September 1, 2022 - Fall into a Good Story

Welcome back, readers! Fall is nearly upon us at Brooke County Libraries. Check out the list below of some of our favorite Autumn reads. All titles are available from one of our locations or as ebooks.

Mary Ann in Autumn by Armistead Maupin

Twenty years have passed since Mary Ann Singleton left her husband and child in San Francisco to pursue her dream of a television career in New York. Now a pair of personal calamities has driven her back to the city of her youth and into the arms of her oldest friend, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, a gardener happily ensconced with his much-younger husband.

Mary Ann finds temporary refuge in the couple's backyard cottage, where, at the unnerving age of fifty-seven, she licks her wounds and takes stock of her mistakes. Soon, with the help of Facebook and a few old friends, she begins to reengage with life, only to confront fresh terrors when her checkered past comes back to haunt her in a way she could never have imagined.

October Song by Beverly Lewis

From newlyweds Katie and Dan living in the shadow of the shunning, to Rachel and Philip embracing parenthood even as he acclimates to Amish life as an outsider... From the courtship of Lydia Cottrell and her betrothed, Levi King, to Sarah Cain, now a wife and mother struggling to bridge her own life with that of the People...

Through the Autumn Air by Kelly Irvin

A mysterious English stranger appears in Mary Katherine Ropp’s kitchen one autumn night, heralding the beginning of a new chapter in the widow’s life. The mother of ten, Mary Katherine is an empty-nester who lost her husband four years earlier. She misses her husband so much, she still talks to him. She pours her creative spirit into writing stories and serves as the district’s Budget newspaper scribe. An avid reader, her dream is to open a bookstore with her English friend, but the church elders want this wayward widow to work in an Amish-owned combination store. When an English man breaks into her house looking for food, Mary Katherine doesn’t call the sheriff. She turns to her good friend, Ezekiel, who needs a cook at the restaurant he started after his wife died ten years earlier.

The October List by Jeffery Deaver

A race-against-the-clock mystery, told in reverse. Gabriela waits desperately for news of her abducted daughter. At last, the door opens. But it’s not the negotiators. It’s not the FBI. It’s the kidnapper. And he has a gun. How did it come to this? Two days ago, Gabriela’s life was normal. Then, out of the blue, she gets word that her six-year-old daughter has been taken. She’s given an ultimatum: pay half a million dollars and find a mysterious document known as the “October List” within 30 hours, or she’ll never see her child again.

High Country Fall by Margaret Maron

With friends and family over-reacting to her announcement that she plans to marry Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant, Judge Deborah Knott gratefully seizes the opportunity to put a five-hour drive between herself and Colleton County when the Chief District Court Judge offers her a week on the bench in Cedar Gap. It is early autumn, leaves are turning, and summer residents are preparing to close up their mountain "cabins" (palatial houses perched atop the most desirable locations) and return to their winter homes in Florida. But Deborah's peaceful break is disrupted when one Floridian is found murdered. He won't be going home, and Deborah won't be either - until she tracks down the killer. 

A Revelation in Autumn by Wanda E. Brunstetter

A Lancaster County Saga, Meredith Stoltzfus becomes closer to Jonah Miller and agrees to marry him in the spring of next year. About the same time, Luke, who is called “Eddie” by his nurse, is grateful for the nurse’s grandparents who kindly take him in. Maybe living in a home-type atmosphere will help him regain his memory. Can he put the pieces of his past back together and return home in time—before he loses Meredith again?

Autumn by Ali Smith

Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. The United Kingdom is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer. Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand in hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever...

Wicked Autumn by GM Malliet

Max Tudor, former MI5 agent, has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold’s in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. Wanda Batton-Smythe, highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women’s Institute, turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. Peanut allergy looks accidental, but Max has many suspects for murder.

October Suite by Maxine Clair

It is 1950 and October Brown is a twenty-three-year-old first-year teacher thanking her lucky stars that she found a room in the best boardinghouse for Negro women teachers in Wyandotte County, Kansas. October falls in love with an unhappily married handyman, James Wilson, but when she becomes pregnant, James deserts her. Stunned, and believing that James will eventually come back to her, October decides to have the baby. But he doesn’t come back. As her reputation suffers, and with her job in jeopardy, she spends her days in self-deception and denial. Her best friend, Cora, contacts October’s family: her older sister, Vergie, and her aunts Frances and Maude, who raised the sisters after their mother was killed by their father...

Grace in Autumn by Lori Copeland and Angela Hunt

It's November, and as the island residents prepare for the coming months of cold and snow, they are surprised by God's unexpected lessons of humility, trust, and hope. Authors Lori Copeland and Angela Hunt revisit the Island of Heavenly Daze in the second book of the highly acclaimed series about a small town where angelic intervention is commonplace and the Thanksgiving feast a community affair.

Moral Compass by Danielle Steel

Saint Ambrose Prep is a place where the wealthy send their children for the best possible education, with teachers and administrators from the Ivy League, and graduates who become future lawyers, politicians, filmmakers, and CEOs. Traditionally a boys-only school, Saint Ambrose has just enrolled one hundred and forty female students for the first time. Even though most of the kids on the campus have all the privilege in the world, some are struggling, wounded by their parents’ bitter divorces, dealing with insecurity and loneliness. In such a heightened environment, even the smallest spark can become a raging fire.

Howloween Murder by Lauren Berenson

With just a few days left before Halloween, everyone at Howard Academy is anticipating the guaranteed sugar high they'll experience from gorging on Harriet Bloom's famous marshmallow puffs. The private school's annual costume party revolves around the headmaster's assistant and her seemingly supernatural batches of gooey goodies. So, it's a shock when Harriet's elderly neighbor is suddenly found dead with the beloved dessert in his hand. In a snap, police start questioning whether Harriet modified her top-secret recipe to include a hefty dose of lethal poison . . .

A Catered Costume Party by Isis Crawford

Halloween is coming, and Darius Witherspoon isn't giving up on his plan for a catered costume party--despite the recent disappearance of his wife, Penelope. He may be heartbroken, but perhaps throwing a big shindig in her honor will boost his spirits. He's going to hold it at his stylish new co-op apartment at the Berkshire Arms, where the couple had dreamed of moving in. Darius hires Bernie and Libby to provide the treats. They'd prefer to avoid the festivities altogether. As far as they're concerned, the Berkshire Arms is a haunted house--or at least haunted by the memory of the murder that happened on the site, when it used to be The Peabody School. 

A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner

September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries …and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her? 

 Did we miss any of your favorite Fall reads? Any books that you enjoy reading in Autumn? Please let us know in the comments below or on one of our social media pages.

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