Sep 29

Sep 29 Books Publishing This Week

By the end of September, autumn has begun to settle into the everyday. The change is no longer something you have to search for. You see it in the scattering of leaves along the sidewalk, feel it in the coolness that greets you when you step outside in the morning, and notice it in the golden light that disappears earlier each evening. Summer hasn't vanished completely—an unexpectedly warm afternoon may still tempt you outside—but you know the season has turned.

Your reading habits begin to change with it. You reach for a new book and find yourself craving a different kind of reading afternoon: a comfortable chair near the window, a warm drink within reach, perhaps a candle flickering nearby. If the weather is beautiful, you might take your book outside one more time, wrapping yourself in a light sweater and finding a sunny spot where you can enjoy the crisp air.

You open to the first page and settle in. For a few moments, everything is unknown. You haven't met the characters or discovered their secrets. You don't know whether you'll read slowly, savoring a chapter each evening, or become so absorbed that you'll finish the book before the weekend. That's part of the pleasure of beginning something new: the entire experience is still waiting for you.

Outside, September is preparing to hand the year over to October. Leaves flutter from branches, evenings grow cooler, and the comforts of fall begin to feel familiar again. Inside, you turn another page, letting a new story take shape just as a new season does beyond your window.

And the timing couldn't be better. A fresh week brings a fresh stack of stories to discover. If you're ready to choose what you'll read as September gives way to October, here are the new books publishing this week.

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Books Publishing September 27 - October 3

Fate by Zeruya Shalev

The paths of two women from different generations cross in this nuanced, heartfelt novel that explores the early days of Israel and its uncertain future.

When Atara’s elderly father dies, he leaves behind a host of unanswered questions about his violent past and his strained relationship with his daughter. Yet one of their final meetings seems to provide a key to understanding: he mistakes Atara for his first wife, Rachel, revealing a warmth and kindness she had never seen in him. Atara sets out to find Rachel and uncover this long-buried chapter of his life. Why did their marriage end abruptly in 1948, after only one year? How were they changed by fighting together in the underground to establish the State of Israel?

Atara’s encounter with Rachel will upend her own life and that of her family, sparking an uncontainable cascade of events. As their history is exposed, it illuminates but also casts a pall on the present and the future, confronting each character with dilemmas of fate, control, responsibility, faith, disappointment, and love.

Cursed City by Kate Golden

Welcome back to Harker Academy for Deviant Defense, where the line between hunter and hunted has never been thinner.

To rescue someone close to her, Viv must team up with Reid’s violent, unpredictable older brother, Deacon. Her uneasy truce with him offers Viv something Reid never could: the chance to embrace her darkness.

Viv’s mission takes her to the center of Astera's seedy underbelly with none other than the White Stag as her guide. But when a bounty on Viv's head puts those she cares about in danger, Viv will be forced to go to lengths she never dreamed in order to protect them.

With enemies closing in from all sides and a ticking clock on her life, Viv must save the Half City from destruction while surviving a betrayal that strikes at the heart of everything she’s fighting for. Because in a world where monsters wear familiar faces and temptation cuts deeper than any blade, making it through her second semester at Harker will take more than skill—it will take everything Viv has left to give. Who can she really trust in a city that thrives on lies?

Take a Chance, Sasha Sinclair by Ashley Herring Blake

Sasha Sinclair is used to being alone. Her parents, successful documentary filmmakers, died in a car accident three years ago, leaving her with a legacy she’s been unable to live up to. Instead, she spends her time with casual hookups and odd jobs as she travels around the country. But she can’t stop thinking about her parents’ dream project and is determined to make it a reality: the story of Alice Bishop in Clare Mountain, North Carolina.

Margot Bishop is not a witch, contrary to the town’s century-long suspicion about her family. When her ancestor Alice Bishop showed up to Clare Mountain in 1901 and opened Thornrose Apothecary, the town was flummoxed by this strange enigma of a woman, calling her the Rose Witch. Now, the Bishops also run Ghostlight, an occult-themed amusement park that fully leans into the rumors.

Despite the draw of the Rose Witch and the haunted Thornrose Woods where Alice had lived, however, the Bishops’ businesses aren’t doing well. When Margot’s mother comes up with a solution—a documentary film about their family—Margot can’t get on board, not when her family’s legacy is at stake. Even worse, she’s deemed the point person for Sasha, the charming, peppy wannabe-filmmaker. But as they spend more time together, diving deeper into the true story of Alice Bishop, the ice slowly melts and their relationship turns into a heart-fluttering rollercoaster ride, one they aren’t sure they want to get off.

The Vanished Sister by Sherry Thomas

Charlotte Holmes—aka Sherlock Holmes—becomes entangled in a puzzling missing person case that hits close to home for her beloved Mrs. Watson in this Victorian-set mystery from the USA Today bestselling author of A Ruse of Shadows.

It’s been three years since Charlotte Holmes struck a decisive blow against Moriarty's operations in Britain, three years of relative calm and benign developments. In a buoyant mood, everyone gathers at Lord Ingram's seaside cottage in North Devon for what promises to be a perfect summer holiday. Until Mrs. Watson receives an invitation from Mrs. Carstairs, her long-estranged sister, to attend a house party nearby.

Mrs. Carstairs has married spectacularly well. She is the mistress of a great manor, a doyen of all domestic arts, and still an unforgettable beauty. Now she clamors for a reconciliation with her sister. Mrs. Watson does not trust Mrs. Carstairs's motives. Yet she cannot help but feel tremors of the old admiration for this once-beloved sister.

Then Mrs. Carstairs disappears without a trace. The next day a woman is discovered floating on the waves, her build and coloring matching those of Mrs. Carstairs. But her husband insists that the corpse fished out of the Bristol Channel cannot be his wife. So where is the real Mrs. Carstairs? Would she have purposely dragged Mrs. Watson into a murder investigation? Or was it Sherlock Holmes's involvement that she needed from the very beginning?

Living in the Long Shadow: Surviving a Legacy of Mental Illness by Suzanne Sherman

This poignant and compelling memoir, set in ’60s–’70s Los Angeles, traces a daughter’s experience of her mother’s schizophrenia and its lasting fallout before she ultimately reckons with her mother’s suicide and trusts in enduring love.

When Suzanne Sherman is four, her musically gifted mother is struck by sudden-onset schizophrenia, altering the course of Suzanne’s childhood.

Told in dual timelines—the years of her childhood and the two weeks following her mother’s suicide when Suzanne is eighteen—Living in the Long Shadow traces Suzanne’s coming of age in the shadow of mental illness as her family struggles with its far-reaching effects. As a teenager, Suzanne makes the difficult decision to move out of her mother’s house and go to live with her father and stepfamily—a challenging but ultimately positive choice. While her mother manages life on medication, Suzanne forms a friendship with her, sharing values, confidences, and a love of music and poetry. But just a year after leaving Los Angeles for college, excited for her future, she learns that, unable to live with the medication or without it, her mother has died by suicide.

Ten years later, an extraordinary sign comes from her mother—one that affirms the enduring presence of her love—and for Suzanne, grief, at last, begins to make room for acceptance.

Here Comes the Band by Shadra Strickland

From Ezra Jack Keats Award and Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe New Talent Award winner Shadra Strickland comes a dazzling picture book about a young child who watches in awe as an HBCU band takes the field and works its magic.

Happily Ever Afterlife by Emma R. Alban

Frannie's awful boss, celebrated literary novelist Henry L. Olsen, just told her that her latest manuscript is a dud—again. Frustrated and lonely, Frannie stomps around the ninth floor of the famously haunted Dakota Building in Manhattan, desperate for something to change. And then, something does.

Bridgette, the ghost of a little girl from 1889, appears out of nowhere and asks Frannie to play catch. Shocked and wildly curious, Frannie says yes to the ghostly invitation and soon meets Bridgette's ghost brother, Michael . . . and the children's exceedingly attractive and aloof 1960s ghost mom, Elsa.

Fascinated, and more than a little flustered, Frannie starts secretly writing a book about Elsa (a.k.a. Hot Ghost Mom). And while her boss is on book tour, through a mutual affection for musicals, banter, and the ghost children, Frannie and Elsa slowly become friends, until Frannie finds herself tumbling head over heels in love with a ghost tied to a building she couldn't afford to live in over four lifetimes.

Now Frannie has to either give up her ambitions of becoming a novelist to remain Henry's assistant in the Dakota forever or somehow free her ghost family from their immortal home. With her career, future, and heart on the line, can Frannie find a way to write them all a happily ever after . . . life?

Rough Cuts by Glenn R. Miller

From Glenn R. Miller, the acclaimed author of "Doorman Wanted," comes a new satirical novel on censorship in the arts. "Rough Cuts" follows Patrick J. Shepard, a silent film director at the end of his career who has just completed his masterpiece. But there’s one problem: Ohio. Here, Harold Dawdry–a young, second-string minister at a small church–has been appointed to the 1926 State Film Censorship Board. He regards this appointment as his ticket to greater power and influence, and he takes his delicate sensibilities out on Shepard by making drastic cuts to his final film.

Horse Girl by Terri Farley

The American mustang―wild, wind-tossed, and thundering across the open West―might have vanished into myth if not for Velma Bronn Johnston. A shy woman who was left with physical effects from a childhood battle with polio, Johnston was living a quiet life on a struggling ranch near Reno, Nevada, when she discovered wild horses being brutally transported to slaughter. Outraged, she reported it―only to be offered a permit allowing her to do the same horrific deed. But instead of backing down, Johnston took a stand.

Her refusal to profit from cruelty launched her into a firestorm of activism, upending her life. Laughed at, threatened, and dismissed, she pressed on. When a rival mocked her as “Wild Horse Annie,” she seized the name as a badge of honor and purpose. Embracing her new identity, she began to raid illegal holding pens under the cover of darkness, captivated the media, and became the voice of a movement. Her biggest allies? Schoolchildren across America, whose letter-writing campaign swept the country.

Johnston’s commitment to these majestic animals was finally recognized in 1971 when Congress unanimously passed legislation to protect the nation’s wild horses―an enduring victory for one determined woman and the animals she refused to abandon.

Award-winning author Terri Farley presents the captivating story of Horse Girl, revealing Velma Bronn Johnston in a new light through family photos and journal entries never before published. Farley’s storytelling brings Johnston’s unwavering courage into the spotlight, revealing a woman determined to protect the wild mustang―no matter the cost.

Unfolding the Heart by Rosanne Annoni

For fans of memoirs by spiritual seekers and therapists, a contemporary memoir of healing, loss, and awakening set between East Coast retreats and everyday life.

At the age of ten, Rosanne Annoni had a vision of Christ calling her to become a nun—only to have her devout Catholic mother respond to this news with a slap across the face. Traversing the time between that childhood vision and a solitary winter in Pema Chodron’s cabin at Gampo Abbey, Unfolding the Heart weaves together raw personal storytelling, spiritual discovery, and psychological insight. Through the highs of spiritual clarity and the depths of trauma, she searches relentlessly for her true path—and finds it not in renunciation, but in presence.

Spanning decades of grief, motherhood, cancer, and healing, this memoir explores the messy beauty of a life lived with courageous self-inquiry. Through the Diamond Approach, Buddhist practice, and deep personal relationships, Rosanne unearths wisdom from adversity and uncovers grace in the ordinary. For spiritual seekers, healing professionals, or anyone navigating loss, midlife change, or a desire for inner truth, Unfolding the Heart is a cathartic, hopeful story of letting go, leaning in, and discovering that spiritual path isn’t somewhere far away—it’s right here, within.

Something Followed Us Home Edited by Cynthia Pelayo

Dive into the chilling depths of Latiné horror with this groundbreaking anthology, edited by Bram Stoker Award winner Cynthia Pelayo, where each story reimagines immigration, colonization, faith, and folklore as the fears we inherit and carry across borders and generations.

Something followed us home. It crawled in with our prayers, slipped into our beds, watched from mirrors, waited in water, and learned our names.

Gathering chilling work from some of today’s most acclaimed Latiné voices, this horror anthology moves through haunted households, brutal landscapes, sacred spaces turned dangerous, and bodies claimed by forces both ancient and intimate. The dead murmur behind locked doors. Bones rebuild themselves under merciless suns. Love becomes a doorway for demonic hunger. Blood, devotion, and memory intertwine as the past presses back with teeth.

Something Followed Us Home is an unnerving, visceral, and impossible-to-shake collection that proves that what is carried forward does not remain quiet, and what follows us rarely leaves without taking something in return.

Featuring stories by: Agustina Bazterrica, Isabel Cañas, Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Zoraida Córdova, Ann Dávila Cardinal, Mariana Enriquez, Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro, Xochitl Gonzalez, Leopoldo Goût, Ananda Lima, Juan Martinez, Mónica Ojeda, Daniel José Older, Cynthia Pelayo, Lilliam Rivera, Diana Rodriguez Wallach, Alex Segura

When the World Was Happy by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

A heartrending but uplifting tale of twins and their group of friends who are forced to navigate life, relationships, and grief after their world is turned upside down from New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

CheChe knows that he and his twin sister Emma lead an unusual life. They enjoy spending time with their parents and grandparents, love to read, and don’t have a huge circle of friends—and they’re happy. Then, just a few months after they turn seventeen, three gunmen show up one morning at their El Paso, Texas, high school, and everything changes.

CheChe loses a leg, and both he and Emma have friends who die. Suddenly, the world feels like a very different place. But what they find hasn’t changed—or has only gotten deeper—is their love for their family, their close friends, and one another, and as they begin to heal, they create their own little community, one that wields the power of humor, kindness, and hope.

CheChe finds himself doing all kinds of things he never expected from his junior year: relearning to walk, falling in love with the boy he’s nursed a longtime crush on, making friends with a kid he always found intimidating. By the end of this life-changing school year, none of them will be the same, and many of them will have found their voices in ways they never imagined.

Just the Good Parts by Robbie Couch

From the New York Times bestselling author of If I See You Again Tomorrow comes a stunningly romantic, speculative novel about a teen looking for his missing dad, who keeps getting pulled into others’ memories and crossing paths with a handsome stranger who also doesn’t belong there.

Caspen Coolsby’s dad is missing. But even though it’s only been a few months, everyone has given up on finding him. Except for Caspen.

He finally gets a break in the case when he meets his new upstairs neighbors and discovers he can somehow transport himself into each of the college students’ memories using candle scents that remind them of important moments. No one loved candles more than his dad, so Caspen is sure there must be clues pointing toward where to find him hidden in the memories.

His thinking hits a snag, though, when a handsome boy named Lars keeps popping up in memories where he also doesn’t belong. As the lines between memory and reality begin to blur, Caspen can’t help but fall for the mysterious boy who keeps chipping away at the rose-colored lens he’s always seen life through. But will Caspen be able to find his dad and his crush outside of these stolen moments if it means reliving the hard truths of his past and not just the good parts?

Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez

For the first printing only! This paperback features sprayed stenciled edges while the special edition supply lasts. This reissue has a brand-new look, a note from the author, and an introduction by Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer.

A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)

Navigating through the intolerant world of the early aughts and their own insecurities, three teenage boys find each other and the confidence to come out of the closet in this seminal queer coming-of-age novel.

Jason Carillo is a jock with a steady girlfriend. He’s on track to play ball, marry his high school sweetheart, and get as far away from his abusive dad as possible—but that’s if he can get into college with his shaky math grades…and if he can stop dreaming about having sex with guys.

Kyle Meeks is definitely gay, but he’s not planning on telling anyone, least of all his parents. All he wants is to keep his head down and get through high school without incident—until Jason asks him for help in math and all of a sudden, Kyle is spending long hours with a boy he’s always found cute and it’s getting harder and harder to keep his feelings under wraps.

Nelson Glassman is out and loud about it, but being proud of who you are doesn’t mean things don’t get lonely. He’s got a target on his back for the school bullies to kick, and while his mom supports him, she doesn’t entirely understand him. To make things worse, he and his best friend—and longtime crush—Kyle have been spending more and more time apart, and he doesn’t know how to deal.

Messy, honest, and raw, Rainbow Boys follows these three boys as they come of age and come out of the closet in the early aughts in one of the most revolutionary young adult novels in the last quarter century.

Our Favorite Day of the Week by Ashley Franklin & Rahele Jomepour Bell

Musa and his friends return to share their favorite days of the week and why each one is special to them in this sweet and heartwarming picture book sequel to Our Favorite Day of the Year.

Musa is excited to see his classmates at the start of the week, but when he sees Zohra looking sad and asks her why, he discovers Zohra is missing her favorite day of the week! She loves Tuesday, when her neighborhood sanitation workers come around. Musa’s other classmates have favorite days too:

Zadie’s favorite day is Thursday, when her grandma picks her up from school.
Mo’s favorite day is Friday, when he and his family have Shabbat dinner.
Moíses’s favorite day is Sunday, when he gets to play fútbol with his cousins.

In this charming story of friendship and celebrating differences, young readers can discover how entering discussions with an open mind and sharing parts of yourself bring friends together. And a note about the origins of the days of the week at the end of the book will delight children as they identify their favorite day!

Hollow Folk by Andrew K. Clark

The night shift at the Holloway was supposed to be quiet. When grad student Ethan Ray clocks in as night auditor at the aging Holloway mountain resort, he expects paperwork, silence, and a paycheck. Instead, reddish-brown lights bleed across the Appalachian sky. Hard winds whip through the trees without making a sound, and mysterious owl gargoyles come to life.

At 3 a.m., every clock stops. Trapped inside with his co-workers, Kal and Teresa, Ethan realizes the hotel isn’t just old. It’s a boundary. Something ancient has been waiting and is now awake. To escape, they must uncover the Holloway’s secrets, even as unexpected love blossoms between Ethan and Teresa. The problem is, the visions haunting each of them carry the same warning: someone in the hotel cannot be trusted. Gothic romance meets Appalachian folk horror, where the mountains are watching and the dark leaves marks.

London Station by David McCloskey

A new US administration has taken office, installing a brash and unconventional CIA director skeptical of old alliances and determined to disrupt the Agency. When the axe falls on the chief of London Station, the agency veteran decides to spy for the Brits—a betrayal uncovered by his replacement, Artemis Aphrodite Procter. Caught between a turncoat spymaster and a ruthless new boss back at Langley, Procter must now navigate a tense environment as old friends become adversaries and no one knows whom to trust.

Adding to the chaos is a new breed of private intelligence agency: a secretive and powerful company run by a reclusive billionaire with a very different agenda than the two old allies who are suddenly at each other’s throats.

When assets begin dying, Procter and her team in London Station must find out who is leaking the sources’ identities—and why—before both agencies go blind. Soon they will have to decide whether loyalty to the Mission means disobeying the Agency they serve. Immersing readers in the technological revolution upending intelligence tradecraft, London Station explores the changing nature of the spy business and what happens when politics threaten to destroy the special relationship between America and Britain.

Life Plan: Living by Design, Not Default by Rich Harris

Rich Harris provides a practical framework for living with greater clarity, balance, and intention. Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, and a written annual life-planning practice he has followed for three decades, Harris explains why change is hard, how subconscious patterns shape our behavior and decisions, and what it takes to create lasting alignment between who you are and how you live. More than motivational sound bites or traditional self-help platitudes, Life Plan offers a grounded, thoughtful guide to designing a life that reflects what matters most to you.

Pumpkin and Beetle: Super Secret Garden by Jannie Ho

Two vampire cat best friends plus a mysterious treasure—what could go wrong in this young graphic novel full of gentle spooky fun?

Pumpkin and Beetle are vampire cat best friends who sleep during the day, only eat red foods, and go to school at night! In this adventure, Beetle has found something mysterious. To Pumpkin, this treasure looks like a pile of crumbs. They decide to bury it—and soon their whole town is covered in vines. This plant is hungry! Will they be able to save their town? Will curiosity get the better of these two cats?

Pumpkin and Beetle is a delightful graphic novel series for young readers, featuring two vampire cat best friends and their hijinks around their spooky town.

Blood Drunk by Ben Shepherd

Join a new kind of vampire hunter—former gangster Freddie Burns—as he fights for his place, for his family, and for the hell of it in London’s gritty magical underworld. Mostly for the hell of it, to be honest. Freddie Burns just wants ten pints, a spot of football violence, and to take over his uncle’s fading South London crime business. But when a gangland execution goes wrong, Freddie discovers a new kind of organized crime—one where vampires are spine-breakingly real and monsters hide just out of sight. Good thing Freddie has a supernatural gift for giving vampires a kicking—them and anyone else that looks at him funny. Dragged into a world of shadowy organizations, secret sorcerous pacts, gruesome vampire initiations, and a plot to rule it all, Freddie realizes it’s up to him to save the world —or at least not wreck it entirely. He just needs a drink first.

Hungry for Connection by Vanessa Scaringi PhD and Kathryn Garland LCSW

Are you hungry for connection?

Do you turn to food for comfort when you’re feeling lonely, anxious, or depressed? Perhaps you have a history of yo-yo dieting, or use food to deal with stress? If you struggle with emotional eating, undereating, or obsessions about nutrition, you may have an insecure attachment style that is driving your behavior. You aren’t alone. In our increasingly isolated world of technology and social media, people are turning to food or diet culture in an effort to “fill the void,” only to be left unsatisfied and unfulfilled. So, how can you nourish true connection instead?

Based in attachment theory, this essential and timely book reframes emotional and restrictive eating as a deeper struggle for safety and security. With this guide, you’ll identify and examine your own attachment style, learn how attachment wounds can impact your relationship with food, and decrease your dependence on food behaviors as a tool to self-regulate, relieve pain, and find comfort.

With this compassionate guide, you will discover tools to:

Identify why you turn to food to numb painful feelings
Explore the role of social media in feelings of isolation
Cultivate healthy coping behaviors
Feel safer and more secure in your relationships

With this groundbreaking guide, you’ll find powerful skills to heal from the loneliness, anxiety, and attachment wounds that cause disordered eating, and live with more connectedness, meaning, and true fulfillment.

The Daughters of Rosebud by Sonny Buttar

In a heart-wrenching debut, author Sonny Buttar delivers a multigenerational family saga at once haunting and hopeful.

Teacher Salma Chaudhry lives a quiet life, avoiding all attachments. But after a call from her estranged father, the protective shell she lives within starts to crack and the trauma she's buried for eighteen years emerges.

Salma and her older sister Asma were inseparable growing up in small-town Rosebud. While Asma was bold and fearless, Salma tried to keep the peace in their fractured family. But amid their mother's decline and their parents’ rigid expectations, Asma makes a choice that tears the family apart. The fallout changes everything―and forces Salma to choose between her sister and her parents.

Salma has spent years trying to forget. But as she recollects her past and considers reconciliation with her father, a young student opens a surprising connection to Asma's past. In finally facing her history, Salma finds the bravery to love and hope again.

The Daughters of Rosebud is a powerful exploration of sisterhood, family loyalty, and the courage it takes to heal.

The Cosmos and Me: New and Selected Poems by Lucille Lang Day

The Cosmos and Me by Lucille Lang Day is an opus of a life spent pursuing wonder, justice, love, and of course, poetry. In these poems that span over fifty years, Day invites the reader to consider the larger questions of existence and meaning alongside the small joys of the everyday, with poems on the universe alongside poems that consider red shoes or a lost necklace, poems set in outer space alongside poems set in the backyard. Lucille Lang Day is unafraid to ask and to answer the hard questions, to bear witness to our times, be they beautiful, tragic, or both. As California Poet Laureate emeritus Dana Gioia puts it: “Full of both intellect and emotion, The Cosmos and Me lives up to its large and lofty title.”

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