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Spooky season is fast approaching, summer is over and the leaves are starting to change. Most importantly, Starbucks has reintroduced its iconic Pumpkin Spice Latte – it’s officially PSL season. With that, it’s time to find your favourite local café, tuck away in a perfect plaid blanketed reading nook and wish the world away with a good new book. The change of the season leaves no excuse to reach for another vacation read, instead it allows us to indulge in a cosy café romance, or a chilling thriller in the lead-up to Halloween. Whether you are looking for an autumn love affair, for a fall fear-fest, our comprehensive list of the best current autumn reads is sure to give you ample opportunity to hit your To Be Read (TBR) targets for 2024.
Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood
A perfect café read for lovers of a so-called "grumpy-sunshine romance", Rewitched is written by Lucy Jane Wood. Balancing her busy life as a bookkeeper at Lunar Books, and her hidden witchy powers, Belladonna Blackthorn is in a magical rut. But on her 30th birthday, she is summoned by her coven, to undergo a trial where she risks losing her magic forever. Given only the month of October to make things right, and recognising signs that dark forces may be working against her, Belladonna looks for help from everyone in her life. From an unexpected mentor, to a handsome watchman who’s sworn to protect her, Belladonna begins to recognise that help can come form the most unexpected places.
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
The next instalment from our favourite heart-wrenching romance author is the upcoming release of Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. From what we know of her latest novel, one thing is for sure, it will undoubtedly inspire the same emotions as her other books: joy, awkwardness, heartache and a desire to read on. Delving into the lives of two brothers, Peter and Ivan, who are embarking on their separate journeys of love and lust, Rooney tests the limit on how much one life can hold before crumbling in despair. Two brothers navigate the emotional rollercoaster that is love after shared loss in this unsurprisingly breath taking novel from the iconic mind behind Normal People and Conversations With Friends.
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
Making a comeback with his first book release in six years, The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami is a monumental success from one of modern literature’s most important writers. His newest release undertakes the ultimate quest, underpinned by an ode to books. Drawing on the complexity of post-pandemic Earth, Murakami intertwines two disparate nostalgic events for his readers, as he unites the teetering period of uncertainty that occurred not too long ago, and stretched across the globe, with the novel's return to a town that his readers can discern, a place where dreams are watched by the Dream Reader, and where our shadows become separated from our selves.
This Cursed House by Del Sandeen
In perfect time for spooky season comes this all-Southern, scare factor debut novel by Del Sandeen. This Cursed House sets the scene in fall 1962, centred on twenty-seven-year-old Jemma Barker as she journeys back to her roots and accepts a job offer in her ancestral Deep South. Balancing the wire between acceptance and rejection as a result of her skin colour, Jemma begins to feel a sense of unease in her new position with the Duchon family. As Jemma grapples with the gift she’s run from her entire life, she sinks deeper into the disturbing Duchon family secrets. Secrets that stretch back over a century. Secrets that bind her to a sinister fate if she fails to escape from the suffocating hold of her new employers.
The Third Gilmore Girl: A Memoir by Kelly Bishop
Nothing screams the fall season more than re-binge watching our favourite autumnal show, Gilmore Girls, enjoying a hot cup of joe, just like Lorelai and Rory. This month, Kelly Bishop, award-winning actress and much-loved on-screen grandmother, Emily Gilmore, delivers her story in, The Third Gilmore Girl: A Memoir. In this never revealed before account of her life, Bishop delves into her six-decade success in Hollywood. A novel of love and loss, an overall celebration of life, and a look to the future, this candidly unapologetic encounter of reality behind the screen shines a new light on our fall-favourite actress.
The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden
New psychological thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author of The Housemaid, Freida McFadden, tells a story of the ultimate crime of passion. Unlucky in love, Sydney Shaw is looking for the perfect man, and she finds him in Tom, her good doctor. What she doesn't know is – he's looking for the perfect victim. After a string of brutal deaths, Sydney begins to feel an unease, like she is the next target for what is appearing to become a spree of matchmaking murders by a manipulative killer. This whodunnit murder mystery is arriving in perfect time for the Halloween season. Immerse yourself a page-turning psychological thriller as we follow helplessly in Sydney’s journey, teetering on the edge of danger, and begin to question, how blind can you really be by love?
Think Again by Jacqueline Wilson
The much-anticipated new instalment by Jacqueline Wilson brings back the characters from her beloved Girls series of novels. From the author that influenced many of our childhoods, and the brilliant mind behind The Story of Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather, Wilson is making her debut return to the complexity of her teenage novels with Think Again. Appearing on our pages once more, as adults, Ellie, Magda and Nadine tackle the unexpectedness of life as they meet their thirties. Wilson chronicles the fleetingness of life as we know it, and the malleability of change in this heart warming return story. Think Again will resonate with her audience, offering comfort in the nostalgia of Wilson’s writing style, as she provides insight in to the struggles of growing up.
The Pumpkin Spice Café by Laurie Gilmore
It would not be a fall To Be Read list without including TikTok viral sensation from 2023, The Pumpkin Spice Café, by Laurie Gilmore. Uniting every cosy trope for the autumn season, this feel-good novel draws on a small-town romance, and intertwines it with the comforting fall feeling of a coffee house. City girl, Jeanie, relocates to Dream Harbour – a small town to run her aunt's cosy café. Grumpy sunshine tropes begin to appear, as we meet Logan, a local farmer who avoids Dream Harbour and it's gossip at all costs. Jeanie's arrival, however, disrupts the easy-going stability of Logan's routine, and although he tries to avoid her, Logan finds himself drawing closer to the boisterous big city slicker.
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