*This article is from our September 2025 issue – scroll down to flip through the issue for free or order a print copy here.*
By Debbie Rozier
Author’s Note: Happy Fall, y’all! My name is Debbie, and I’m a bookseller at a woman-run indie bookstore in Jacksonville, Florida, called Happy Medium Books Café. I also share my love of reading on Instagram’s #Bookstagram community under the handle @rozierreadsandwine. I’m a huge mood reader, audiobook listener, and an impulse book buyer (especially when a cover catches my eye!). Most of my days are spent reading, talking about, or reviewing books.
Spooky season is upon us! Time to mood read with these new titles.
The Secrets of Secrets
Author: Dan Brown
Release Date: September 9th
Brown hasn’t published a book since 2017 so I figured if this book took 8 years to write, I need to read it. This is a thriller book and the 6th by Brown with Robert Langdon as the main character. The book is close to 700 pages so settle in for this one.
Blurb: Robert Langdon must prevent a powerful organization and a legendary assailant from obtaining a disruptive manuscript about human consciousness after a brutal murder. The story blends the worlds of science and mysticism.
Tourist Season
Author: Brynne Weaver
Release Date: September 23rd
I noticed that many romances coming out this fall are the next installment in a series. That’s great if you are on the edge of your seat waiting for the next book, but I decided to add the first in a trilogy by Brynn Weaver, who has been very successful in the dark romance genre. It gives off a perfect creepy fall vibe set in a town called Cape Carnage.
Blurb: A darkly funny, slow burn, enemies-to-lovers romance where destruction and desire are balanced on the edge of a blade—and where love is the most dangerous battleground of all.
Play Nice
Author: Rachel Harrison
Release Date: September 9th
Rachel Harrison always delivers for me and this book has an influencer who wants to do house flipping content in her childhood home, which is possessed!
Blurb: Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house flipping content. Only, as the home makeover process begins, Clio discovers there might be some truth to her mother’s claims. As memories resurface and Clio finally reads her mother’s book, a sinister presence in the house manifests, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio’s beautiful life to its very foundation.
When We Spoke To The Dead: How Ghosts Gave Women Their Voice
Author: Ilise S. Carter
Release Date: September 16th
Carter gives us a history on the impact of women in spiritualism.
Blurb: Exploring America’s deep-seated hunger for the unseen—whether through politics, personal empowerment, or grief—this book traces how the supernatural, once condemned as heresy, became the ultimate commodity. Step inside the séance room. The spirits have been waiting.
Alchemy of Secrets
Author: Stephanie Garber
Release Date: October 7th
This one may be the book of the season! This is the adult debut from the author who wrote the Caravel series. I’m not a huge fantasy reader, but this one sounds too good to skip. It is also the beginning of a series. This book has urban legends, a quest for a magical object, and an alluring stranger, all set in a magical world in the middle of Los Angeles.
Blurb: Folklore 517: Local Legends and Urban Myths, taught by a woman called the Professor. Most students believe the Professor’s stories are just fiction, but Holland St. James has always been convinced that magic is real. When she tracks down a local legend named the Watch Man, who can supposedly tell you when you’ll die, the world finally makes sense. Except that the Watch Man tells her she will die at midnight tomorrow unless she finds an ancient object called the Alchemical Heart.
I hope one or all of these books make it into your fall reading list!
DM me your thoughts if you read any of these books, and please send me any of your own fall recommendations! I’m always ready to find a good read.
*This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
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