As many of you know, Fall is the biggest season of the year for new book releases. While I always have a veritable mountain of a TBR stack (is it really a stack at this point?), that pile always grows considerably larger when September rolls around. Below are some of this month’s releases I’m excited about, both for myself and for my customers.

I’m such a sucker for non-English language works, be they books or films, and the cover of this book just grabbed my heart so fast. According to the publisher’s description, Wound is perfect “for fans of Maggie Nelson and Eileen Myles” and…say no more. Add to cart. Maggie Nelson’s Bluets is among the most perfect works of literature ever put on paper and Eileen Myles, long an underground punk queer hero, catapulted into the limelight when a character based on them (and portrayed by the rapturous Emmy- and Tony Award-winning Cherry Jones) appeared in Amazon’s Transparent. Myles themself was in a relationship (no longer extant) with the show’s creator, Joey Soloway. Also, I still own a vinyl of Myles’ collection Aloha/irish trees. I’ve already gone through my superqueer phase, thank you very much, but the full moon always returns. The comparison of Wound to Nelson and Myles automatically qualified this title for purchasing by me, and I’ll let you all know what I think when I get it and read it.

From the Publisher:

From one of Russia’s most exciting new voices, Wound follows a young lesbian poet on a journey from Moscow to her hometown in Siberia, where she has promised to bury her mother’s ashes. Woven throughout this fascinating travel narrative are harrowing and at times sublime memories of her childhood and her sexual and artistic awakening. As she carefully documents her grief and interrogates her past, the narrator of Oksana Vasyakina’s autobiographical novel meditates on queerness, death, and love and finds new words for understanding her relationship with her mother, her country, her sexuality, and her identity as an artist.

A sensual, whip-smart account of the complicated dynamics of queer life in present-day Siberia and Moscow, Wound is also in conversation with feminist thinkers and artists, including Susan Sontag, Louise Bourgeois, and Monique Wittig, locating Vasyakina’s work in a rich and exciting international literary tradition.

Wound was released by Catapult on September 5th and is available to purchase at your local bookstore.

I must admit that Stephen King’s books are not among my usual picks when I’m looking for something to read, but when I have picked up his stuff I’ve been pleased more often than not. In a bookselling world that’s been experiencing a paradigm shift since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, wherein trade paperbacks and the backlist generate the lion’s share of publishing revenue, it’s nice to see that authors like King can still sell a heck of a lot of new hardcovers when their books are first released.

My own store has sold through most of the initial stock we put out on release day, and replenishment has been steady. I feel at least partially compelled to read Mr. Mercedes first, but I must admit I’m more drawn to this particular book of King’s in a way I haven’t been since 11/22/63 came out. Note: No, I haven’t watched the miniseries on Hulu and I don’t plan to. Now that Holly is discounted for being my chain’s #1 hardcover seller, I’ll probably pick it up soon.

From the Publisher:

Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.

Holly was released by Scribner on September 5th and is available to purchase at your local bookstore.

I’ve been following the Duggar family from the very beginning, from their first specials on Discovery Health to their very public downfall following Josh’s investigation and ousting as a pedophile. I read Becoming Free Indeed, Jinger Duggar Vuolo’s own tell-all and personal journey as she disentangled IBLP principles she had been taught by her family from what she actually read and understood to be true from the Bible. That was a heck of a read, and when I watched Amazon Original’s Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets in one sitting with my family, I wanted more. Jill and Derick were the only members of the immediate Duggar family to appear in the documentary (Cousin Amy made an appearance), and I soon found out afterwards that they had a book in the works.

From the buzz I’ve read so far, I can’t wait to dig into this one. It always warms my heart when I see people who’ve been raised in fundamentalist religious circles breaking free from the controlling and dogmatic powers that be. I know this time won’t be any different.

From the Publisher:

Jill and Derick knew a normal life wasn’t possible for them. As a star on the popular TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting, Jill grew up in front of viewers who were fascinated by her family’s way of life. She was the responsible, second daughter of Jim Bob and Michelle’s nineteen kids; always with a baby on her hip and happy to wear the modest ankle-length dresses with throat-high necklines. She didn’t protest the strict model of patriarchy that her family followed, which declares that men are superior, that women are expected to be wives and mothers and are discouraged from attaining a higher education, and that parental authority over their children continues well into adulthood, even once they are married.

But as Jill got older, married Derick, and they embarked on their own lives, the red flags became too obvious to ignore.

For as long as they could, Jill and Derick tried to be obedient family members—they weren’t willing to rock the boat. But now they’re raising a family of their own, and they’re done with the secrets. Thanks to time, tears, therapy, and blessings from God, they have the strength to share their journey. Theirs is a remarkable story of the power of the truth and is a moving example of how to find healing through honesty.

Counting the Cost was released by Gallery Books on September 12th and is available to purchase at your local bookstore.

Mona Awad’s popularity has been ratcheting up ever since her 2019 book Bunny: A Novel became a #BookTok sensation. I’ve yet to read anything by her but I must admit seeing this book arrive on my store’s truck shipment definitely piqued my interest. I don’t know if I’ll read it right away but I’ll definitely be showing it to customers who are in the mood for something dark.

From the Publisher:

For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.

Rouge was released by Simon & Schuster/Marysue Rucci Books on September 12th and is available to purchase at your local bookstore.

Once again, I’m such a sucker for anything in translation, and Annie Ernaux has been on my radar ever since she was announced as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2022.

From the Publisher:

The Young Man is Annie Ernaux’s account of her passionate love affair with A., a man some 30 years younger, when she was in her fifties. The relationship pulls her back to memories of her own youth and at the same time leaves her feeling ageless, outside of time— together with a sense that she is living her life backwards.

Amidst talk of having a child together, she feels time running its course, and menopause approaching. The Young Man recalls Ernaux as the “scandalous girl” she once was, but is composed with the mastery and the self-assurance she has achieved across decades of writing. It was first published in France in 2022.

The Young Man was released in paperback by Seven Stories Press on September 12th and is available to purchase at your local bookstore.

I wanted Herc as soon as I saw it. As anyone who’s been inside a bookstore in the last year undoubtedly knows, mythology retellings are all the rage. I think all of the writers capitalizing on the trend owe a debt of gratitude to Madeline Miller, whose novels Circe and The Song of Achilles blew up during the first part of the pandemic. Now, mythological retellings are their own subsection on #BookTok and publishers are churning them out as fast as they can. Some are better than others, and most discerning readers can easily sift the wheat from the chaff. But I’m a sucker for anything Hercules. I don’t care if it’s good or not. Credit my Disneyfied upbringing and my closeted little gay self prancing and singing along to “I Won’t Say (I’m In Love)” and I’ll buy anything related to Hunk-ules and his Labors.

I’ve got two customers who I see almost every Sunday who I curate piles of books for (I’m a personal shopper of sorts) and they both love mythology retellings. We’ve agreed to read this one together so you know I had to buy it. I’ll let you know what I think.

From the Publisher:

This should be the story of Hercules: his twelve labours, his endless adventures… everyone’s favorite hero, right?

Well, it’s not.

This is the story of everyone else:

• Alcmene: Herc’s mother (She has knives everywhere)
• Hylas: Herc’s first friend (They were more than friends)
• Megara: Herc’s wife (She’ll tell you about their marriage)
• Eurystheus: Oversaw Herc’s labours (He never asked for the job)
• His friends, his enemies, his wives, his children, his lovers, his rivals, his gods, his victims

It’s time to hear their stories.

Told with humour and heart, Herc gives voice to the silenced characters, in this feminist, queer (and sometimes shocking) retelling of classic Hercules myth.

Herc was released by Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, on September 5th and is available to purchase at your local bookstore.

Anderson Cooper already cut his teeth writing about the rise and fall of one great American dynasty, that of his own family, the Vanderbilts. What family could one write about next if not the Astors? I think immediately of one John Jacob Astor IV, who died in the early morning hours of April 15th, 1912 in the sinking of the Titanic. He was the richest man aboard the ship and among the richest people alive at the time. At the time of his death, he was worth roughly $87 million, equivalent to $2.64 billion in 2022 dollars.

I’ve loved Anderson Cooper since the first time I saw him on CNN, and loved him even more for giving Trump crap during the latter’s successful bid for POTUS. It’s an easy decision for me. I want a signed copy.

From the Publisher:

The story of the Astors is a quintessentially American story—of ambition, invention, destruction, and reinvention.

From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society.

The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic, one of many shocking and unexpected twists in the family’s story.

In this unconventional, page-turning historical biography, featuring black-and-white and color photographs, #1 New York Times bestselling authors Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe chronicle the lives of the Astors and explore what the Astor name has come to mean in America—offering a window onto the making of America itself.

Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune will be published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, on September 19th and is available to preorder at your local bookstore.

I haven’t yet read the first two books in this series and to be perfectly honest, I’m not in a particularly big hurry. Why am I excited about it, then? A lot of my customers love Lucy Score and her books, and it’s impossible for me not to get excited when they’re excited. I know I’ll be putting this title in a lot of hands over the upcoming holiday months.

From the Publisher:

There was only one woman who could set me free. But I would rather set myself on fire than ask Sloane Walton for anything.

Lucian Rollins is a lean, mean vengeance-seeking mogul. On a quest to erase his father’s mark on the family name, he spends every waking minute pulling strings and building an indestructible empire. The more money and power he amasses, the safer he is from threats.

Except when it comes to the feisty small-town librarian that keeps him up at night…

Sloane Walton is a spitfire determined to carry on her father’s quest for justice. She’ll do that just as soon as she figures out exactly what the man she hates did to—or for—her family. Bonded by an old, dark secret from the past and the dislike they now share for each other, Sloane trusts Lucian about as far as she can throw his designer-suited body.

When bickering accidentally turns to foreplay, these two find themselves not quite regretting their steamy one-night stand. Once those flames are fanned, it seems impossible to put them out again. But with Sloane ready to start a family and Lucian refusing to even consider the idea of marriage and kids, these enemies-to-lovers are stuck at an impasse.

Broken men break women. It’s what Lucian believes, what he’s witnessed, and he’s not going to take that chance with Sloane. He’d rather live a life of solitude than put her in danger. But he learns the hard way that leaving her means leaving her unprotected from other threats.

It’s the second time he’s ruthlessly cut her out of his life. There’s no way she’s going to give him a third chance. He’s just going to have to make one for himself.

Things We Left Behind (Knockemout, #3) was released by That’s What She Said Publishing on September 5th and is available to purchase at your local bookstore.

This was one of my BOTM picks, so naturally I’m excited to dig into it. I’m a big fan of historical fiction. I didn’t read Krueger’s This Tender Land, but I remember being intrigued by it and wanting to read it. I think I bought it, too, come to think of it. Anyway, this one sounded too good to pass up.

From the Publisher:

On Memorial Day, as the people of Jewel, Minnesota gather to remember and honor the sacrifice of so many sons in the wars of the past, the half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. Investigation of the murder falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn’s murder but also put to rest the demons from his own past.

Caught up in the torrent of anger that sweeps through Jewel are a war widow and her adolescent son, the intrepid publisher of the local newspaper, an aging deputy, and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom struggle with their own tragic histories and harbor secrets that Quinn’s death threatens to expose.

Both a complex, spellbinding mystery and a masterful portrait of midcentury American life from an author of novels “as big-hearted as they come” (Parade), The River We Remember is an unflinching look at the wounds left by the wars we fight abroad and at home, a moving exploration of the ways in which we seek to heal, and a testament to the enduring power of the stories we tell about the places we call home.

The River We Remember was released by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, on September 5th and is available to purchase at your local bookstore.

I hope whatever you’re reading as we slide into Fall brings you joy, makes you cry, and entertains you endlessly. Thanks for reading.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.