ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
6. The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
Setting: Ibiza, Spain
When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.
Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.
7. The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern by Lynda Cohen Loigman
Setting: Brooklyn and South Florida
Publication Date: October 8, 2024
Told over two timelines, The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern is the story of an elderly woman who gets a second chance at happiness.
In 1987, 79 year-old Augusta is a recently retired pharmacist who leaves New York City to move into a retirement residence in South Florida and discovers that one of the other residents is Irving Rivkin who was a delivery boy at her father’s pharmacy in 1920s Brooklyn. In the ’20s timeline, Augusta is a young teenager who has recently lost her mother and her great-aunt Esther moves in to the family home above the pharmacy to help out. Aunt Esther is a healer and the women in the neighbourhood are soon coming to her for her unconventional remedies and potions. Augusta is fascinated by Esther and wants to learn how to make her aunt’s elixirs but also wants to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a pharmacist.
When her father hires Irving, the two become friends and later romantically involved but something happened to tear them apart leaving Augusta heartbroken and confused about what went wrong. Augusta never married as she was busy with her career and never truly got over Irving but when it becomes clear that Irving also still has feelings for her after all these years, Augusta must decide if she can forgive him for what happened 60 years earlier and take a chance on love.
A charming and delightful story about second chances that also touches on the roles and expectations of women in the 1920s and beyond. Both amusing and touching at times, this is a feel good story with a message that it’s never too late for love and happiness.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sending a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
8. The Maui Effect by Sara Ackerman
Setting: Hawaii, California, Portugal
Publication Date: November 19, 2024
‘Iwa Young’s life is high in the Maui rainforest. As a field biologist, she’s happiest in company with trees and birds and waterfalls. When a developer arrives with plans for a so-called “eco resort” in the middle of a forest full of endangered species, ‘Iwa puts all her energy into the fight to protect it. But a chance encounter threatens to distract her. His name is Dane Parsons, and he’s a big-wave surfer from California. ‘Iwa has a few unbreakable rules, and at the top of her list: never date a surfer.
Dane Parsons is part of an underground group of big-wave riders, and his connection to the ocean runs deep. When he meets ‘Iwa, he can’t get her out of his mind. But ‘Iwa wants nothing to do with Dane until he offers to help protect her beloved forest and waterfall. Always on the hunt for the ultimate ride, Dane suddenly glimpses something even greater, but just out of reach.
In this thunderous love story, we travel deep into the Maui rainforest and hop across the globe from Hawai’i to California to Portugal, chasing waves the size of nine-story buildings—where the unthinkable is always just one breath away.
9. The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston
Setting: Australia
Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart. If he borrowed your car, he’d return it washed with a full tank of gas. The problem is there’s nobody left in Fred’s life to borrow from. At eighty-two, he’s desperately lonely, broke, and on the brink of homelessness. But Fred’s luck changes when, in a bizarre case of mistaken identity, he takes the place of grumpy Bernard Greer at the local nursing home. Now he has warm meals in his belly and a roof over his head—as long as his poker face is in better shape than his prostate and that his look-alike never turns up.
Denise Simms is stuck breathing the same disappointing air again and again. A middle-aged mom and caregiver at Bernard’s facility, her crumbling marriage and daughter’s health concerns are suffocating her joy for life. Wounded by her two-faced husband, she vows never to let a man deceive her again.
As Fred walks in Bernard’s shoes, he leaves a trail of kindness behind him, fueling Denise’s suspicions about his true identity. When unexpected truths are revealed, Fred and Denise rediscover their sense of purpose and learn how to return a broken life to mint condition.
10. Dear Eliza by Andrea J. Stein
Setting: New York City
Publication Date: October 8, 2024
Eliza’s mom died of cancer when she was 16 and and now 10 years later her dad has died suddenly. After Eliza’s dad’s funeral, her aunt Claude gives her a letter that her mother wrote before she died but didn’t want Eliza to read until after her father’s death. The shocking details of the letter turn Eliza’s life upside down and make her question everything she thought she knew about her family and herself.
While Eliza is trying to navigate her grief and process the shocking information revealed in her mother’s letter, she is also managing a busy workload at her non-profit job and turmoil in her personal relationships. Her brother is grieving and angry with Eliza’s choices, her stepmother wants to disinherit her and her best friend doesn’t understand what she’s going through – it seems the only person she can depend on is her brother’s best friend, Josh, who she had a crush on in high school.
Dear Eliza is a well-written story of a young woman coping with grief whose experience will especially resonate with anyone who has lost a parent. The book explores grief, identity and relationships (parent/child relationships, sibling relationships, friendship and romantic relationships) and although it’s primarily about Eliza learning to cope with her grief, there is also a sweet, slow-burn romance side plot that is a nice addition.
Thank you to NetGalley, Girl Friday Productions and Andrea J. Stein for sending a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
11. Is She Really Going Out With Him? by Sophie Cousens
Setting: England
Publication Date: November 19, 2024
Columnist Anna Appleby has left her love life behind after a painful divorce. Who needs a man when she has two kids, a cat, and uncontested control of the TV remote? Besides, she’d rather be single than subject herself to the hell of online dating. But her office rival is vying for her column, and no column means no stable source of income. So, in a desperate attempt to keep her job, Anna finds herself pitching a unique angle: seven dates, all found offline, chosen by her children.
From awkward encounters to unexpected connections, Anna gamely begins to put herself out there, asking out waiters, the mailman, even her celebrity crush. But when a romantic connection appears where she least expected it, will she be brave enough to take another chance on love?
12. The Lightning Bottles by Marissa Stapley
Setting: Road trip across Europe
Publication Date: September 24, 2024
He was the troubled face of rock ‘n’ roll…until he suddenly disappeared without a trace.
Jane Pyre was once half of the famous rock ‘n’ roll duo, the Lightning Bottles. Years later, she’s perhaps the most hated—and least understood—woman in music. She was never as popular with fans as her bandmate (and soulmate), Elijah Hart—even if Jane was the one who wrote the songs that catapulted the Lightning Bottles to instant, dizzying fame, first in the Seattle grunge scene, then around the world.
But ever since Elijah disappeared five years earlier and the band’s meteoric rise to fame came crashing down, the public hatred of Jane has taken on new levels, and all she wants to do is retreat. What she doesn’t anticipate is the bombshell that awaits her at her new home in the German countryside: the sullen teenaged girl next door—a Lightning Bottles superfan—who claims to have proof that not only is Elijah still alive, he’s also been leaving secret messages for Jane. And they need to find them right away.
A cross-continent road trip about two misunderstood outsiders brought together by their shared love of music, The Lightning Bottles is both a love letter to the 90s and a searing portrait of the cost of fame.
13. We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
Setting: Various locations
Publication Date: September 17, 2024
Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He still does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him at home. His days of adventure are over. Adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s job now.
Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. Working in private security, every day is dangerous. She’s currently on a remote island protecting mega-bestselling author Rosie D’Antonio, until a dead body and a bag of money mean trouble in paradise. So she sends an SOS to the only person she trusts . . .
As a thrilling race around the world begins, can Amy and Steve outrun and outsmart a killer?
14. The Booklover’s Library by Madeline Martin
Setting: Nottingham, England
This historical fiction novel about a young mother takes place mostly over the first couple of years of World War II in Nottingham, England.
Emma, a young widow with no family to rely on, lives with her 7 year-old daughter, Olivia, in a boarding house in Nottingham on the eve of World War II. Emma struggles to provide for her small family because married women including widows were not allowed to work, however, an opportunity arises at the Boots’ Booklover’s Library and Emma is hired by a compassionate manager who is willing to overlook the fact that she is a widow.
When the threat of war becomes a reality and German bombing campaigns increase the danger to residents of Nottingham, Emma must face the agonizing choice between keeping Olivia with her in the city or evacuating her to live with strangers in the countryside.
The Booklover’s Library is a heartwarming wartime mother/daughter story about the hardships faced during the war and the lengths that a mother would go to in order to protect her child. The story is well-researched and weaves historical information into the plot relating to the evacuation of children via Operation Pied Piper. the marriage bar that prevented women who were married as well as widows from working, the work of the WVS (Women’s Voluntary Services) and the general struggles that women faced during that time period because of sexist laws and societal attitudes. I particularly enjoyed learning about the lending libraries operated by the Boots’ chain of chemists that lent books to patrons via subscription.
This is a lovely story about the importance of books and of community to provide comfort in difficult times that includes a sweet romance storyline – a good option for anyone who enjoys light historical fiction!
Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for providing a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
15. real ones by katherena vermette
Setting: Canada
June and her sister, lyn, are NDNs—real ones.
Lyn has her pottery artwork, her precocious kid, Willow, and the uncertain terrain of her midlife to keep her mind, heart and hands busy. June, a Métis Studies professor, yearns to uproot from Vancouver and move. With her loving partner, Sigh, and their faithful pup, June decides to buy a house in the last place on earth she imagined she’d end up: back home in Winnipeg with her family.
But then into lyn and June’s busy lives a bomb drops: their estranged and very white mother, Renee, is called out as a “pretendian.” Under the name (get this) Raven Bearclaw, Renee had topped the charts in the Canadian art world for winning awards and recognition for her Indigenous-style work.
The news is quickly picked up by the media and sparks an enraged online backlash. As the sisters are pulled into the painful tangle of lies their mother has told and the hurt she has caused, searing memories from their unresolved childhood trauma, which still manages to spill into their well curated adult worlds, come rippling to the surface.
In prose so powerful it could strike a match, real ones is written with the same signature wit and heart on display in The Break, The Strangers and The Circle. An energetic, probing and ultimately hopeful story, real ones pays homage to the long-fought, hard-won battles of Michif (Métis) people to regain ownership of their identity and the right to say who is and isn’t Métis.
16. Libby Lost and Found by Stephanie Booth
Setting: United States (near New York City)
Publication Date: October 15, 2024
Meet Libby Weeks, author of the mega-best-selling fantasy series, The Falling Children―written as “F.T. Goldhero” to maintain her privacy. When the last manuscript is already months overdue to her publisher and rabid fans around the world are growing impatient, Libby is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Already suffering from crippling anxiety, Libby’s symptoms quickly accelerate. After she forgets her dog at the park one day―then almost discloses her identity to the journalist who finds him―Libby has to admit it: she needs help finishing the last book.
Desperately, she turns to eleven-year-old superfan Peanut Bixton, who knows the books even better than she does but harbors her own dark secrets. Tensions mount as Libby’s dementia deepens―until both Peanut and Libby swirl into an inevitable but bone-shocking conclusion.
Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for providing a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
17. A Good Indian Girl by Mansi Shah
Setting: Italy
A Good Indian Girl is the story of a recently divorced Indian-American woman who travels to Italy for the summer.
Jyoti was always the good Indian daughter who did what was expected of her – staying out of trouble, helping with her younger sisters, agreeing to an arranged marriage and quitting the job she loved at her husband’s family restaurant to focus on having a child but after years of unsuccessful fertility treatments, Jyoti’s husband left her for a younger woman and she feels like she has failed.
Unemployed, divorced and feeling judged by her parents, her sisters and the gossiping community of Aunties back home, Jyoti decides to travel to Florence and spend the summer with her best friend and fellow social outcast, Karishma. As she enjoys la dolce vita, sumptuous meals and delicious wine with Karishma and her group of friends, Jyoti gradually rediscovers her joy in cooking and creating new recipes which leads to new business opportunities but also opens her up to renewed criticism from her family and the Gujarati community back home.
An enjoyable and heartfelt read about Jyoti’s mid-life journey to discovering what she wants instead of doing what is expected of her as “a good Indian girl” that incorporates issues relating to infertility and the decision to remain childless as well as the pressures felt by the children of immigrant parents. Set in beautiful Florence with jaunts to a winery in the Tuscan countryside and a trip to the Amalfi coast and including mouthwatering descriptions of the restaurant meals and of Jyoti’s unique fusion of Indian and Italian food, A Good Indian Girl is catnip for travellers. There are even recipes included at the end of the book if you fancy trying to replicate Jyoti’s creative meals at home!
18. Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst
Setting: England
Publication Date: October 8, 2024
Did I have a grievance? Most of us, without looking far, could find something that had harmed us, and oppressed us, and unfairly held us back. I tried not to dwell on it, thought it healthier not to, though I’d lived my short life so far in a chaos of privilege and prejudice.
Dave Win, the son of a British dressmaker and a Burmese man he’s never met, is thirteen years old when he gets a scholarship to a top boarding school. With the doors of elite English society cracked open for him, heady new possibilities emerge, even as Dave is exposed to the envy and viciousness of his wealthy classmates, above all that of Giles Hadlow, whose worldly parents sponsored the scholarship and who find in Dave someone they can more easily nurture than their own brutish son.
Our Evenings follows Dave from the 1960s on—through the possibilities that remained open for him, and others that proved to be illusory: as a working-class brown child in a decidedly white institution; a young man discovering queer culture and experiencing his first, formative love affairs; a talented but often overlooked actor, on the road with an experimental theater company; and an older Londoner whose late-in-life marriage fills his days with an unexpected sense of happiness and security.
Moving in and out of Dave’s orbit are the Hadlows. Estranged from his parents, who remain close to Dave, Giles directs his privilege into a career as a powerful right-wing politician, whose reactionary vision for England pokes perilous holes in Dave’s stability. As the story accelerates toward the present day, the two men’s lives and values will finally collide in a cruel shock of violence.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for sending a digital ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
19. The Treasure Hunters Club by Tom Ryan
Setting: Nova Scotia
Publication Date: October 15, 2024
For nearly a century, people have ventured to the idyllic seaside town of Maple Bay in search of a legendary lost pirate treasure, but locals know there’s more than just gold buried in the sand. As the paths of three strangers converge in Maple Bay, the truth is about to be blown wide open. But not before the bodies start to pile up.
Peter Barnett is rapidly approaching 40 with little to show for it when a mysterious letter invites him to Maple Bay and the mansion his estranged family has called home for generations.
Seventeen-year-old Dandy Feltzen is isolated and adrift following the death of her beloved grandfather, until his final request and a tantalizing clue sets her on a mission to solve the mystery he spent his entire life chasing.
Cass Jones has given up on her dream of being a successful author when an unexpected opportunity lands in her lap: a housesitting gig in remote Maple Bay, where she stumbles on the perfect subject matter for her breakout book—and the handsome sailor who might be just the person to help her research it.
Peter, Dandy and Cass have never met, but they’re on a collision course with each other and the mystery that has defined Maple Bay for two centuries, and none of them are prepared for the shocking truths that may or may not still be buried there.
20. Precipice by Robert Harris
Setting: London, England
Publication Date: Septembere 17, 2024
Summer 1914. A world on the brink of catastrophe.
In London, twenty-six-year-old Venetia Stanley—aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless—is part of a fast group of upper-crust bohemians and socialites known as “The Coterie.” She’s also engaged in a clandestine love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state.
As Asquith reluctantly leads the country into war with Germany, a young intelligence officer with Scotland Yard is assigned to investigate a leak of top-secret documents. Suddenly, what was a sexual intrigue becomes a matter of national security that could topple the British government—and will alter the course of political history.
21. A Grave in the Woods by Martin Walker
Setting: France
Publication Date: September 24, 2024
When Abby, an American archaeologist, arrives in St. Denis on the heels of her divorce, she hopes to make a new life for herself as a specialist guide for visiting tourists. So when a local British couple discover a grave from World War II on their property, Abby is able to put her training to good use. As it turns out, in the grave are the remains of two German women and an Italian submarine officer who had a big secret to hide. The women are suspected of having had links to the German garrison in Bordeaux during the war. It’s up to Bruno, just recovered from a gunshot wound earlier in the year, to unravel the mystery—and its contemporary relevance. His task is made more difficult by the horrible heat-dome summer, which is raising the temperature for miles around, as unprecedented amounts of rain drench the Massif Central and threaten increasingly dramatic floods.
As Bruno drills to the heart of the case, matters get even more complicated when both Abby’s financially distressed ex-husband and a mysterious dashing Italian naval officer arrive, with very different ideas in mind. Once again, Bruno is left to serve the guilty their just rewards, and his friends, some sumptuous Perigordian cuisine.
Thank you to NetGalley, Knopf and Penguin Random House for sending an ARC of this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
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