Booktoberfest: Enjoy some of these books this fall

Booktoberfest: Enjoy some of these books this fall - A close up of text on a black surface - American Royals

Even though our leaves stay the same, fall is upon us. As the days shorten and the weather begins to cool, let’s celebrate fall and add these fabulous new releases to the top of your list!

 

Our New Normal
By Colleen Faulkner

Hazel, a lovely, smart, 16-year-old girl living in Maine, finds herself pregnant. It is not in spite of – but because of – her intelligence and warmth that she insists she will figure out a way to keep her baby. The Ridgley family is turned upside down. The natural order of things would have her mom, Liv, raising the baby while Hazel finishes high school and continues her education. Liv recently packed her son off to college and had plans to start a home renovation business. She loves her family dearly and cares for her aging parents, but Liv has no desire to start over again with an infant. Intense pressure affects each member of the family and begs to ask if we – as mothers, daughters and wives – are allowed to choose ourselves? Thoughtful, well-written and unputdownable family drama.

 

American Royals
By Katharine McGee

What if when America won the Revolutionary War, instead of George Washington becoming our first president, he became our first king? Imagine our entire American history based on a monarchy? Author Katharine McGee has done just that. Two hundred thirty years later, Princess Beatrice, the eldest of the Washington children, has been groomed her entire life for the throne and America prepares for its first female monarch. Her father, the king, wants her to marry quickly and she is handed a short list of contenders but no one knows that Beatrice’s heart is already taken. Her sister, Princess Samantha, has a crush she must keep hidden and her twin brother, Prince Jefferson, is a handsome rule-breaker every girl in the country wants to snag or shag. Throw in a couple of friends and frenemies and this fast-paced romantic history lesson is the most fun, laugh-out-loud, clever story I’ve read in ages.

 

The World That We Knew
By Alice Hoffman

1941, Berlin. The streets are swarming with Nazis. Hanni’s husband, the good doctor, has been murdered and her mother is ill. Even though it breaks her heart, Hanni must send her 12-year-old daughter Lea away. Hanni wants to keep Lea safe and far from the nightmare that has seized their world. She secretly enlists Ettie, the rabbi’s daughter, to use her forbidden knowledge and create a golem to protect Lea during her travels. This mystical creature of Jewish folklore looks human but has no soul, and is as strong as one hundred men. Throughout their escape to France and the three years afterward, Ava devotedly guards Lea’s life. From the brave convents that hid Jewish children to the courageous French Resistance that led them through the Swiss Alps, countless heroes saved thousands of lives. This magical story – filled with dancing birds carrying messages of hope and the angel of death eerily filling his notebook – will take you to a fairytale version of a very real atrocity, remembering the many who tragically disappeared and the few who survived. Author Alice Hoffman is the extraordinary talent to bring this story to life.

Karen Newfield is first and foremost a reader, she has reviewed hundreds of books on her blog www.readingandeating.com. And, more recently, this new Keys resident has also begun writing.