From Sally Rooney’s latest novel to cosy rom-coms, mystery thrillers and more.
10 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in September
From Sally Rooney’s latest novel to cosy rom-coms, mystery thrillers and more.
If a new read is in order, allow us to be the bearers of good news: September 2024’s book releases do not disappoint.
Like August, the month’s highly anticipated crop features a mix of bestselling authors (did someone say Liane Moriarty, Sally Rooney, and Stephen Fry?), along with buzzy reads from up-and-coming writers. In short? Plenty to keep your bedside table stacked all month long.
From cosy rom-coms to mystery thrillers, historical fiction to dark academia, scroll on for 10 page-turning books we can’t wait to read in September.
1. Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty
Out: 10 September 2024
If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate? It’s the big question this meaty novel by the one and only Liane Moriarty fame puts front and centre. Like her bestsellers Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, the intriguing tale follows an eclectic set of characters, this time on a flight where something extraordinary happens: they learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death seems laughably far away (age 103!), but for six people on that flight, it’s in the very near future – as predicted by the unassuming woman they would later call “The Death Lady”. A few months later, when three passengers die exactly as she said they would, “The Death Lady” is no longer an amusing anecdote, and the remaining ‘marked’ ones grapple with how they should live in the limited time they have left.
2. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Out: 24 September 2024
The latest from the author of the bestselling Normal People, Sally Rooney’s latest novel puts her talent for delving into the heart of human connection on full display. It focuses on Peter and Ivan Koubek: two brothers who have little else in common. Peter is an ultra-successful Dublin lawyer in his thirties who’s been self-medicating to sleep since their father’s death while struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women: his long-time first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a freewheeling college student. Loner Ivan is a 22-year-old competitive chess player. While reeling from their father’s loss, he meets Margaret – an older woman with her tumultuous past, and their lives swiftly and intensely intertwine. What unfolds for all involved is a poignant chapter of grief, love, and the chance to find out what truly makes a life.
3. We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
Out: 17 September 2024
For the Wheeler family, solving murders is the family business. While ex-cop Steve is living his best retired life doing puzzles and enjoying pints – occasionally dabbling in investigation work on the side – his adrenaline junkie daughter-in-law Amy works in private security. While on duty on a remote island as the bodyguard for the uber-bestselling thriller author, Rosie d’Antonio, all seems well – until a dead body and a bag of money indicate otherwise. Reaching out to the one person she knows who can solve a murder like no one else, the father and daughter-in-law embark on an exhilarating chase across the world to catch a killer on the loose.
4. Sunshine and Spice by Aurora Palit
Out: 10 September 2024
If the ‘fake dating’ trope tickles your fancy, Sunshine and Spice is sure to hit the spot. Set in Canada, brand consultant Naomi Kelly is hellbent on making her new business a success, and a career-saving contract with the Mukherjee family’s failing local bazaar means there is no room for error. But as the unplanned child of a free-spirited Bengali mother with minimal connection to her cultural roots, she embodies everything matriarch Gia Mukherjee derides. So, when Gia’s son Dev Mukherjee is desperate to dodge the matchmaker his mother has hired for him – and a potential match mistakes Naomi for his girlfriend – their solution becomes clear. Naomi will pretend to date Dev to sabotage Gia’s matchmaking schemes, and he will give her lessons in Bengali culture to help her career comeback, and no one will fall in love at the same time, right?
5. In the Garden of Monsters by Crystal King
Out: 24 September 2024
Part period drama, part fantasy: the year is 1948, and Julia Lombardi has no idea where she’s from, where she’s been – or how she even ended up in Rome. When the eccentric artist Salvador Dalí invites the beautiful model to Sacro Bosco – Italy’s Garden of Monsters – as his muse, Julia accepts in the hope she can figure out her past. Upon arrival, she is strangely drawn to their darkly alluring host Ignazio, who appears to know her. While posing for Dalí as the goddess Persephone, the artist’s obsession with her as the Greek deity grows. Between his fevered fanaticism, Ignazio’s inexplicable familiarity, and the whispered warnings that seem to come from the garden, Julia fears she is coming undone… and begins to wonder if she is the goddess she’s been chosen to embody.
6. The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave
Out: 17 September 2024
With her previous book The Last Thing He Told Me landing a spot on Reese Witherspoon’s radar, Laura Dave knows her way around a mystery thriller. Returning with The Night We Lost Him, the suspenseful story sees estranged siblings Nora and Sam reunited following the death of their mysterious father and former hotel magnate, Liam Noone. While the police ruled the case an accident, Nora and Sam have other ideas and begin piecing together the fragments of his past to uncover a fifty-year-old secret that changes everything.
7. Adam & Evie’s Matchmaking Tour by Nora Nguyen
Out: 24 September 2024
An escapist enemies-to-lovers rom-com, Adam & Evie’s Matchmaking Tour is a breezy read that feels like a holiday. Evie Liang’s life is a mess. Just after losing her beloved aunt, her secret boyfriend fires her from her poetry professorship. Stuck in Ohio sans income or inspiration, hope appears in an unexpected letter – her late Auntie Hảo has left her the deed to her house in San Francisco. The one condition to inherit it? She must go on a pre-arranged matchmaking tour in Viêt Nam. Cue: Adam Quyền, an overworked CMO for his sister’s elite matchmaking business. Desperate to prove himself, he begrudgingly joins the inaugural tour, where he and Evie meet and clash – repeatedly. But where animosity meets attraction, there’s a loathe-into-love story just waiting to unfold.
8. An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson
Out: 17 September 2024
Perfect for fans of dark academia, the story follows Lennon Carter, whose life was falling apart until a mysterious phone invitation to take the entrance exam for Drayton College: a secret school of magic. Chosen for her unique gift of persuasion and ability to wield her will on people and objects like a weapon, she passes and begins the studies to master her powers – assisted by Dante, the charismatic advisor who both unnerves and excites her. But all is not as it seems in this hidden world, and she is increasingly rattled by what she learns, including Drayton College’s disturbing history – and how it intersects with her mentor’s dark and violent past.
9. Odyssey by Stephen Fry
Out: 26 September 2024
Retold with his signature sardonic wit, comedian and writer Stephen Fry’s takes on classic Greek myths began with the global bestseller Mythos and concludes with his interpretation of Homer’s The Odyssey. A rollicking romp recounting Odysseus’ decade-long journey home to his wife Penelope after winning Troy for the Greeks, it has all the usual monsters, machinating gods, and mythological mayhem you would expect to keep things interesting, while Fry’s brilliant hand with modern banter means laughs aplenty, page after page.
10. Once More from the Top by Emily Layden
Out: 10 September 2024 (Hardcover)
Love Taylor Jenkins Reid? Taylor Swift? Get this book on your bedside table, stat. Pop superstar Dylan Read, whose songwriting prowess saw her release her first album in her senior year of high school, has grown up in the public eye. Having spent 15 years crafting a narrative that appeals to her fans, label, and the media alike, everyone thinks they ‘know’ Dylan Read’s story – but no one knows that her childhood best friend Kelsey disappeared just before Dylan found fame. Now, as Dylan ascends to the pinnacle of pop stardom, Kelsey’s body is uncovered at the bottom of their hometown lake. Plunged back into the past, she must reckon with her friend’s influence on her music and carefully concealed depths of their shared story.
