Sep 15

Sep 15 Books Publishing This Week

By mid-September, you can feel the year beginning to turn. Summer hasn't entirely disappeared—the afternoons can still surprise you with their warmth, and most of the trees remain green—but mornings arrive with a coolness that makes you linger over a warm cup of coffee. The light has changed, too. It falls more softly through the windows and disappears a little earlier each evening, giving you permission to come inside and settle in.

You find yourself craving a new book.

September has always carried the feeling of a fresh start, even when your school days are long behind you. Maybe it's the memory of new notebooks and sharpened pencils, or simply the shift from summer's spontaneity back toward familiar routines. Either way, opening a new book in mid-September feels particularly satisfying. It's a small beginning tucked inside a season of change.

You choose your book and find somewhere comfortable to read. Perhaps you're still outside, taking advantage of a golden afternoon with an iced coffee beside you. Or maybe the first truly cool day has sent you indoors, where an open window lets in a breeze while you curl up with something warm to drink. The air carries the faint scent of leaves and earth, and somewhere outside, the cicadas are still holding onto summer.

Then you turn to the first page.

For a little while, you know nothing about what lies ahead. The characters are strangers, the setting is unfamiliar, and every page holds the possibility of discovering a story you'll love. That sense of anticipation feels especially fitting now. Fall is approaching, cozy reading season is beginning, and publishing's busy autumn calendar is filling shelves with new stories.

If you're looking for the book that will accompany you into the changing season, this week offers plenty of possibilities. Here are the new books publishing this week that deserve a place on your fall TBR.

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Books Publishing September 13 - 19

Blue Jean Summer by Maggie Gates

Hayes Wilder needs to find a wife—pronto. After returning to the small town of Honey Hollow before his grandfather’s death, he’s shocked to learn that the sprawling Wilder Estate was left to him. All Hayes wants is the one thing money can’t buy—more time with his grandfather. Failing that, he’ll do whatever it takes to save his grandfather’s legacy from falling into the wrong hands. Even if it means marrying in order to satisfy the terms of the will.

Catherine Foster, reigning Miss Virginia and former Honey Hollow native (who had a childhood crush on Hayes), is saddled with mountains of medical debt ever since her mother’s death. Running out of time to figure out her next move, Catherine reconnects with Hayes at his grandfather’s funeral.

Hayes and Catherine impulsively strike a bargain: He’ll pay off her debts, but only if they get married. Despite the situation, Hayes and Catherine look forward to getting to know each other as adults—after the wedding. Which is tougher than anticipated when the entire town has eyes on them and his half brother keeps circling the property like a vulture, determined to poke holes in their marriage. Most troubling of all, this pair may have miscalculated how much they have in common—enough for this cowboy to fall in love for real.

Word Salad: A Novel by Susan Coll

Matilda loves logic and order, and now her structured world is falling apart—in a bookstore.

Former economics major Matilda is moving back to her hometown of Washington D.C. to care for her ailing mother, and she’s desperate for money. She takes a job at her neighborhood bookstore and tries, in vain, to make sense of illogical business of books. To make things worse, she’s forced to team up with a new hire—the enigmatic, flaky, larger-than-life, Sage—who shows up on her first day of work with zero administrative skills and her tiny, puffy, incessantly urinating dog that resembles an underfed rat.

Something in the chaos begins to remind Matilda of her long-neglected creative side, and she starts to rediscover the person she once was before so much got in the way. But things get even more unmanageable when Matilda and Sage are tasked with putting together an event for the reclusive and controversial Dr. Jordan Rutabaga, a windbag of a public intellectual with a cult following that includes a number of people who would like to literally and figuratively see him dead. Rutabaga has a long list of alleged misdeeds, from plagiarism to failure to pay child support to stiffing the nanny.

American Nightmare by Kelly McWilliams

In this haunting historical novel, a light-skinned Black man goes undercover to investigate lynchings in the South, only to be confronted by the very evil that has pursued him since childhood...

Clark Wendell White first encountered the Nightmare as a child during the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, when he and his father stood guard over their family home. In the eyes of the mob of men wielding torches through the streets, Clark sensed this malevolent presence. It was then that the Nightmare took shape, burrowing deep into his mind and feeding on his fear. As Clark steps into adulthood, the Nightmare is always on his heels, threatening to overtake him.

Years later, the same haunting feeling drives Clark to the NAACP’s headquarters in New York City, where he answers an ad seeking light-skinned Black men for dangerous undercover work. As a spy for the NAACP, Clark investigates lynching sites, impersonating the very Nightmare that once tormented him.

As Clark descends deeper into this double life, another force rises: a new chapter of the Ku Klux Klan is introduced, right in the storied streets of New York City. Among its eager recruits is Sam Cahill, Walter’s first Nightmare, and the only one who can see past Walter’s disguise. Now Clark must outwit both the living and the dead as he confronts a past that refuses to stay buried and a future where the cost of passing could sacrifice more than his soul.

Inspired by the life of civil rights activist Walter White, who passed as a white man to expose the brutality of lynchings from the Midwest to the South, American Nightmare is a gripping work of historical fiction that reveals the most terrifying monsters aren’t those that go bump in the night but those that walk among us.

A Thousand Monstrous Forms by Saratoga Schaefer

Artist Poppy Reed doesn’t care if others think her marriage to Celia Marie Fox, a wealthy art dealer, is impulsive. Sure, they’ve only known each other for six months, and Celia has an infamous romantic reputation, but Poppy is brimming with excitement when she moves across the country to Celia’s home: a formidable, isolated, and art-filled manor called Busirane.

As Poppy tries to celebrate her first weeks of marriage and enjoy her new home, Busirane seems intent on rebuffing her every attempt to settle in. Strange noises and confounding occurrences lead Poppy to believe the house is haunted, a suspicion worsened by Celia’s insistence that Poppy avoid the locked basement.

When Celia leaves for a work trip, Poppy is left alone in the house, then finds herself snowed in. Surrounded by secrets, stalked by faceless statues, and beset by bodiless whispers, she struggles to trust her wife—and her own mind. When Poppy is eventually drawn to the forbidden basement, dark truths shatter everything she thought she knew throwing her into a desperate bid for survival.

Home: A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness and Healing from Complex PTSD by Amy Smyth Miller

Her past held the answers-if she was brave enough to face it.

After nearly losing her husband, Amy Smyth Miller's panic spirals out of control. Therapy reveals a diagnosis: Complex PTSD. In search of healing, Amy embarks on a harrowing excavation of her past-childhood neglect, homelessness, parental addiction, and a family history shadowed by suicide. Amid the wreckage, she discovers the people and circumstances that kept her safe and helped to shape her life: her wise great-grandmother's teachings, the watchful eyes of caring adults, and her own fierce determination. Each memory is a clue, each family story a piece of the puzzle. But the most elusive truth is buried in a forgotten childhood memory-one that holds the key to her deepest fear.

Part investigation, part love letter to survival, Home is a courageous story of trauma and transformation, love and forgiveness, and realizing that sometimes the home you're searching for is the one you build inside yourself.

But For Fortune by Erin Miller Reid

On the surface, Corinth Eaton's life is going according to plan. She is succeeding in her third year of medical school and in a serious relationship with a man she intends to marry. In reality, Corinth is barely afloat, struggling with debilitating anxiety and depression, as well as the recent death of her father. A split-second decision results in her suspension from surgery rotation and reassignment to Maxwood, the state psychiatric institution where her grandmother was a patient for decades. When Corinth discovers Granny's chart at Maxwood, she's desperate to make sense of the narrative in its pages—events her family refuses to discuss. The Granny she knows is docile and incoherent from years of medication and institutionalization, unable to provide her own account. But Corinth's rotation at Maxwood might just allow her to connect with her grandmother in ways she couldn't before.

Blooming from the seeds of author Erin Miller Reid's family history, But for Fortune follows two women fifty years apart as they attempt to give voice to their own silenced realities. What unfolds is a whirling intergenerational exploration of mental illness, discrimination, and the insidious nature of family secrets. Writing in lush prose and drawing on her own experiences as a doctor, Reid weaves together a story that is at once incisive, heartfelt, and deeply human.

Daughters of the Wreckage by Stefanie Koens

Two women. One shipwreck. And four centuries of secrets.

Shortly before Christmas in 2018, Tess McCarthy, after years as a hard-working English teacher who never did anything out of the ordinary, flies to Western Australia’s remote Abrolhos Islands. She is in search of answers–both to the infamous Batavia shipwreck and her personal family crises.

In 1628, Saskia, an orphaned young Dutchwoman, boards Batavia with relatives, bound for a new and potentially dangerous life in the East Indies–only for her world to first collide with Aris Jansz, the ship’s taciturn under surgeon.

Tess, Saskia, and Aris–their lives linked by secrets that span generations–carry the baggage of past losses and the uncertainty of their futures. And, in the most unlikely circumstances, they may find qualities that echo through centuries: faith, acceptance, and love.

A woman searching for answers in her own life finds them–and much more–in the wreckage and haunting stories of the Batavia shipwreck.

Previously published in Australia as Daughters of Batavia.

Falling for Peachtree Bluff by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Welcome to Peachtree Bluff: a sweet, cozy small town where family is everything. The “go-to for elevated beach reads,” (People), Kristy Woodson Harvey, returns just in time for pumpkin spice season.

The air is crisper, the water is calmer, but, when it comes to the Murphy family, nothing is ever quite as simple as it seems.

Youngest sister Emerson is busy planning her dream wedding to Kyle. But her difficulty expanding her family is overshadowing her joy. Pregnant middle sister Sloane and her husband Adam’s dream house has turned into a nightmare. Everything is over time, over budget, and Sloane is over it. Eldest sister Caroline, as always, is there to swoop in and get her sisters’ lives under control. Until her focus is more than a little shifted by Emerson’s hunky costar who manages to sweep her right off her feet—just as her not-quite-ex-husband decides it’s high time he begged Caroline for a second chance.

Matriarch Ansley and her new husband Jack have finally hit their stride. But when a scandal that would affect every single Peachtree Bluff citizen comes to light—and it seems like Jack just might be at the center of it—Ansley questions whether he is actually the man she thought he was.

Through it all, these women must rely on their powerful family bonds, and the quirky characters and small-town charm of the place that, no matter what, always calls them home.

The Gates of Midnight by Helene Wecker

This is the long-awaited, emotionally resonant finale to Helene Wecker’s bestselling Golem and the Jinni trilogy. Set in 1930 New York and Chicago, it reunites Chava, a golem made of clay, and Ahmad, a jinni of fire, after years of separation sustained only by memory, longing, and nightly phone calls. When the shadow of the dangerous wizard Yehudah Schaalman threatens to return, Chava and Ahmad are pulled back together for a final reckoning with love, freedom, belonging, and the cost of survival. Blending Jewish and Middle Eastern folklore with richly immersive historical fiction, Wecker delivers an epic yet intimate conclusion to a beloved series about exile, otherness, and the fragile hope of finding one’s place in the world.

The Midnight Guests by Alex Hay

The Christie Affair meets The White Lotus in this clever novel set during the highly anticipated opening of a decadent new Mayfair hotel, where the enigmatic owner has a dark agenda and a group of guests with their own secrets are in for a thrilling—and deadly—night to remember…

London, 1923. Diana Gold, owner and impresario, throws open the doors to the most opulent new hotel in the city. As the champagne flows and the chandeliers shimmer, millionaires and gamblers rub shoulders with film stars and royalty. Everyone who’s anyone is here.

Everyone, that is, except two guests due at midnight. Powerful and dangerous, they’ve dragged Diana from the gutter and taught her all she knows. Her fate rests in their hands. If everything goes right, a whole new life awaits. But one mistake will cost her everything.

For this is much more than a hotel – it’s the heart of Diana’s intricate masterplan. Over twenty-four fateful hours, her guests will learn why they’re really here. And Diana will take perfect care of them – unless they take care of her first.

But when a body is found in the depths of the hotel, Diana’s lavish opening night suddenly spirals out of control...

Catherine Over Water by Nancy Schoellkopf

In the heat and smoke of a California autumn, the mother of a kidnapped girl finds unexpected guidance from a chatty young crow she names Veronica, who leads her to abandon her self-imposed isolation and seek hope despite her grief-filled limbo.

When a crow swoops down on a smoky August afternoon and starts speaking with her, mythology professor Catherine Moss assumes someone is playing a joke. Stuck in the anger stage of grief ever since the disappearance of her daughter, Sierra, Catherine does not tolerate tricksters easily. But she does suffer from face blindness, which renders her unable to recognize even familiar people. Crows excel in facial recognition.

Soon this crow—whom Catherine dubs Veronica—is serving as her support animal, perching on her shoulder to whisper the names of students and colleagues in her ear. She also introduces Catherine to her other human friend, an unhoused young artist named Mari. Together, the two lead Catherine to confront her deepest fear: not that Sierra is dead, but that her daughter may one day return radically changed and emotionally damaged.

Set amid the yellowed skies and swirling ash of a California city during fire season, Catherine Over Water addresses the near-unbearable task of dwelling in limbo.

A Rainy Night in Georgia by J.Tom Morgan

In December 2000, Derwin Brown, the newly elected sheriff of DeKalb County, Georgia, was ambushed and murdered in his own driveway just days before taking office. He had run on reform—promising to clean up corruption and restore integrity to the sheriff’s department—defeating the powerful incumbent in a bitter runoff.

The case fell to J.Tom Morgan, then the county’s elected District Attorney. Working alongside local, state, and federal law enforcement, Morgan pursued the case through months of dead ends, mounting pressure, and intense public scrutiny. It became a national media sensation, combining political intrigue with revelations of government corruption, murder-for-hire plots, and a never-before-tried legal strategy in the Georgia criminal justice system. Then the case became personal: Morgan learned that his own name was next on the killer's hit list.

In A Rainy Night in Georgia, Morgan gives readers something almost no one else can—a first-person account of power, danger, and integrity from inside the justice system. What began as a baffling, unsolved murder evolved into one of the most extraordinary political assassination cases in modern American history after a shocking discovery.

Part true-crime thriller, part memoir of public service under fire, this gripping book reveals what it truly costs to hold powerful people accountable.

Open the Floodgates by Nina Schuyler

We are in the midst of a profound legal shift: from New Zealand to India to Ecuador, real-world laws have granted personhood to rivers. With a mix of magic and pathos, Open the Floodgates imagines this new reality with a new configuration of the human and other-than-human relationship.

In an unnamed California town, the River is granted personhood and has the right–-and urgent need–-to argue in court for its existence. But powerful, well-funded enemies are determined to keep the River exactly as it is: gunk-filled, toxic, a convenient dumping ground for waste. The story moves like water, entering the minds of the town’s people, pigeons, deer, dogs, cats, the trees, the River’s home, and the River itself. When the River moves, the text winds its way along the page, mimicking water. When the River is ultimately jailed, the town faces a reckoning: what do we owe the River? And the River must answer in turn: what, if anything, does it owe humans?

John Baer The Extraordinary Ordinary: A Memoir in Photographs, 1945–1954 by Andrew Baer and Megan Moynihan

John Baer The Extraordinary Ordinary: A Memoir in Photographs, 1945–1954 (John Baer Archive, September 15, 2026; $65) is the first monograph highlighting this remarkable collection of images of postwar Europe rebuilding after the war and 1950s New York City bursting with optimism. In a story reminiscent of Vivian Maier, Baer put away his camera in 1954 and after his death in 1994, his son Andrew found three boxes containing nearly 4,000 negatives and prints. This release marks the first time these images have been published and shared, representing only a small sliver of his stunning archive.

The Hanged Man by Jane Brookwood

Fiona Miller runs a metaphysical gift shop in Pineridge Hollow. She reads tarot, sells crystals, mixes tea and generally minds her own business. Until she can't. When the son of her long-lost best friend Maggie turns up dead, Fiona has decided she's getting to the bottom of it before she's even aware of the decision. What stops her cold is the timing — moments before she learned of his death, she pulled The Hanged Man tarot card on the heels of a monster zoomie rampage by her cat and familiar, Rosie. Maggie's son, found hanging in an eerie echo of the boy on the card. Two young men, gone too soon. Accident? Suicide? Murder? The town has already decided, but Fiona's tarot deck isn't so sure.

With her Pineridge Hollow crew and Rosie at her side, Fiona follows the cards into buried grudges, old money, and secrets the town spent decades hiding. On top of everything, The Hanged Man keeps making himself known. Flip it on its head, he whispers. Look… really look, and then, be prepared to wait. You just might be surprised…

The Midlife Plot Twist by Lindsay Goldwert and Gabrielle Moss

It’s not a midlife crisis—it’s a midlife plot twist! Packed with honest, insightful, and deeply relatable advice for anyone who has reached that middle point of life, this humorous and practical guide rejects the outdated cliché of the midlife crisis, instead offering a fresh, empowering vision for any woman in her 40s or 50s looking for reinvention, courage, and clarity.

Bizzy Bear's Big Book of Words by Benji Davies

Make learning fun with Bizzy Bear! This interactive board book is perfect for teaching basic words, items, concepts, and more.

With thirty flaps to lift and over five hundred words featured in this large-format board book, Bizzy Bear fans will love to pore over the many new words and pictures they’ll encounter inside. Color-coded thumb tabs make page turns easy for little hands as readers flip between spreads of numbers and colors, daily routines, a construction site, and even a firefighting scene! With more than twenty-two million copies sold worldwide, Bizzy Bear has become the best companion for any adventure.

Hooray for the Treeborhood: A Work It Out Wombats Story

Find out what is so special about the Treeborhood, the home to three wombat siblings and a tree full of fun-loving neighbors, in this storybook based on the PBS series Work It Out Wombats!—launching an exciting publishing collaboration with WGBH.

Wombat Zadie and two of her friends set out to make a video of folks in the Treeborhood answering the question “What do you love about the Treeborhood?” When Kaya says “Action” and presses record, her little brother JunJun gets a brain freeze and can’t ask the question. Kaya and Zadie have helpful suggestions to help JunJun get over his stage fright, including belly breathing, but the answer to JunJun’s problem comes from within. Just like in the PBS television show Work It Out Wombats!, this fun story engages kids in a tour of the Treeborhood and its inhabitants, while the problem-solving subtly introduces computational thinking—one of the building blocks of learning how to code.

Where's Waldo? The Golden Dragon Chase

Where’s Waldo? On his biggest adventure yet: helping children learn to read! Join Waldo and friends for a Lunar New Year celebration as they help find and return a golden dragon statue.

For the first time ever, Waldo is targeting a new generation of readers in an exciting new early reader series. It's Lunar New Year, but there’s a problem—a golden dragon statue has come alive and is on the loose! Can Waldo and his friends track it down and bring it back where it belongs? Join Waldo on an exciting search-and-find adventure that blends storytelling and discovery. With expertly designed guidance for parents and caregivers, the book includes helpful notes to support children as they gain confidence and independence on their reading journey.

Isabelle Correa - Portrait of a Person Who Pushes Love Away in Fear of Losing It

A brutally honest, darkly funny portrait of a woman raised on violence, God, and American television, who spends her adult life trying to understand why she keeps mistaking hurt for love and keeps coming back anyway.

Turncloak by L. K. Steven

Three rival mages race for power, vengeance, and the fate of Atherin in the epic second installment of the Silvercloak Saga, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Our Infinite Fates.

The stunning first edition hardcover features red sprayed edges, a designed case stamp, and full-color endpaper maps—while supplies last!

Revenge drove Saffron Killoran to go undercover in the Bloodmoon gang. But now, with any chance of retribution gone, she sees only one path forward: harnessing a long-dormant power to fix her ruinous mistakes.

Meanwhile, the new kingpin of the Bloodmoons has discovered Saffron’s true identity as a Silvercloak—and her ultimate goal of bringing his empire down. As old wounds resurface and fresh enemies close in, he finds himself torn between the cause to which he has devoted his life and the fate of the traitorous mage he loves.

Hot on their heels is an ambitious rookie detective sent to stake out the Bloodmoons’ growing rivals. She will stop at nothing to destroy both gangs—and anything or anyone who dares to stand in her way.

Caught in a cat-and-mouse game of trust and betrayal spanning continents, Saffron must choose where her loyalties lie—and determine if her quest to unmake time itself is worth becoming a villain to the whole world.

Corpse Creek by Vincent Ralph

Welcome to Bleak Haven: The town you won't (or can't!) leave...

The next eerie novel in the Bleak Haven series, in Vincent Ralph's signature, terrifying style!

In 2008, Ethan’s older brother drowned in Bleak Haven’s cursed creek. While the coroner ruled out foul play, Ethan has always suspected that there’s more to the story.

Four years later, 18-year-old Ethan chooses the anniversary of the tragedy to finally return to the creek, attempting to gain the closure that has always eluded him.

What starts as a healing process aided by his loyal friends turns sinister when something emerges from the shadows: a figure that looks unnervingly like Ethan’s dead brother, begging for a sacrifice that could change everything.

As Ethan digs deeper into the creek’s dark history, he discovers that someone did return when all seemed lost. Maybe they were the ‘miracle’ child the news reports painted them as. Or perhaps they only came back because someone took their place.

If that’s true, Ethan really could bring his lost brother home. But how far is he willing to go…and at what cost?

Fear Farm by Vincent Ralph

Welcome to Bleak Haven: The town you won't (or can't!) leave...

The nail-biting conclusion to the Bleak Haven series, in Vincent Ralph's signature, terrifying style!

The Fear Farm fright-fest is the one night of the year when Bleak Haven’s residents are happy to be afraid.

Most people turn a blind eye to the "accidents" that have previously blighted the attraction, but seventeen-year-old Tori Swift has other ideas.

Convinced that there’s an aspiring killer in their midst, Tori auditions alongside her classmates, perfecting her role as the ideal villain while secretly searching for the real thing.

But when tragedy strikes, a murderer is suddenly on the loose in a place where everyone pays to be terrified.

I'm a Believer by Micky Dolenz and Mark Bego

A remarkable journey through the life of legendary Monkees singer/actor Micky Dolenz, from his starring role as "Mickey Braddock" at age 12 in TV's "Circus Boy" to the opening casting call that brought "The Monkees" together, and straight on to the present day.

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