Travel to Renaissance Italy courtesy of award-winning writer Maggie O’Farrell’s newest book, The Marriage Portrait. Set in the 1550s, the novel tells a fictionalized version of the life of Lucrezia de Medici, the third daughter of a duke who is content with her “lower” standing in the palace. But then her older sister dies just before her wedding, and instead of mourning, her fiancé requests Lucrezia’s hand in marriage and Lucrezia’s father accepts—without even consulting her, of course. Suddenly, Lucrezia is thrown into a troubled court with a higher status, and must figure out how to navigate this new life.

Price: $25

You know Edward Enninful as the editor-in-chief of British Vogue (the first Black person to hold the position), at which he’s overseen boundary-breaking covers. His memoir, A Visible Man, offers readers a candid, in-depth look at who Enninful is outside of Vogue fame, tracking his journey as a Black, gay, working-class refugee who found solace in fashion and climbed to the top of an exclusive industry.

Price: $41

Do you believe in curses? In Carolyn Huynh’s debut, The Fortunes of Jaded Women, the Duong sisters do—and so does everyone else in Orange County’s Little Saigon. According to family lore, it all started when the Duong’s ancestor, Oanh, left her marriage for true love, leading a Vietnamese witch to curse Oanh’s descents to never find love or happiness. In the present-day, Mai Nguyen is divorced and estranged from her sisters, and believes the curse is no joke, which also means she’s very worried about her own daughters’ futures. So she turns to a psychic for guidance—and what she hears truly stuns her.

Price: $36

If you read British writer Candice Carty-Williams’ witty debut, Queenie, when it came out in 2019, you’ve probably been waiting for the writer’s follow up ever since. Now, it’s finally here. People Person follows Dimple Pennington, an aspiring lifestyle influencer who, despite a loyal following, feels very, very alone. But then a dramatic event brings her back together with her four half siblings—who Dimple knows, but also doesn’t really know—and forces the Penningtons to reconnect with their absent father.

Price: $25

Award-winning Cree poet and memorist Billy-Ray Belcourt is turning his pen to fiction writing. His debut novel, A Minor Chorus, follows an unnamed narrator who returns to his rural hometown in northern Alberta, trying to find answers about family, love, happiness and home to write his own book. The story follows the narrator through conversations and explorations about the town, vibrantly bringing the place and its people to life.

Price: $20

Bobby Finger, co-host of popular celebrity-news podcast Who? Weekly (crunch, crunch!), didn’t need to draw from tabloid headlines to write his debut novel. Instead The Old Place tells the moving story of small-town Texan woman Mary Alice Roth, a school teacher who has now retired after almost 40 years. Now that she doesn’t have to wake up early every morning, she doesn’t have much to fill her days with except enjoy a daily coffee with old friend Ellie. But then Mary Alice’s sister arrives—and brings along a secret that jeopardizes Mary Alice’s friendship with Ellie, and so much more.

Price: $37

From Celeste Ng, the author of Little Fires Everywhere, comes Our Missing Hearts, another unforgettable family drama that will get under your skin. The book follows Bird Gardner, a 12-year-old who lives a quiet life with his father as they live in a version of the U.S. governed by laws meant to “preserve American culture.” To “keep peace” in this world, authorities are allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those from Asian families, which means Bird has spent most of his life disavowing his mother, Margaret—a Chinese-American poet who left the family when he was nine. But then Bird gets a mysterious letter and finds himself on a journey to find his mother, taking him through a network of underground libraries and opening up his world to the culture he has been forced to ignore.

Price: $36

After facing backlash over a series of thoughtless, ill-timed tweets about her TV show Fresh Off the Boat in 2019, Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu took time away from the internet and Hollywood. (Wu later said she regretted those now-deleted posts.) Then the pandemic hit, and she found herself writing. The result is Make A Scene, a collection of honest, intimate essays about her childhood in Virginia, love and heartbreak, harassment and making it in Hollywood.

Price: $39

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10 Books You’ll Want to Read This Fall 2021
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