Fall Book Preview: September 2015, Part II |

A few days ago, I shared the titles I was excited about that release the first two weeks of September. Can your wallet handle any more!?

Following are titles releasing the third week of September! The publisher’s book summary is included in italics. My own personal comments in bold. Click on the title to preorder!

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (Sept. 15):

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years.

At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed. With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it. Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and the heart.

I have to admit, I’m a bit anxious about this one. So much buzz about it already!

The Killing Kind by Chris Holm (Sept. 15):

A hitman who only kills other hitmen winds up a target himself.

Michael Hendricks kills people for money. That aside, he’s not so bad a guy.

Once a covert operative for a false-flag unit of the US military, Hendricks was presumed dead after a mission in Afghanistan went sideways. He left behind his old life–and beloved fiancée–and set out on a path of redemption…or perhaps one of willful self-destruction.

Now Hendricks makes his living as a hitman entrepreneur of sorts–he only hits other hitmen. For ten times the price on your head, he’ll make sure whoever’s coming to kill you winds up in the ground instead. Not a bad way for a guy with his skill-set to make a living–but a great way to make himself a target.

Trust me. You’re going to want to read this one. If you haven’t read Holm’s Collector novels yet (!?) you might as well go ahead and order those as well.

The Appearance of Annie Van Sinderen by Katherine Howe (Sept. 15):

It’s summertime in New York City, and aspiring, young filmmaker Wes Auckerman has just arrived to start his summer term at NYU. While shooting a séance at a psychic’s in the East Village, he meets a mysterious, intoxicatingly beautiful girl named Annie. She’s fashionable, dry and hilarious, and yet a little bit distant and sad. As they spend more time together, Wes starts to notice certain things about her. He wonders why she’s so distant, why her slang sounds so foreign to him, and why he only seems to run into her on one street near the Bowery. But with Annie’s entrancing eyes and irresistible glow, these questions don’t seem to matter too much and Wes falls for her anyway.

But soon, the secrets around Annie’s mysterious background start to unfold. Annie is unlike any other girl Wes has ever met because she’s been dead for 190 years. She’s a ghost, searching for the answers to figure out what happened to her on one dark night in 1825. Being in love is hard enough when you’re a teenager, but what happens when what stands between you and the person you love is truly a matter of life and death?

Howe is the author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and, most recently, Conversion (which I adored). She excels at capturing the dark and creepy. I can’t wait to start reading this one!

The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich (Sept. 15):

Welcome to the Dead House.

Three students: dead.

Carly Johnson: vanished without a trace.

Two decades have passed since an inferno swept through Elmbridge High, claiming the lives of three teenagers and causing one student, Carly Johnson, to disappear. The main suspect: Kaitlyn, “the girl of nowhere.”

Kaitlyn’s diary, discovered in the ruins of Elmbridge High, reveals the thoughts of a disturbed mind. Its charred pages tell a sinister version of events that took place that tragic night, and the girl of nowhere is caught in the center of it all. But many claim Kaitlyn doesn’t exist, and in a way, she doesn’t – because she is the alter ego of Carly Johnson.

Carly gets the day. Kaitlyn has the night. It’s during the night that a mystery surrounding the Dead House unravels and a dark, twisted magic ruins the lives of each student that dares touch it.

Debut author Dawn Kurtagich masterfully weaves together a thrilling and terrifying story using psychiatric reports, witness testimonials, video footage, and the discovered diary – and as the mystery grows, the horrifying truth about what happened that night unfolds.

Dare I say this is one of my most anticipated books of September? This is my kind of book…dark, creepy, ghosty. I can’t wait. I’ll be listening to the audio of this one; I’ll be interested to see how that shapes my experience!

The Last September by Nina de Gramont (Sept. 15):

Brett had been in love with Charlie from the day she laid eyes on him in college. When Charlie is found murdered, Brett is devastated. But, if she is honest with herself, their marriage had been hanging by a thread for quite some time.

Though all clues point to Charlie’s brother Eli, who’s been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for years, any number of people might have been driven to slit the throat of Charlie Moss–a handsome, charismatic man who unwittingly damaged almost every life he touched. Now, looking back on their lives together, Brett is determined to understand how such a tragedy could have happened–and whether she was somehow complicit.

Set against the desolate autumn beauty of Cape Cod, The Last September is a riveting emotional puzzle. Award-winning author Nina de Gramont is at the top of her game as she takes readers inside the psyche of a woman facing down the meaning of love and loyalty.

That cover! So stunning and ominous!

Stay tuned! I have at least one more post which will include the books publishing the final weeks of September. I warned you it would be a big publishing month!