This Week's Topic:
Ten Books with Fall/Autumn Covers/Themes. (If the cover screams fall to you, or the books give off a feeling of being fallish.)
Well...it seems that I'm not much of a "fall" reader. Either that, or authors just aren't really drawn to that type of theme. I have
soooo many books that obviously feel like summer or winter. And, very often, their covers reflect that. But seriously...fall feeling covers are few and far between.
It took me quite a while to find ten appropriate covers in my lists. Only one book came from the read file...the remaining nine currently reside in the TBR. However, doing this exercise has refreshed my memory as to why I added them, thus potentially increasing the speed with which I work to read them.
Maybe some the synopses will inspire you as well...besides there are a few super pretty covers in here. I always have been a sucker for cover love.
1. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
We have all heard the story of Cinderella, the beautiful child cast out to slave among the ashes. But what of her stepsisters, the homely pair exiled into ignominy by the fame of their lovely sibling? What fate befell those untouched by beauty...and what curses accompanied Cinderella's looks?
Set against the backdrop of seventeenth-century Holland, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells the story of Iris, an unlikely heroine who finds herself swept from the lowly streets of Haarlem to a strange world of wealth, artifice, and ambition. Iris's path quickly becomes intertwined with that of Clara, the mysterious and unnaturally beautiful girl destined to become her sister. While Clara retreats to the cinders of the family hearth, Iris seeks out the shadowy secrets of her new household -- and the treacherous truth of her former life.
The only one in this list that I have actually read. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is a retelling of Cinderella written by the same author who penned Wicked.
2. A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks
Every April, when the wind blows from the sea and mingles with the scent of lilacs, Landon Carter remembers his last year at Beaufort High. It was 1958, and Landon had already dated a girl or two. He even swore that he had once been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he'd fall for was Jamie Sullivan, the daughter of the town's Baptist minister.
A quiet girl who always carried a Bible with her schoolbooks, Jamie seemed content living in a world apart from the other teens. She took care of her widowed father, rescued hurt animals, and helped out at the local orphanage. No boy had ever asked her out. Landon would never have dreamed of it.
Then a twist of fate made Jamie his partner for the homecoming dance, and Landon Carter's life would never be the same. Being with Jamie would show him the depths of the human heart and lead him to a decision so stunning it would send him irrevocably on the road to manhood...
Beautiful fall leaves I'm familiar with both the book and the movie versions of Nicholas Sparks' novels. However, I've never been familiar with both versions of the same story. I have seen the movie
A Walk to Remember with Mandy Moore. Despite typically hating reading books after I've seen the movies (ugh...they're always just wrecked), I still want to tackle this one.
Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage, and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of friends, the journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.
I have actually read this one before. I think I tackled it sometime in high school. But...I don't remember it. Like, at all. I know...horrible. So it's back on the TBR for a fresh start.
Seth Hubbard is a wealthy man dying of lung cancer. He trusts no one. Before he hangs himself from a sycamore tree, Hubbard leaves a new, handwritten, will. It is an act that drags his adult children, his black maid, and Jake into a conflict as riveting and dramatic as the murder trial that made Brigance one of Ford County's most notorious citizens, just three years earlier.
The second will raises far more questions than it answers. Why would Hubbard leave nearly all of his fortune to the maid? Had chemotherapy and painkillers affected his ability to think clearly? And what does it all have to do with a piece of land once known as Sycamore Row?
I used to be a
huge John Grisham fan. I read everything he wrote.
A Time to Kill still ranks in my top favorite reads. I still think his writing is fantastic, I just shifted my genre preferences. But there isn't any reason I can't widen my horizons back up. So...
Sycamore Row is on the list.
5. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
When Cameron Post's parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief they'll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl.
But that relief doesn't last, and Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both.
Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship -- one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultrareligious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to 'fix' her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self--even if she's not exactly sure who that is.
I'm a sucker for a good coming-of-age story. I will admit, I initially was drawn to this book because of the cover. It's just so pretty. And...hey...(hay...haha, get it?), it's a harvest scene.
In 1921, infamous Italian poet Galeazzo D'Ascanio wrote his last and greatest play, inspired by his muse and mistress, actress Celia Sands. On the eve of opening night, Celia vanished, and the play was never performed.
Now, two generations later, Alessando D'Ascanio plan to stage his grandfather's masterpiece and has offered the lead to a promising young English actress, also named Celia Sands - at the whim of her actress mother, or so she has always thought. When Celia arrives at D'Ascanio's magnificent, isolated Italian villa, she is drawn to the mystery of her namesake's disappearance-and to the compelling, enigmatic Alessandro.
But the closer Celia gets to learning the first Celia's fate, the more she is drawn into a web of murder, passion, and the obsession of genius. Though she knows she should let go of the past, in the dark, in her dreams, it comes back...
I've read a few of Susanna Kearsley's novels and really enjoy her writing. Apparently more than I realized, as Kearsley has two novels on this list. A bit overly coincidental.
For nearly 300 years, the mysterious journal of Jacobite exile Mary Dundas has lain unread -- its secrets safe from prying eyes. Now, amateur codebreaker Sara Thomas has been hired by a once-famous historian to crack the journal's cipher. But when she arrives in Paris, Sara finds herself besieged by complications from all sides: the journal's reclusive owner, her charming Parisian neighbor, and Mary, whose journal doesn't hold the secrets Sara expects.
It turns out that Mary Dundas wasn't keeping a record of everyday life, but a first-hand account of her part in a dangerous intrigue. In the first wintry months of 1732, with a scandal gaining steam in London, driving many into bankruptcy and ruin, the man accused of being at its center is concealed among the Jacobites in Paris, with Mary posing as his sister to aid in his disguise.
When their location is betrayed, they're forced to put a desperate plan in action, heading south along the road to Rome, protected by the enigmatic Highlander Hugh MacPherson.
As Mary's tale grows more and more dire, Sara, too, must carefully choose which turning to take...to find the road that will lead her safely home.
See...two in a row! Historical fiction is well represented in this list by Kearsley. Apparently I really need to get a jump on her novels.
8. Grounded by Kate Klise
After her brother, sister, and father die in a plane crash, Daralynn Oakland receives 237 dolls from well-wishers, resulting in her nickname: Dolly. But dolls are little comfort to a twelve-year-old girl whose world is rocked by the dramatic changes in her life, including her angry, grieving mother's new job as a hairstylist at the local funeral home.
Dolly gets a job, too, where she accidentally invents a fashionable new haircut. But in Grounded
by Kate Klise,
her real work begins when a crematorium comes to town, and someone has to save a dying business, solve a burning mystery, and resuscitate the broken hearts in Digginsville, Missouri, population 402.
Maybe I've been watching too much
Jane the Virgin, but the premise of this one sound like a bit of a crazy telenovela. Nonetheless, it's on the TBR. I'll be honest...this was yet another cover pick. I'm a fan of the drawing style. But hey...why not give it a try, right? It has decent ratings and the worst that could happen is that I shuffle it into a DNF pile. No harm, no foul. Broaden my horizons and all that.
9. The Sparrow Sisters by Ellen Herrick
The Sparrow sisters are as tightly woven into the seaside New England town of Granite Point as the wild sweet peas that climb the stone walls along the harbor. Sorrel, Nettie and Patience are as colorful as the beach plums on the dunes and as mysterious as the fog that rolls into town at dusk.
Patience is the town healer and when a new doctor settles into Granite Point he brings with him a mystery so compelling that Patience is drawn to love him, even as she struggles to mend him. But when Patience Sparrow's herbs and tinctures are believed to be implicated in a local tragedy, Granite point is consumed by a long-buried fear--and its three hundred year old history resurfaces as a modern day witch-hunt threatens. The plants and flowers, fruit trees and high hedges begin to wither and die, and the entire town begins to fail; fishermen return to the harbor empty-handed, and blight descends on the old elms that line the lanes.
It seems as if Patience and her town are lost until the women of Granite Point band together to save the Sparrow. As they gather, drawing strength from each other, will they be able to turn the tide and return life to Granite Point?
Not only does this one have a fall cover, it has a synopsis that totally fits the season. It has pieces reminiscent of
Practical Magic. I'll admit that could be a good thing or bad, depending on how it is taken on. I'm willing to give it a try.
10. When We Fall by Emily Liebert
Ready for a fresh start, Allison Parker moves back to her hometown in the suburbs of New York. While she'd once savored the dynamic pace of city life, sadly, it lost its allure after her husband's untimely death. Now, ready to focus on her art career accompanied by her ten-year-old son, Logan, Allison doesn't anticipate that her past will resurface. When the wife of her husband's best friend from summer camp takes her under her wing, things begin to spin out of control.
At one time, Charlotte Crane thought she had it all--a devoted husband, a beautiful little girl, and enough financial security to never have worry. But behind her perfect facade lie a strained marriage and a fractured relationship with her sister. When new girl Allison arrives in Wincourt, Charlotte welcomes the chance to build a friendship. Before long, Charlotte begins to see life through Allison's eyes, and the cracks in her seemingly flawless existence become impossible to ignore.
As Allison heals from the loss of her husband--even wondering if she might be ready to date again--Charlotte feels more distant from her loved ones than ever before. The emerging friendship between the two women appears to be just the antidote both of them so desperately need...until everything falls apart.
I saved the prettiest cover for last. Seriously, how gorgeous is that? And yes, I get the play on the title with the word "fall", but it could be appropriate...not just corny. I'm going to look the other way on that one for right now.
And there you have it...a pretty diverse list (kind of). Some chick lit, some YA fiction, some mystery, some historical fiction, and a classic. Not too bad for having a hard time finding appropriately qualifying books.
What "fall" reads are on your list? Did you find any new items for your own TBR?
