7 Books I Can’t Wait to Read in September

After the death of their family’s patriarch, Rudy, the women of the Cohen family are in crisis in this gripping novel from Jami Attenberg (All Grown Up). Shelly, the younger of two sisters, flees to the West Coast to immerse herself in the tech world, 21-year-old Nancy gets married to a traveling salesman with a shadowy lifestyle and their mother, Frieda, hurls herself into a boozy, troubled existence in Miami. Despite their varied styles of coping, each learns, in different ways, that running from the past can’t save you. Spanning from the ‘70s to the 2010s, A Reason to See You Again is a meditation on motherhood, the American workforce, the tech industry, the self-help movement, inherited trauma and the many unexpected forms that love can take.

When she arrives in Canada for her older brother's wedding, Eliot hasn't seen her family in three years. She loves her dysfunctional collection of siblings and in-laws, but there's a reason she fled to Manhattan and buried herself in her work. Still, Eliot feels ready to survive the four-day-long wedding extravaganza—until she sees her best friend, Manuel, looking as handsome as ever. Manuel's presence at the wedding threatens to undo the walls Eliot has built around herself, and she tries desperately to prevent those walls from crumbling down in Noyes’s (Guy’s Girl) latest novel about the unbreakable bonds of family and love.

Laura Dave (The Last Thing He Told Me) is back with another propulsive thriller—this time with the story of estranged siblings and the secret their father has been keeping for over 50 years. Liam was a self-made hotel magnate fleeing his past; a loving, albeit distant, family man; and, to Nora, a father who loved her from afar—often from a cliffside cottage in California coast from which he fell to his death. The authorities rule the death accidental, but Nora and her estranged brother Sam aren’t convinced. But as Nora and Sam join forces to unravel the mystery, they uncover a family secret that changes everything…

Rina Kirsch is a young, Modern Orthodox Jewish mother living in Los Angeles. She dutifully keeps up a traditional household, but struggles internally as an atheist who feels stymied in her life and marriage. In an effort to reinvigorate their relationship, Rina’s husband convinces her to partake in a night of wife swapping with other Orthodox couples. Instead of working as planned, the swap sends Rina down a heady path that culminates in an affair with her married art teacher. In this steamy debut novel, Rina is forced to decide if it’s worth sacrificing everything she’s ever known to live fully in her truth.

Everyone knows Dylan Read, who, since releasing her debut album in high school, has spent 15 years growing up in the public eye. And because of her carefully cultivated public image, everyone thinks they understand everything about Dylan Read. But no one knows that part of her origin story was her childhood best friend, Kelsey vanishing the year before Dylan became famous. Now, as Dylan’s at the height of her career, Kelsey’s body is found at the bottom of their hometown lake, forcing Dylan to reckon with their shared past, her friend’s influence on her music and whether there’s more to their story than meets the eye.

Ida B. Wells was ahead of her time; a pioneer in the field of investigative journalism whose powerful reporting on violence against African Americans was groundbreaking and courageous. But as best-selling author Veronica Chambers (Mama’s Girl) shares in this new historical middle-grade novel, there were so many other facets to the early leader in the civil rights movement. In fact, Wells was a flirt with a quick wit and a big heart. Ida, in Love and in Trouble imagines her navigating society parties and society prejudices to become a civil rights crusader.

What does it mean to learn from our mistakes? Why does one person cringe at the memory of a past blunder, while another can shrug off mess-ups easily? In this graphic memoir, psychotherapist and writer Alice Kaltman (Staggerwing) shares her less-than-perfect moments to explore these questions. In addition to detailing some world-famous gaffes and global disasters, Alice’s Big Book of Mistakes includes pages for readers to draw and write about their own mistakes—because we’re all works in progress, aren’t we?