Five Fiction Titles to Watch for in September

I know a lot of folks who cite the fall as their favourite season: the weather 'round these parts just often seems so much more agreeable in Sept/October/November than any other time of year. I'm a bit fan of autumn as well, and it's not just the weather: it's the publishing! September kicks off a great run of blockbuster publishing and this year is no exception. Here are a few to keep your eyes peeled for!

Book of Fate (M)
by Parinoush Saniee (September 2)

A bestseller in Iran despite having been banned, this book is now available in translation in Canada through House of Anansi: "The Book of Fate follows a teenage girl in pre-revolutionary Iran through five turbulent decades, from before the 1979 revolution, through the Islamic Republic, and up to the present in this powerful story of friendship, passion, and hope."

Alex (M)
by Pierre LeMaitre (Sept 3)

This debut thriller seems like the sort of book that in 3 months everyone will be talking about. A dark tale set in Paris of a kidnapping and torture case and the detective who is trying to solve it, the book shared the 2013 CWA International Dagger award for a novel translated to English with Ghost Riders of Ordebec by Fred Vargas. Although the book is the first in the Police Commandant Camille Verhoeven trilogy, the real focus of the story is the eponymous Alex, the mysterious kidnap victim who the detective tries to come to know in order to find her. Common threads between reviews include comparisons between Alex and Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander, pointing out the book's successful fusing of thriller and police procedure genres, the use of superlative praise in discussion of just about anything to do with it. Seriously, people love this book: maybe you will too!

Margot (M)
by Jillian Cantor (September 3)

A historical novel that imagines what might have happened if the sister of Anne Frank had not died in a concentration camp in 1945."In the spring of 1959, The Diary of Anne Frank has just come to the silver screen to great acclaim, and a young woman named Margie Franklin is working in Philadelphia as a secretary at a Jewish law firm. On the surface she lives a quiet life, but Margie has a secret: a life she once lived, a past and a religion she has denied, and a family and a country she left behind. Margie Franklin is really Margot Frank, older sister of Anne, who did not die in Bergen-Belsen as reported, but who instead escaped the Nazis for America. But now, as her sister becomes a global icon, Margie’s carefully constructed American life begins to fall apart. A new relationship threatens to overtake the young love that sustained her during the war, and her past and present begin to collide. Margie is forced to come to terms with Margot, with the people she loved, and with a life swept up into the course of history."

Burial Rites: a novel (M)
by Hannah Kent (Sept. 10)

Another debut novel:  a novel set in historic Iceland that is based on a real crime. "Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Toti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard." This one is being described as a literary thriller. Dissident Gardens by Jonathan Lethem


Doctor Sleep (M) 
by Stephen King (September 24).

Doctor Sleep is the sequel to The Shining: 'nough said.