Best Books Publishing in September: Fiction, Non-Fiction & YA

Here's a selection of particularly good books publishing in September 2013, selected from over 100 new and notable books that are previewed on BookBrowse.

Novels

This month brings new works from many familiar writers. J. M. Coetzee returns with The Childhood of Jesus, an eerie allegorical tale told primarily through dialogue which explores childhood and destiny. From Southern fiction master Daniel Woodrell comes The Maid's Version, an explosive emotional story about family, justice and the power of truth. Edwidge Danticat, author of the best-selling Brother, I'm Dying, delivers Claire of the Sea Light, a stunning novel about a fisherman's daughter gone missing and what it means to be a parent, child, friend, neighbor and lover.

Jane Urquhart's Sanctuary Line is a powerful, poetic read offering a reflection on the fragility of human life and our tenuous connection to one another, all mirrored in the study of the migratory habits of monarch butterflies. A stew of Middle East politics, computer sci-fi and Jewish philosophy, Dara Horn's A Guide for the Perplexed is an ambitious and highly entertaining novel. Fans of Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal author Jeannette Winterson will want to check out her novel The Daylight Gate, a magical modern-day tale of the Pendle Witches.


Historical Fiction & Sci-Fi

"Socially conscious melodrama at its best", Diane Chamberlain's Necessary Lies, set in rural North Carolina during a time of state-mandated sterilizations and racial tension, explores the lives of two women, seemingly very different, but truly connected. Set in Depression-era Seattle comes another story of two connected people - Songs of Willow Frost is a powerful tale of a boy with dreams for his future and a woman escaping her haunted past, both in search of love, hope, and forgiveness. Robert Morgan's The Road from Gap Creek is the long-awaited sequel to Gap Creek - a moving and monumental portrait of people in the Great Depression and World War II.

Award winning poet Jason Mott explores faith and morality, love and responsibility in his debut novel The Returned in which loved ones all over the world come back from the beyond; while Margaret Atwood fans will be thrilled that the final entry in her MaddAddam series is here!


Mysteries & Thrillers

Inspector Gamache returns in a new Louise Penny novel, How the Light Gets In. This is the ninth in the series and receiving reviews that indicate it could be her best yet; BookBrowse members who reviewed it for First Impressions rated it an average of 4.9 out of 5.0! John Lawton's Then We Take Berlin is a gripping historical thriller of espionage, war and the people caught up in it. World War I nurse and amateur sleuth Bess Crawford is back in Charles Todd's A Question of Honor; as is Jack Reacher in Lee Child's Never Go Back, an intricate puzzle that forces Reacher to question who he is, what he's done and what his life will become.

Biography, Memoir & Current Affairs

Framed by letters written between 1940 and 1947, Marianne Szegedy-Maszák's I Kiss Your Hands Many Times tells the intimate and epic story of the complicated relationship Hungary has had with its Jewish population through the lens of her parents who met and fell in love in Budapest in 1940. Le Monde special correspondent Annick Cojean gives voice to Libyan women who suffered abuses at the hands of Gaddafi in Gaddafi's Harem. In the suspense-filled Five Days at Memorial, Pulitzer Prize winner Sheri Fink investigates patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and contemplates truth and justice; while, in Old Man River, Paul Schneider explores the history of the Mississippi River.


Young Adult

Some much-beloved YA writers are back! On the heels of her acclaimed Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, is a tender coming of age story. Patrick Ness's More Than This is an exploration of life's big questions in the way only Ness can ask them; while David Levithan's Two Boys Kissing tells the based-on-true-events story of two boys who are about to take part in a 32-hour kissing marathon to set a new Guinness World Record - all told against the backdrop of the generation of gay men who died from AIDS. Finally, Code Name Verity author Elizabeth Wein is back with Rose Under Fire, another World War II thriller about Rose, a pilot transporting planes for the RAF who is captured and sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp.


Younger Readers

Many middle grade writers also return with new books: Kate DiCamillo partners with up-and-coming illustrator K. G. Campbell in Flora and Ulysses, a superhero adventure story told as a novel interspersed with comic-style graphics and full-page illustrations. Jack Gantos follows up his Newberry Award winning Dead End in Norvelt with From Norvelt to Nowhere, a novel about roots, revenge, and the power of friendship. In Sharon Creech's The Boy on the Porch, a couple find a boy asleep on their porch - and their lives, and hearts, are forever changed. Lastly, in Fortunately, the Milk Neil Gaiman brings us an hilarious novel about time travel and breakfast cereal.