I honestly cannot believe it’s October in two days! Not only am I excited that the year is ending ( this is a new development), I am also pretty excited to officially tell everyone my blog has a new look. Yay! Anyway, it’s a new month which means it’s time to share my anticipated October 2021 releases. If you’re looking for new releases to read, this is a perfect list for you.
Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo
Expected publication: October 5th 2021 by Catapul. Genre -Literary fiction.
Anna is at a stage of her life when she’s beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother—the only parent who raised her—is dead.
Searching through her mother’s belongings one day, Anna finds clues about the African father she never knew. His student diaries chronicle his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. Anna discovers that he eventually became the president—some would say dictator—of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive…
When Anna decides to track her father down, a journey begins that is disarmingly moving, funny, and fascinating. Like the metaphorical bird that gives the novel its name, Sankofa expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present to address universal questions of race and belonging, the overseas experience for the African diaspora, and the search for a family’s hidden roots.
So, This Is Christmas by Tracy Andreen
Expected publication: October 5th 2021 by Viking Books for Young Readers. Genre – Romance/Holiday
When Finley Brown returned to her hometown of Christmas, Oklahoma, from boarding school, she expected to find it just as she left it. Christmas hasn’t changed much in her sixteen years. But instead she returns to find that her best friend is dating her ex-boyfriend, her parents have separated, and her archnemesis got a job working at her grandmother’s inn. And she certainly didn’t expect to find the boy she may or may not have tricked into believing that Christmas was an idyllic holiday paradise on her grandmother’s doorstep. It’s up to Finley to make sure he gets the Christmas he was promised. This is Finley’s Christmas. It’s about home and family and friends and finding her place, and along the way she also finds the best Christmas present of all: love.
The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox
Expected publication: October 5th 2021 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Genre -Romance/Holiday Romance.
When chef Charlie Goodwin gets hit on the head on the L.A. set of her reality baking show, she loses a lot more than consciousness; she also loses her ability to taste and smell–both critical to her success as show judge. Meanwhile, Charlie’s identical twin, Cass, is frantically trying to hold her own life together back in their quaint mountain hometown while running the family’s bustling bakery and dealing with her ex, who won’t get the memo that they’re over.
With only days until Christmas, a desperate Charlie asks Cass to do something they haven’t done since they were kids: switch places. Looking for her own escape from reality, Cass agrees. But temporarily trading lives proves more complicated than they imagined, especially when rugged firefighter Jake Greenman and gorgeous physician’s assistant Miguel Rodriguez are thrown into the mix. Will the twins’ identity swap be a recipe for disaster, or does it have all the right ingredients for getting their lives back on track?
After Perfect by Maan Gabriel
Expected Publication Date – October 5th 2021 by She Writes Press. Genre – Women Lit/Adult fiction.
Thirty-six-year-old Gabriella Stevens is living a quiet and content fairy tale as a devoted housewife to Simon—just as her traditional Filipino mother has always told her to do—when, after sixteen years of marriage and twenty years together, he tells he wants a divorce.
Simon has been Gabby’s everything since they were kids; without him, her world implodes. But as she navigates her way through the wreckage of the marriage she thought would last forever, she becomes determined to make a life on her own. With New York City as her backdrop, Gabby—single for the first time since she was a teenager—goes back to school, gets her first real job, and faces unfamiliar reality with determination.
Gabby’s life takes another turn when she falls in love with her mysterious but utterly beautiful creative writing professor, Colt. Being with Colt is exhilarating for her—something new, something exciting and beyond understanding. He is almost seven years her junior, and a literary genius. But he is also battling demons of his own: a tragic past that may have made him incapable of love.
The Mother Next Door by Tara Laskowski
Expected publication: October 12th 2021 by Graydon House. Genre -Mystery
GOOD MOTHERS…
Never show their feelings.
Never spill their secrets.
Never admit to murder.
The annual Halloween block party is the pinnacle of the year on idyllic suburban cul-de-sac Ivy Woods Drive. An influential group of neighborhood moms—known as the Ivy Five—plans the event for months.
Except the Ivy Five has been four for a long time.
When a new mother moves to town, eager to fit in, the moms see it as an opportunity to make the group whole again. This year’s block party should be the best yet… until the women start receiving anonymous messages threatening to expose the quiet neighborhood’s dark past—and the lengths they’ve gone to hide it.
As secrets seep out and the threats intensify, the Ivy Five must sort the loyal from the disloyal, the good from the bad. They’ll do anything to protect their families. But when a twisted plot is revealed, with dangerous consequences, their steady foundation begins to crumble, leaving only one certainty: after this year’s block party, Ivy Woods Drive will never be the same.
Well Matched (Well Met #3) by Jen DeLuca
Expected publication: October 19th 2021 by Berkley. Genre -Contemporary Romance.
Single mother April Parker has lived in Willow Creek for twelve years with a wall around her heart. On the verge of being an empty nester, she’s decided to move on from her quaint little town, and asks her friend Mitch for his help with some home improvement projects to get her house ready to sell.
Mitch Malone is known for being the life of every party, but mostly for the attire he wears to the local Renaissance Faire–a kilt (and not much else) that shows off his muscled form to perfection. While he agrees to help April, he needs a favor too: she’ll pretend to be his girlfriend at an upcoming family dinner, so that he can avoid the lectures about settling down and having a more “serious” career than high school coach and gym teacher. April reluctantly agrees, but when dinner turns into a weekend trip, it becomes hard to tell what’s real and what’s been just for show. But when the weekend ends, so must their fake relationship.
Find Me in the Dark by Dea Poirier
Expected Publication Date – October 21, 2021 by Bookouture. Genre – Mystery
My father’s path was one I never wanted to walk, but here I am, following drops of blood like a crumb trail left in the woods. I was born of murder, my life built on the bones of a prolific killer. And now, I must atone for sins that should not be mine to bear.
Detective Harlow Durant has spent a lifetime trying to escape the shadows of her tormented past. As the daughter of a convicted serial killer, Harlow was determined to turn her life around and is now the only female detective at the New York Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, bringing killers like her father to justice.
Upstate, in the small college town of Plattsburgh, the body of a young woman has been found inside a melting snowbank. Harlow and her partner Detective Lucas Park are immediately called in to investigate. Searching around the victim’s frozen body, they find a bracelet which identifies her as college student Alyssa Trent.
All the Feels (Spoiler Alert #2) by Olivia Dade
Expected publication: October 26th 2021 by Avon. Genre – Contemporary romance/Adult fiction
Alexander Woodroe has it all. Charm. Sex appeal. Wealth. Fame. A starring role as Cupid on TV’s biggest show, God of the Gates. But the showrunners have wrecked his character, he’s dogged by old demons, and his post-show future remains uncertain. When all that reckless emotion explodes into a bar fight, the tabloids and public agree: his star is falling.
Enter Lauren Clegg, the former ER therapist hired to keep him in line. Compared to her previous work, watching over handsome but impulsive Alex shouldn’t be especially difficult. But the more time they spend together, the harder it gets to keep her professional remove and her heart intact, especially when she discovers the reasons behind his recklessness…not to mention his Cupid fanfiction habit.
When another scandal lands Alex in major hot water and costs Lauren her job, she’ll have to choose between protecting him and offering him what he really wants—her. But he’s determined to keep his improbably short, impossibly stubborn, and extremely endearing minder in his life any way he can. And on a road trip up the California coast together, he intends to show her exactly what a falling star will do to catch the woman he loves: anything at all.
I probably won’t be getting to these books till next year but I look forward to reading them whenever I eventually get to them.
You can read the July and September list if you’re looking for recent releases.
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