Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books Set in Autumn

 

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

This week the topic for Top Ten Tuesday is a freebie, and as the air is getting colder I'd thought I'd go with books set in the Fall.

 Autumn is my Baby Girl's favorite season. But who can blame her? The leaves seem to change from green of summer to fiery shades of red, yellow, and orange seemingly overnight, setting the landscape on fire. Absolutely stunning. You have to catch it quick, though. When the leaves have exuded all the beauty they can muster, they fall off. Which adds a bit to the season actually. Fall wouldn't be fall without the crunchy, dry leaves underfoot. Remember as a kid, trying to rake up the biggest pile of leaves you could...and then just launching your body full force into it. Ahhh. Good times.

And...Watching all the little kids dressed up as their favorite characters for trick-or-treating is so darn cute! I tried, for years, to talk either one of my kids as going as a leftover. I said that I would wrap them up real cute in aluminum foil. It was a no-go. Dang. I tried so hard.Really, how cute would that be? My daughter would have made a terrific meatball too. That year... Also a no-go. Damn Disney Princesses! My baby could have been the CUTEST meatball on the block...

The air gets a crispness to it. You can actually SMELL winter coming. And pumpkins. I would be very remiss without mentioning pumpkins. Everything is pumpkin-flavored this time of year. But that's ok with me, it's a cozy flavor. And who in the heck doesn't love pumpkin pie? I personally love pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting. I'll have to make a batch soon come to think of it.

Alright, enough already. Here's a list of ten books set during this glorious season. I've chosen from a number of genres, not just the scary, Halloween-y type of story.

1. The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

From the Inside Flap

"A fast-moving, eerie...tale set on Halloween night. Eight costumed boys running to meet their friend Pipkin at the haunted house outside town encounter instead the huge and cadaverous Mr. Moundshroud. As Pipkin scrambles to join them, he is swept away by a dark Something, and Moundshroud leads the boys on the tail of a kite through time and space to search the past for their friend and the meaning of Halloween. After witnessing a funeral procession in ancient Egypt, cavemen discovering fire, Druid rites, the persecution of witches in the Dark Ages, and the gargoyles of Notre Dame, they catch up with the elusive Pipkin in the catacombs of Mexico, where each boy gives one year from the end of his life to save Pipkin's. Enhanced by appropriately haunting black-and-white drawings."--Booklist

 2. Grace In Autumn  (Heavenly Daze series, #2) by Lori Copeland; Angela Hunt

It's November, and as the island residents prepare for the coming months of cold and snow, they are surprised by God's unexpected lessons of humility, trust, and hope. Authors Lori Copeland and Angela Hunt revisit the Island of Heavenly Daze in the second book of the highly acclaimed series about a small town where angelic intervention is commonplace and the Thanksgiving feast a community affair.

3.  Bitter Harvest by Ann Rule

In this harrowing New York Times bestseller, Ann Rule is at her masterful best as she winnows horrific truths from the ashes of what seemed like paradise in Prairie Village, Kansas. Rule probes the case of Debora Green, a doctor and a loving mother who seemed to epitomize the dreams of the American heartland. A small-town girl with a genius IQ, she achieved an enviable life: her own medical practice, a handsome physician husband, three perfect children, and an opulent home in an exclusive Kansas City suburb. But when a raging fire destroyed that home and took two lives, the trail of clues led investigators to a stunning conclusion. Piece by piece, Ann Rule digs beneath this placid Midwestern facade to unveil a disturbing portrait of strangely troubled marriages, infidelity, desperation, suicide, and escalating acts of revenge that forever changed dozens of lives.

4.  October by Richard B. Wright  

Visiting his gravely ill daughter, James Hillyer encounters by chance Gabriel Fontaine, whom he met as a boy while on holiday in Gaspé. At the time, the boys had competed for the love of a French-Canadian girl from the village. Now, over six decades later and faced with the terrible possibility of outliving his own daughter, James is asked by Gabriel to accompany him on a final, unthinkable journey.

With superb storytelling, spare writing and characters who feel as real and familiar as old friends, Richard B. Wright weaves a haunting classic of a man searching for answers in the autumn of his life.

 5. 11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King

Dallas, 11/22/63: Three shots ring out.

President John F. Kennedy is dead.

Life can turn on a dime—or stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in a Maine town. While grading essays by his GED students, Jake reads a gruesome, enthralling piece penned by janitor Harry Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his father’s sledgehammer slaughter of his entire family. Jake is blown away . . . but an even more bizarre secret comes to light when Jake’s friend Al, owner of the local diner, enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. How? By stepping through a portal in the diner’s storeroom, and into the era of Ike and Elvis, of big American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke. . . . Finding himself in warmhearted Jolie, Texas, Jake begins a new life. But all turns in the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The course of history is about to be rewritten . . . and become heart-stoppingly suspenseful.

6. November Hunt (Murder-by-Month mystery series, #7) by Jess Lourey

November in Battle Lake, Minnesota, is cold enough to freeze the balls off a pool table. lt's also deer hunting season. When Tom Kicker is killed in a hunting accident, Mira James is hired to investigate—a job that brings her closer to a P.I. license. Braving subzero temps and shrieking blizzards, Mira uncovers a decades-old scandal that has never quite died, unlike the cold stiffs who are piling up in the town morgue. As she pieces together the clues, Mira discovers that Battle Lake's good-old boys have been up to some bad business. But with threats and enemies around every icy corner, she may not live long enough to expose the truth.

7. November by J. William English

Jumping back into an old life is hard, something Liam O'Callaghan speedily finds out. Author J. William English's November takes readers to St. Dunstans, Scotland, a tiny coastal village where nothing ever happens--at least, it didn't. A struggling writer and recent graduate of the University of Dublin, Liam tries to settle back into life at home but finds that something is missing. A reprobate of faith since his late teens, he rebels against the pressure from his friends to return to church. Heart-wrenching challenges face the young, would-be writer, as well as dangerous and difficult choices. When a ruthless murderer arrives in the village and makes Liam his target of persecution, Liam and his friends are driven to take matters into their own hands. Life is fast going downhill, and meanwhile, he may be losing the girl he's loved most of his life. A contemporary tale of conflicted love, bitterness, and raw emotion, November is a bleak, at times dark story, but it is shrouded with the light of hope. As readers learn, there is always a way out, even when things are at their worst. The question is: will Liam November O'Callaghan be wise enough to choose it?

8. The Cold November Son by Kielden Cundiff

 Manhood, it is that imaginary line that every teenage boy must cross but when a teenage boy in a small town in South Dakota takes what he believes is a first step out of adolescence he has no idea how close to the line of adulthood he is stepping. The summer of 1983 starts innocently enough for thirteen year old Tommy with the gift of a shotgun, and an invitation to join his father in the upcoming pheasant hunting season. However, the innocence of that moment quickly evaporates as the son learns that life isn’t as perfect as it may once have appeared to be. As the days of summer pass, the complexities of life reveal themselves and Tommy soon learns a dark secret that his father has held closely. With a decaying relationship with his mother growing and a father who is trying to fit a lifetime of lessons into one summer, Tommy is about to come face to face with a decision that no teenager should ever have to make. The Cold November Son takes the reader on a voyage that explores the boundaries of love and mercy. It is a love story unlike any you have read before. Will the son honor his father's wishes? What secrets will be revealed? Those questions will be answered as Tommy is about to partake in one final and violent act of kindness? Come along on the journey and see for yourself.

9. October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Leslea Newman

 On the night of October 6, 1998, a gay twenty-one-year-old college student named Matthew Shepard was lured from a Wyoming bar by two young men, savagely beaten, tied to a remote fence, and left to die. Gay Awareness Week was beginning at the University of Wyoming, and the keynote speaker was Lesléa Newman, discussing her book Heather Has Two Mommies. Shaken, the author addressed the large audience that gathered, but she remained haunted by Matthew’s murder. October Mourning, a novel in verse, is her deeply felt response to the events of that tragic day. Using her poetic imagination, the author creates fictitious monologues from various points of view, including the fence Matthew was tied to, the stars that watched over him, the deer that kept him company, and Matthew himself. More than a decade later, this stunning cycle of sixty-eight poems serves as an illumination for readers too young to remember, and as a powerful, enduring tribute to Matthew Shepard’s life.

10.  Nine Days in October by Ron Terpening

 Richard Donovan, a professor of art history from Arizona, has come to Italy on sabbatical, bringing his two girls with him--Pam, eleven years old, and Claudia, just turned sixteen. While shopping in Rome, the family falls victim to a botched heist and Claudia is taken hostage. Working with Renzo Feroni, Italy's top cop, and Sandra Patrizi, a journalist, Donovan learns that the heist is part of a much vaster conspiracy. At stake is the fate of the world's major powers and--what matters most to Donovan--his daughter's life.

That's all I have for now. Do you have a favorite book set in the fall? I'd love to hear about it.

Have a terrific week, and thanks a million for stopping by.
Talk to you soon,
Angela