10 Novels as Colorful and Cozy as an Autumn Afternoon

Personally, I don’t think there is ever a wrong time to read a romance novel, but MEET ME ON LOVE LANE is the perfect heartwarming read for that beautiful fall chill. Maybe it’s the charming Pennsylvania lake town, the flower shop our heroine finds herself working at, or the dreamy love triangle between the hot English teacher and the hot doctor. Broke and blacklisted by her former boss, Charlotte is forced to leave New York and move back to her hometown of Hope Lake. The plan is to only stay long enough to make some money and get herself back to New York, but of course, these things never go as planned. Now Charlotte’s heart is torn between two men and two cities. The best part of this novel, other than the cozy romance, is the down-to-earth and believable characters that immediately draw you into Charlotte’s world. The love, friendships, and family aspects of this novel really bring the story together and leave you with a heart full of warm and fuzzies.  

I know I just said that romance is perfect for every season, but novels with romance and adventure and the possibility of big, cozy wool sweaters are truly wonderful fall reads. THE SIMPLE WILD has so much heart to it that you really should pick up a copy, don your favorite sweater, and curl up by the fireplace as Tucker takes you through the Alaskan wilderness. Calla, only two years old when she and her mother fled Alaska, has grown up to be quite the city girl in Toronto. Now 28, Calla receives news that her father is ill. Despite the fact that she hasn’t spoken to him in years and that she’s unfamiliar with the dangers of the Alaskan terrain, she knows she needs to see him. And that’s when Calla meets Jonah, a pilot who works for her father. And that’s where our enemies-to-lovers romance plot begins. The bickering and banter between Calla and Jonah, as he tells her that she can’t handle Alaska mixed with Calla’s stubbornness to try, makes their romance all the more satisfying.  

I have always preferred hot apple cider over pumpkin spice, though that might just be because I’m allergic to pumpkins, either way, you can’t deny that this delicious book just screams autumn. THE SIMPLICITY OF CIDER follows Sanna, a fifth-generation cider maker, who wants nothing more than to live a simple life on her family’s apple orchard. All of that changes when Isaac and his 10-year-old son, Sebastian, arrive. While Sanna is grateful for the help after her father has an accident, Isaac comes with his own complications. In an attempt to protect Sebastian from his mother’s troubled past, the father and son pair settle on a farm where Sanna and Sebastian form an unexpected friendship, and Sanna and Isaac might be falling into something more. Then the hope of a quiet life of a cider maker is threatened by a force outside the farm.  

There is something so innately human about our need for stories that is amplified by colder weather and shorter days, which is why THE THIRTEENTH TALE is such a compelling fall read. This book is just so mesmerizing and a true treat for storytellers and story lovers alike. It’s the kind of story that stays with you long after you’ve read the last page. Vida Winters has made a life and a career for herself weaving masterful fictionalized versions of her own story. But now she’s finally ready to tell the full violent and tragic truth. She enlists the help of a young biographer, Margaret, to tell it. The story that Winters tells is full of family drama, ghosts, governesses, and fires set to rival any gothic novel. While Margret is enraptured, she is also suspicious and demands the truth from Winters. Together, they must confront the pasts that haunt them.  

Sure, it’s easy to throw this book on the list due to its title alone, but AUTUMN is truly a masterful piece of work about people in a specific time and place, but not in a linear sense. Part of her seasonal quartet, Smith expertly captures the feeling and the atmosphere of Britain post-Brexit. Her prose brings both the season and the mood of the times to life. The story centers around Elisabeth and her connection to her neighbor Daniel, and jumps between what life was like when Elisabeth was a girl, to what life is like now as she visits Daniel—who is in a coma—almost every day. This is truly a novel meant to capture the feeling of a nation in a tumultuous time with profound prose.  

I have to say it, I can’t write a fall book list without including some sort of witchy title. Of course, to me, PRACTICAL MAGIC will always be more than just another book about magic. It is a story about fierce female bonds, destiny, freedom, and the love and strength between sisters. Alice Hoffman is an expert at weaving magic into the heart of all her stories, but PRACTICAL MAGIC will always be one of my favorites as we follow the Owens’s women and the curse that any man they love must die. Both sisters, Sally and Gillian, are determined to escape their lives of “witchery” but all that changes when Sally’s husband dies and Gillian appears on her doorstep in desperate need of her sister’s help.  

These stories are full of chilly New England air and some chilly New England sensibilities following Olive Kitteridge and the people of Crosby, Maine. Really it is a collection of short stories that centers around the ornery and stern, yet perceptive and honest Olive Kitteridge who hates the change she sees taking place in her town. Strout creates a compelling analysis of the human condition through this stark portrayal of Olive and the people around her as Olive herself begins to change. As she is brought deeper and deeper into the lives of those around her, like the musician haunted by a past love or her own husband and his conflicting feelings on their marriage, Olive is forced to learn about herself as well.  

Life is filled with rules. Some rules that are meant to be followed, some that are meant to be broken, and some that have yet to be created. THE CIDER HOUSE RULES is another novel with rich characters and complex emotions that haunt you after you’ve devoured it from cover to cover. St. Cloud, Maine, is the place women go when they don’t want to have their children. Set in the early part of the twentieth century when abortion is still illegal, Dr. Larch is the only one who offers a safe procedure and the choice of abortion or adoption. Enter Homer, one of Dr. Larch’s orphans in St. Cloud who is trained to assist the doctor. That is until Homer is old enough to really understand the procedure and refuses to take part. Instead, he becomes enamored with a young couple seeking Larch’s help and leaves with them to their family’s apple orchard. At first, Homer only plans to learn enough about orchards and return to the orphanage, but as his relationships with the characters change, Homer embarks on a true coming-of-age-story that will take your breath away.  

I love this book and the frenzied obsessive it creates. Even after reading it, there was still part of me that longed to be included in an elite group of scholars who studied the classics and drank martinis. THE SECRET HISTORY is something you want to be a part of and that’s why this book, in my opinion, works so well. Under the influence of an extremely charismatic professor, a group of misfit students free themselves of the modernist ways of thinking and throw themselves into living as the ancients did. But when the lines of morality blur, the group dissolves from obsession to corruption and then betrayal, and eventually, into something downright evil. Taking place in an elite college in New England, this novel is crisp, hypnotic, and filled with a darkness perfect for fall.  

Family fiction with a slow burn romance centered around a knitting shop in Harlem? If this doesn’t convince you to grab a cozy blanket or a sweater and curl up with REAL MEN KNIT, I don’t know what will. After suddenly losing their adoptive mother, Mama Joy, four young men struggle about what to do with the legacy of her Harlem knitting shop. Jesse, who has always been devoted to his adoptive mother, is the only one of his brothers who wants to keep the shop open. So he enlists the help of his childhood friend, Kerry. Despite her longtime crush on him, Kerry doesn’t believe they can have a real relationship with Jesse’s history of breaking hearts all over the city. But as they continue to work together and she shows him the ins and outs of the business, Jesse is determined to prove he can be the right man for her. This book is charming, but again, so much more than just a romance, as the relationship between these four adoptive brothers unfolds.