I don’t remember the last time I saw a month when I had so many books backed up. The number of books I have ready for September is unbelievable. In fact, I’ve decided to divide the September Treasures into two parts. Are you ready for Christmas books? September seems to be release month for those. If you’re not ready even for all the September books, check back to see the August releases. https://lesasbookcritiques.com/august-treasures-in-my-closet-8/. Even with all of these titles, I know these are just the ones I have. What books are you watching for?

It’s been four years since Sarah Addison Allen’s last book. Paper Ghosts is part ghost story, part love story and steeped in magical realism, Paper Ghosts will transport you to a place where old secrets echo through the years and love finds a way of bringing us home. Every family has its secrets . . .The Wester women live inside theirs. For decades, the women of Wester House have unsettled and fascinated their small, timeless North Carolina town. Their home is full of whispers, old griefs, and uncanny knowing. But when Willamena Wester reaches out to the granddaughter she once pushed away, long-buried truths begin to stir. (Release day is Sept. 1.)

Kate Atkinson’s earlier titles that jump out at me are Case Histories and Life After Life. Our Noble Selves
is a thrilling tale of post–World War II London, where the peace proves as tricky to navigate as the past, from the #1 international bestselling author of Life After Life. When crime correspondent turned war reporter Harry Flynn returns to Britain from Singapore in 1945, he takes a quiet job with the Festival of Britain, a government-funded endeavor aimed at celebrating the nation’s creativity, grit, and ingenuity. There, he joins a team of misfits and eccentrics as they help to ready the Festival for launch. When a Frenchwoman goes missing, Flynn becomes the central suspect in her disappearance—and possible murder. He was the last person to see her alive, yet he has no memory of the evening they spent together. As evidence against him mounts, Flynn begins to wonder if he might actually be to blame. To make matters worse, he is surrounded by people who have their own secret agenda. (Release date is Sept. 15.)

I know Alexandria Bellefleur’s Damned If I Do isn’t for everyone, but I love the premise. The devil’s right-hand woman must convince her long-lost husband to renounce their vows so she can wed a prince from Hell. Effie MacLeod is no stranger to making desperate decisions, but making a deal with Lucifer himself—sacrificing her soul to save a loved one—has got to be her most monumental. Several hundred years into her tenure as a demon, Effie’s found herself engaged to Belphegor, a handsome, seductive, and successful Prince of Hell. It’s not a love match, but it’ll do. There’s just one teensy-tiny little problem: She’s still bound to her sixteenth-century Scottish husband. While Effie has completely cast her human life aside, Finn has been reincarnated through several lifetimes. Effie must convince Finn to renounce their age-old vows in order get the Office of Infernal Internal Affairs off her back. The kicker? When she finds him in this lifetime, Finn doesn’t remember anything, but he refuses her request for a divorce. (Release date is Sept. 22.)

A Map to Murder is the third book in Michelle Chouinard’s A Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco mystery series. True crime tour guide and serial killer aficionado Capri Sanzio knows how central the Summer of Love is to San Francisco’s identity—even if she’s always had conflicted feelings about it. She’s used to weaving feel-good hippie culture and music into her Haight-Ashbury true crime tales, centering her tours around what happens when a revolution looking to lift up the best ideals humanity has to offer clashes with the darkest souls hidden among humanity’s shadows. But what she’s not used to is a guest stepping out from those shadows to drop a murder investigation directly into her lap. A woman has gone missing in San Francisco after trying to solve her aunt’s murder: a cold case from the Summer of Love. Capri sees herself in the missing woman—both were unable to find the answers they desperately wanted as kids—and sees her own daughter in the tour guest begging for her help. Unable to turn the case away, Capri finds herself following a trail of flower-power footprints turned deadly—straight to a killer who has her in their sights. (Release date is Sept. 22.)

I’ve always wanted to read some of the mysteries set in New York’s Mysterious Bookshop. I think this collection might have been available earlier, but I just now have a copy of Christmas Mysteries at the Mysterious Bookshop, edited by Otto Penzler. In 1993, The Mysterious Bookshop—the oldest mystery specialty bookstore in the world—began an annual tradition by inviting bestselling author Donald E. Westlake to write an original short story set in the bookshop during the holiday season. Each year since then, The Mysterious Bookshop commissions a new short story from a leading author to give out as a holiday gift for its customers. The prompt for the story requires three elements: that it be set at Christmastime, that it involve a crime of some kind, or the suspicion of one, and that it be set at least partially in the bookstore. Beyond these guidelines, authors had free rein to take the story in whatever direction they chose. This volume collects the first eighteen stories commissioned by the bookshop from 1993 to 2010. (Release date is Sept. 8.)

The Dying Light is the fourth book in Ann Cleees’ Matthew Venn series. DI Matthew Venn peels back layer upon layer to discover the dark secrets one family is keeping in this searing new novel, brimming with energy and taut with claustrophobic tension. A scorching heatwave marks the start of the summer in Devon. Detective Matthew Venn is called in to investigate a puzzling death, when the body of a young woman, Lottie, is found in the swimming pool of a luxurious holiday home. The girl’s best friend, Hannah, whose family owns the house, is missing. The girls had arrived a few days earlier to celebrate the end of their school exams, quickly stirring unrest in the small community with incendiary social media videos mocking the place as parochial. When further tragedy strikes, Venn and his team begin questioning a community filled with secrets. The fact that Hannah’s father, Paul Armstrong, is a rising political star with powerful enemies draws intense media scrutiny to the case. With the summer heat come holidaymakers, and it emerges that some of them may have stronger connections with the Armstrong family than first thought. Venn knows all too well that the real answers lie not in what people say, but in the silences that they keep. (Release date is Sept. 29.)

Cleo Coyle is best known for the Coffeehouse mystery series. However, I secretly believe that Kensington is relaunching the Haunted Bookshop mysteries, with a new start and title, just because the 1940s ghost of PI Jack Shepard is my ghostly book boyfriend. I’ve long adored Jack, and he’s back in The Ghost and the Dead Librarian. In an utterly charming new paranormal cozy mystery from New York Times bestselling author Cleo Coyle, a smalltown Rhode Island bookshop owner investigates the death of an eccentric librarian with the help of a wisecracking, 1940s gumshoe ghost.  As a young widow, Penelope moved back to her quaint Rhode Island town to give her young son a safer home and her aunt’s dying bookshop new life. Using her late husband’s insurance money, Pen polished the store into a local treasure. But her updates did more than attract new customers. They roused a dead private eye from his big sleep. With Pen’s affection for hardboiled detective stories, it’s no surprise she’s developed a fondness for the wisecracking yet oddly likeable spirit. Sure, Jack’s cold spots are exasperating, along with his proclivity for putting noir fiction in the cozy section. But murder was Jack’s business in life, and his PI skills come in awfully handy when the body of an eccentric librarian is found amid the bookshop’s aisles. (Release date is Sept. 29.)

How many of you know of Australian author Garry Disher? He’s won a number of Ned Kelly Awards for Best Crime Novel, has been nominated for others, and is the recipient of the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award. I haven’t read as many of his books as I would like. They’re not always easy to find. Here’s the summary of his new one, Sanctuary. A thief finds she cannot outrun her past in this standalone thriller from one of Australia’s most esteemed crime authors. Grace is a thief—a good one. She was taught by experts and she’s been practising since she was a kid, specializing in small, high-value items like stamps and watches. But it’s a solitary life, always watchful, always moving. It’s not the life she wants. Then a run-in with an old associate forces her to lie low in a small rural town, where she happens across an antiques shop. The owner Erin is timid but friendly, and has a room to rent. And Grace glimpses a different life, and perhaps a home. But there are dangerous men watching her, and Grace should know better than to let her guard slip. Because no matter how far she runs, her past is always just a few steps behind. . .(Release date is Sept. 15.)

I have so many September releases, I even have several nonfiction titles such as Angela Duckworth’s Situated: Find the People and Places that Bring Out Your Best. In Angela Duckworth’s first book, she showed that a common denominator of successful strivers is a blend of passion and perseverance she dubbed “grit.” This second book springs from her deepening realization that grit, while necessary, is sometimes not sufficient. How you situate yourself to meet a challenge can be crucial. Duckworth’s in-depth research reveals the enormous influence wielded by the objects within arm’s reach, your peers and mentors, and even your zip code. Though you’re often told to make the best of your situation, it is far, far better to make your situation better first. (Release date is Sept. 1.)

Mazywood is the sequel to Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory. It follows the grandson of a famous Black actress who returns to his grandmother’s cabin retreat in the California mountains only to encounter the legacy of her rage born in Old Hollywood. When Johnny—a filmmaker and grandson of the famous Black actress Mazelle Washington—brings his family to Mazywood, the secluded California mountain lodge left behind by his grandmother, he expects a quiet retreat. Instead, he uncovers a legacy of rage, secrets, and terror that has haunted his family for generations. Set primarily in the present day, with haunting flashbacks to Hollywood’s Golden Age, Mazywood explores three generations while following Johnny as he pieces together the true story of his grandmother. (Release date is Sept. 22.)

I know I’ll read almost any contemporary novel about books, but I’m not sure about The Lost Spectacular by Zoe Duhaime. Both magical fable and a tender love story, The Night Circus meets The Midnight Library in this dazzling ode to the life-changing power of books, as childhood loves-turned-rivals chase each other through the stories that shaped them, leaping through classic literature and famous paintings and private letters and family dinners, until all that’s left is to confront the grief they’ve been running from…and decide whether they might face it together, instead. Everything you love must leave you.
Noon Bonaventure and Munro Forrest weren’t always rivals chasing each other through the pages of books. They grew up listening to stories from Munro’s grandmother and arguing over their favorites. But then one night, they discovered the Spectacular, a mysterious, ever-changing festival glittering with everything lost: lone pearl earrings and apple orchards, abandoned first drafts and shipwrecks, a skyful of umbrellas. This Spectacular, found only by invitation or in the pages of misprints, is the most precious thing in the world. In its wake, stories settle. Noon has always been the sort to move on with grace, and Munro goes into the business of never letting go—their divide starker than ever after a misstep abruptly closes the door on what could have been. (Release date is Sept. 29.)

It’s hard to believe some of us have been reading Dianne Freeman’s Countess of Harleigh mysteries as long as we have. A Christmas Guide to Family and Murder is the ninth in the historical series. A country Christmas in Victorian England takes a murderous turn in Agatha and Lefty Award winning author Dianne Freeman’s delightful mystery featuring Frances Hazelton, the former Countess of Harleigh, and her husband, George. Frances and George are looking forward to a Christmas season enlivened by all the diversions London can provide. But family comes first, and George’s sister Fiona and her husband persuade everyone to gather at their Norfolk estate for the holiday. The weather will be chilly, but the prospect of snow delights the youngsters. And with blazing fires and invigorating country walks in store, Frances envisions a peaceful, jolly Christmas.
Instead of a picturesque snowfall, however, Norfolk is hit by pounding rainfall and high winds. In the aftermath of the storm, Frances, Fiona, and the children make an unpleasant discovery in a nearby field—the body of their neighbor, dead in suspicious circumstances. Joshua Penhollow was the local doctor, though not a well-respected one. Indeed, most viewed him as a quack, and even his own stepdaughter held a grudge against him. With the menfolk gone to help clear a blocked road, the investigation falls to Frances and Fiona, who must also curb the young people’s excitement at encountering a real-life murder. (Release date is Sept. 29.)

I don’t know when I’ve seen a novel that turns a trope on it’s head the way Abby Geni’s Children of the Wolf does. It’s always women or children who disappear in novels, not men. A woman notices a pattern of men disappearing in her small town, reawakening memories of her childhood raised by a father obsessed with his violent Viking heritage. As an adult, Liv leads a quiet life, tending to the beekeeping business that supports her and her brother. But when a dead body is discovered in her town, she is forced to grapple with a legacy of violence from when she was small. As a child, she shared a home in rural Iowa with her brother Finn and their father Ulf. Swedish-born Ulf, a direct descendant of the infamous Erik the Red, raises his children as if they are Vikings. They are homeschooled, speak only Swedish, learn swordplay and archery, celebrate the Norse holidays, and worship the old gods with blood sacrifices. But when Liv is fourteen, her family’s sanctum is broken apart by an FBI raid. Separated from their father, Liv and Finn must learn to adapt to normal life. Now, twenty years later, Liv and Finn have changed their last names and moved to Haven, Michigan. Through her work as a beekeeper, Liv meets Penny, a secretive, unusual, beguiling woman. Just as her life is beginning to open up in new ways, Liv notices a strange and upsetting pattern in the area around Haven: men are disappearing. As she tallies up the missing, she senses disturbing similarities to her own father’s crimes. (Release date is Sept. 15.)

Laurie Gilmore is the author of the Dream Hallow small town series. She’s launching a new series with Big Bad Wolf., a book set in Maple Hollow. The darker the woods, the bigger the secrets…Ruby Bellerose lives on the edge of the woods, in a cottage more akin to a fairy tale than modern day life. Her love life is practically non-existent, and she keeps away from the whispered gossip that travels through Maple Hollow. Until a chance encounter with Rafe. As mysterious as he is brooding, Ruby is drawn to the woodsman, curious to find out about the stranger who lives deep within the woods. But Rafe is hiding a secret. And with something lurking in the shadowy forest, will Ruby find that Rafe is her knight in shining armor, or something altogether more dangerous…(Release date is Sept. 8.)

I have’t liked or finished all of Alice Hoffman’s books, but I’m always willing to give them a chance.The Witches of Cambridge launches a new series, following two brilliant young women in 1950s Cambridge, Massachusetts, as they become immersed in a mysterious secret group of witches at Radcliffe known as the Lilith Society. Once upon a time, women were drowned in the river and the only witnesses were the crows in the trees. The Puritans blamed Eve for the sins of the world. That was when we began to meet in the name of Lilith, Adam’s first wife—banished for refusing to do as she was told. We Fly Together… By the 1950s, Cambridge, Massachusetts feels far removed from the legendary witch trials that marked its early days as a colony. Ava, a bright young woman from a small town in Maine, arrives for her first year at Radcliffe College. There, she meets Lauren, her opposite in every way—the wild and brazen daughter of a wealthy and well-established Cambridge family. But the two have more in common than they think. Both are recruited by the Lilith Society, a secret organization of witches at Radcliffe dating back to colonial times. As they learn more about their legacy, Ava and Lauren form a close bond that is put to the test as they learn to navigate their new power, friendship, and love. While Radcliffe seems like a safe haven, the shadow of McCarthyism looms large, an ever-present threat to the flourishing creative and intellectual life in Cambridge. And as girls from the Lilith Society begin to go missing, Ava and Lauren realize the witch trials of the past may not be as deeply buried as they once believed. (Release date is Sept. 8.)

Mark Baker and I may be the only two who regularly come here who read Liz Ireland’s Mrs. Claus mysteries, but we’re addicted. The Christmas season release this year is Mrs. Claus and the Fatal Figgy Pudding. It’s a hectic holiday season for April Claus as she juggles everything from her Santaland duties to stage managing a community production of A Christmas Carol to sleuthing out who’s behind an actor’s fatal finale—all while caring for a very special delivery…“Dear Mrs. Claus, I know you have a good heart. Please take care of baby August.” When April finds the poignant note accompanying an infant elf left at Castle Kringle’s door, she’s filled with emotion—and questions. After all, there’s an orphanage in Christmastown. And how is it that the baby’s name uniquely echoes her own? Despite her packed schedule, April is determined to care for little Augie while searching for answers. But one more drama is yet to come . . .It’s curtains for the actor playing Tiny Tim when he keels over dead after eating April’s specially made figgy pudding. Distraught, April is at least relieved to learn that Castle Kringle’s kitchen didn’t make the deadly dollop of rum sauce responsible. But whodunit? The imperious director who wanted a casting change? The eager understudy? One of the surprising number of Santaland’s aspiring thespian elves? Ignoring shady rumors swirling that Augie is secretly hers, April puts the baby on her hip and sets out to solve both mysteries. And as she digs deeper behind the scenes, the truth might just change all the Claus family’s Christmases to come . . (Release date is Sept. 29.)

James Islington’s Scion is the last book for today. It’s a cyberpunk thriller. My job, when you think about it, isn’t so different from a lot of people’s. The more old-fashioned crowd do still get hung up on the “killing people” part of it, I guess, but that’s a them problem: it’s been perfectly legal to take out lifers for ages. Besides, once ultrawealthy morons realised they had a way to live forever—limited resources be damned—there was only ever going to be one genuinely practical deterrent. So, sure, I have to deal with a ton of boring planning. Inconvenient hours. Some pretty awkward face-to-face interactions. And like most of us, I’m really only clocking in to try to crawl out from beneath my debts. But someone’s got to do it. Luckily, my genetic compatibilities make me really, really good at doing it. Still. This next job…I don’t know. It’s something I haven’t had to deal with in years. Kind of the opposite of my regular duties. Strange, that it got thrown my way. I’m sure it’ll all go totally fine though. (Release date is Sept. 1.)

Is there anything out there that jumps out at you today, or are you going to wait to see the second half of the list tomorrow? There’s nothing I enjoy more than forthcoming books.