As the leaves start changing into warm colors, the weather gets colder. The chill temperatures make you want to grab a thick blanket to wrap yourself in and a good book to read while enjoying a warm drink. To help you make your Autumn fantasies real, check out our most anticipated releases. They are sure to keep you cozy, warm, or spooked!
Sleeping with the Frenemy by Natalie Caña
Speaking about staying warm, Caña brings us the third romance of the Vega Family Love Stories with the much-anticipated secret relationship between Leo Vega and Sofi Santana—and what a steamy pair they are!
Leo and Sofi’s relationship has been on and off for a while but after a big fight between Sofi and her best friend, Leo’s sister, they split up for over a year. Despite Leo getting badly injured, Sofi keeps the distance between them as she lives her life on her terms—or so she thinks. When she returns from her stay in Paris, the ice forming around them starts melting immediately, proving their undeniable feelings for each other. However, not everything in this story is about love. Sofi and Leo have a lot of healing ahead of them if they want their relationship to work. The book is about forgiveness and discovering one’s purpose even after years of thinking you had one already.
The Witches of El Paso by Luis Jaramillo
While the title reveals the magical element and setting, Jaramillo’s novel has much more to unpack.
In 1943, Elena Eduviges Montoya, best known as “Nena,” lives a life that is not her own. She is a teenager taking care of her older sister’s children while haunted by visions of her future. One night, Sister Benedicta de la Cruz appears and takes Nena to 1792 where she joins a convent and learns about her powers. In the present day, after an ironic turn of events, Marta struggles with her career and motherhood while caring for her great aunt, who is ninety-three-year-old Nena. With her great-niece’s powers awakened, Nena can’t keep hiding the secret of her time-traveling and her long-lost daughter.
Charged with magical realism, The Witches of El Paso explores complex female relationships and the consequences of family secrets. It is a book that you won’t want to put down.
Solis by Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher
Mendoza and Sher’s YA novel will surely spook you out—just not as you would expect it.
The story takes place in a scary, not-so-futuristic America where undocumented people are forced into labor camps. In this horrific scenario, four women meet. They are all different ages and backgrounds, but they have one thing in common: they are tired of their exploitation. Therefore, they join the resistance group SOLIS to stop the government’s cruelty—or die trying.
The novel is terrifying because it shows a speculative world that is not so unthinkable. The exploitation of immigrants, land, and resources is all too familiar. The narrative is graphic and violent, enhancing how horrifying yet necessary it is to think about the future of our society.
Ghost Brother by Sylvia Sánchez Garza
For the rainy days to come, a cup of chocolate caliente and a book about grief make the perfect medicine.
Sánchez Garza’s YA novel explores the way families react to loss, especially when facing the death of a young person. After a fatal car accident caused by a pair of bullies, Cris loses his twin brother, Carlos; however, the connection between the siblings won’t break that easily. The story develops from both twins’ perspectives, as Cris navigates his grief while Carlos’s ghost roams without anyone noticing him. Eventually, the brothers’ realities get even more complicated when one falls in love with a girl who knows details about the accident and the other overhears revealing conversations.
Ghost Brother will warm your heart with its exploration of sorrow as life moves on for Cris, while Carlos remains stuck between realms.
Roxanna Cardenas Colmenares is a Venezuelan writer living in New York City who loves to consume, study, and create art. She explores multiple genres in her writing, with a special interest in horror and sci-fi, while working on her B.A. in English with a Creative Writing concentration.
Her work has made her a two-time recipient of the James Tolan Student Writing Award for her critical essays analyzing movies. She has also won The Henry Roth Award in Fiction, The Esther Unger Poetry Prize, and The Allan Danzig Memorial Award in Victorian Literature.
In her free time, she likes to watch movies, dance, and draw doodles that she hopes to be brave enough to share one day.
