Is there anything better than lighting a candle, getting comfy with a PSL and turning page after page? Get ready to feel inspired with the best fall books of 2022, fellow bibliophiles! We also highlight our favorite autumn reads from last year as well, so get your Kindles and Bookshop carts primed—here are fall’s best reads. Here at Parade.com, we’re all about sharing products we love with our audience. When you make a purchase on an item seen on this page, we may earn a commission, however, all picks are independently chosen unless otherwise mentioned.
Best Books of Fall 2022
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
O’Farrell (who won the Women’s Prize for Fiction for her 2020 novel Hamnet) takes you back in time once again, to 16th-century Italy in The Marriage Portrait, about a young duchess married off at 15 who is sure her husband wants her dead.
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
In Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts, the Little Fires Everywhere author imagines an American dystopia where books by and about Asian Americans (considered unpatriotic) are banned and children of dissidents are relocated, including 12-year-old Bird, who searches for his missing Chinese American poet mother with the help of an underground librarian network.
Less is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer
If you loved Greer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Less, you’ll want to pick up Less is Lost. The author has returned with his hapless, awkward and lovable hero Arthur Less on yet another unforgettable road trip across America.
It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover
There’s hardly an author who has benefited more from #BookTok sales than Colleen Hoover. Her books, including the 2016 contemporary romance novel It Ends With Us, have become sensations on the app. Luckily for readers, Hoover has been listening. She’s written a long-anticipated sequel, one that brings back Lily’s first love, Atlas, while capturing the heartbreak of ending past relationships, navigating trauma and finding joy in starting over. Fans of the first one should definitely pick up It Starts With Us.
The House in the Orchard by Elizabeth Brooks
A haunting historic gothic novel—that’s what fall is made for, right? In The House in the Orchard, a WWII widow inherits a country estate in England, where she finds a young orphan’s diary and begins searching for answers.
The Family Game by Catherine Steadman
A young writer is lured back into the orbit of her fiancé’s old-money American family. But when his father confesses a horrific crime to her, they’re all in for a world of danger in the psychological thriller The Family Game.
Drunk on Love by Jasmine Guillory
Bestselling romance author Guillory returns with Drunk on Love, a seductive, flirty love story set in the intoxicating world of Napa Valley wine country. Margot runs her family winery. Luke is her new hire, a charming Silicon Valley dropout looking for a fresh start. Neither can deny the chemistry, even if it is an ethical employment disaster.
Never Meant to Meet You by Alli Frank and Asha Youmans
A single mom whose husband left her deals with the realities of parenting, race, love and heartache in Never Meant to Meet You, just as a new child and his uncle enter the neighborhood and the community meets tragedy.
The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas
For a slow-burn rom-com featuring an introvert, an extrovert, forced-proximity fake-dating, some undeniable chemistry and a masquerade ball, pick up The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas, author of 2021’s fan-favorite The Spanish Love Deception.
The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman
If you loved the first two Thursday Murder Club installments, then this one is not to be missed. Everyone’s favorite retirement home sleuths are back in The Bullet That Missed, and this time, they’ll unravel the mysteries of two murders, set 10 years apart, while dealing with a local news legend, ex-KGB spies, money launderers and more.
The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin
In The World We Make, N.K. Jemisin’s anticipated urban fantasy sequel to The City We Became, New York City is still fractured and the human avatars of its boroughs seek help from other living cities around the world to face a corrupt mayoral candidate and an alien enemy.
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
Set in Belfast during the Troubles and drawn from author Louise Kennedy’s own childhood (her family’s pub was bombed multiple times), Trespasses is about forbidden love and the effects of violence, loyalty and political and religious unrest.
The House of Fortune by Jessie Burton
A stand-alone companion to her BBC-adapted The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton’s The House of Fortune is set in 18th-century Amsterdam, where an 18-year-old is pressured by her aunt to marry and save the family fortune.
Marple: Twelve New Mysteries
Twelve contemporary crime writers, including Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley, Leigh Bardugo and Val McDermid, reinvigorate fiction’s favorite female sleuth, Jane Marple, with 12 new whodunits in Marple: Twelve New Mysteries.
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
In Mad Honey, Picoult and Finney Boylan write about a mother who moves to her sleepy New Hampshire hometown to escape an abusive marriage and take over the family beekeeping business. Years later, when her son is arrested for murder, she questions if he inherited his father’s dark side.
The Matchmaker’s Gift by Lynda Cohen Loigman
In The Matchmaker’s Gift, two women—a Jewish immigrant and, generations later, her divorce-attorney granddaughter—have a magical knack for identifying soulmates in unexpected places.
Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout
Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is back with Lucy by the Sea, about a divorced couple who holes up together in coastal Maine during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Set in the mountains of Appalachia, Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead reimagines Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield with a story about a boy navigating poverty and the perils of rural life.
The Boys From Biloxi by John Grisham
A decade-spanning legal thriller from John Grisham, The Boys From Biloxi is set within the 1960s Dixie Mafia, where the sons of two rival immigrant families end up on opposite sides of the law.
The House Party by Rita Cameron
Cameron’s The House Party is set ahead of the 2008 housing market crash, when an out-of-control party goes completely wrong, exposing disturbing truths about the Pennsylvania community it lives within.
Surrender by Bono
Artist, activist and U2 lead singer Bono has taken to paper to record his memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. Forty chapters (each named after a U2 song) are packed with tales of his life, the challenges he’s faced, the friends and family who have sustained him—and 40 original drawings.
The Ways We Hide by Kristina McMorris
Set during WWII, The Ways We Hide follows Fenna Vos, who performs on stage as the assistant to an escape artist. Behind the magic, though, she’s the real mastermind. So it’s no surprise when she’s recruited by British Intelligence to create escape tools that thwart the Germans. But while helping the cause, she’ll be thrust into missions that test her loyalty and bring her face-to-face with her past.
The Revolutionary by Stacy Schiff
In The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams (October 25, Little, Brown), Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Stacy Schiff argues that Adams’ efforts during the Revolutionary War did more to bring about independence than those of any other Founding Father.
The Lemon by S.E. Boyd
Set at the intersection of Hollywood and fine dining, The Lemon begins with the death of a beloved host of a culinary travel show. What follows is a sharp satire of the food world and those who devour it and a look at the dark underside of fame.
Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro
Bestselling author Dani Shapiro (Inheritance) has published her first novel in 15 years. Signal Fires follows a constellation of characters over five decades, a horrific accident, a twist of fate and secrets so dangerous they can’t be spoken.
Beyond the Wand by Tom Felton
Missing Hogwarts? Tom Felton, who played white-haired villain Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise, has written about the magical moments on set and adolescence within the pop culture phenomenon in Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard.
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
Two books by Cormac McCarthy will be published this fall, including The Passenger, about a rescue diver embroiled in a murder mystery after exploring a submerged plane wreck, and Stella Maris, about the diver’s math prodigy sister who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama
Former first lady and bestselling author Michelle Obama follows up her acclaimed 2018 memoir, Becoming, with The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times, a collection of fresh stories, reflections on change and power and the habits she uses to stay afloat and overcome obstacles.
The Queen by Andrew Morton
Known for his 1992 bombshell bestseller on Princess Diana, royal biographer Andrew Morton is back with The Queen, a comprehensive, behind-the-scenes biography of the sovereign’s long and storied reign.
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Book by Jerry Seinfeld
For fans of Jerry Seinfeld’s popular streaming series, the Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Book features Seinfeld’s picks of the show’s keenest insights, funniest exchanges and coolest cars in a beautifully designed and curated photo-heavy book.
Best Fall Books of 2021
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
Hit the open road with Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow), whose latest follows a young man fresh out of a juvenile work farm in 1950s Nebraska who gets caught up in the exploits of two work farm escapees heading to New York City.
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
In Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You, four young adults—a Dublin novelist, her socially awkward best friend and their love interests— navigate relationships and come to grips with adulthood.
Still Life by Sarah Winman
A British soldier has a chance encounter with a middle-aged art historian in 1940s Tuscany that shapes his life and the lives of friends for decades to come.
Dava Shastri’s Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti
Dava Shastri is one of the world’s wealthiest women, and she just received a cancer diagnosis. Now a dying billionaire matriarch, she decides to leak the news of her death so she can read her obituaries, horrifying her children and inadvertently exposing secrets she spent years burying.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Characters in 1400s Constantinople, present-day Idaho and a future spaceship named Argos are all united by a long-lost book from ancient Greece in Cloud Cuckoo Land by Pulitzer Prize-winning Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See).
State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Rodham Clinton
A political thriller from longtime friends Louise Penny and Hillary Rodham Clinton, State of Terror follows a series of terrorist attacks and a newly appointed secretary of state who must unravel a carefully designed conspiracy.
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
Pulitzer Prize-winner Colson Whitehead marvels with this family-saga-meets-classic-heist set in 1960s New York City in Harlem Shuffle.
Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney
Take a trip to the Scottish Highlands, where a troubled marriage comes to a head during a weekend away in this disturbingly twisty domestic thriller.
The Family by Naomi Krupitsky
In this 20th-century coming-of-age story of friendship and (the) family, two Italian-American best friends grow up in the shadows of New York’s mafia. Their families are entwined, and as they grow, their loyalties to their friendship and Brooklyn’s organized crime will be tested.
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
Another made-for-TV hit? In Apples Never Fall by Moriarty (Big Little Lies), a retired couple lets a stranger into their lives. What follows is a missing wife and four grown children left wondering if Dad is to blame.
The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
Foo Fighters’ frontman Dave Grohl’s The Storyteller offers musings on a life of music, reflections on his childhood (teaching himself to drum on pillows) and thoughtful memories of being on the road with Nirvana, dancing with AC/DC, meeting Paul McCartney and drumming for Tom Petty.
Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
Award-winning actor Stanley Tucci goes beyond foodie films, documentaries and his bestselling cookbooks in Taste: My Life Through Food, a memoir packed with savory stories of burned dishes and five-star food, falling in love over dinner and the power of a home-cooked meal.
Forever Young by Hayley Mills
In Forever Young, Pollyanna and Parent Trap star Hayley Mills reflects on her iconic roles and Tinseltown memories, including losing Disney money, turning down the starring role in the controversial 1962 film Lolita, bulimia struggles and more.
Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
Another most-anticipated, this 70s-set novel (the first in a planned trilogy) follows a Chicago suburban family confronting morality and a Christian youth group during this culture-shifting decade.
The Brides of Maracoor by Gregory Maguire
The first book in an all-new magical Wicked spin-off series, The Brides of Maracoor brings together a few familiar faces from Oz as well as Elphaba’s vibrantly green-skinned granddaughter, Rain, who washes ashore to a foreign island where a compelling cast of seven “brides” take her in.
The Neighbor’s Secret by L. Alison Heller
How well do you know your neighbors? That question has been asked time and time again in the book world, but Heller’s latest offers something a bit more imaginative, with dramatic plot twists and smart characters who come to life when lies and cover-ups disrupt the lives of a suburban book club.
The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling
Jane is a logical woman in post-war England who knows the realities of unmarried women. In search of a husband for convenience and with no strings attached—just the last name—she decides on the dashing doctor Augustine Lawrence. Soon, she’ll find her new husband offers more than what she bargained for, including deadly secrets in this high-tension gothic horror novel.
Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo
Anna is an empty nester separated from her husband and looking for belonging. While searching through her dead mother’s things, she finds clues about the father she never knew—a man who is not only still alive, but also a dictator in West Africa? What will she learn about her past and present as she decides to track him down?
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for The Night Watchman, Erdrich’s latest follows a formerly incarcerated woman named Tookie working at a Minneapolis bookstore and haunted by the ghost of the store’s most annoying customer. Set in present day, Tookie attempts to solve the mystery of the haunting while simultaneously living in a city distraught by the pandemic, police brutality and the killing of George Floyd.
Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu
A biracial Chinese-American girl in New Jersey, Willa Chen has never really fit in—too Asian for her all-white school, too white for the few Asian kids around. But purpose and connection are found in odd places, and Willa will soon find belonging nannying for a wealthy family in Manhattan.
We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza
Told from the alternating perspectives of close friends Jen (who’s white) and Riley (who’s black), we see a deep bond of a forever friendship tested when Jen’s police-officer husband is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager, a story that journalist Riley will cover as she wrestles with the implications on her community and friendship.
Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan
Callahan has read C.S. Lewis her entire life (and has already given us Becoming Mrs. Lewis), so it’s no surprise that the author’s fascinating work would inspire her latest novel. This time, she’s asking, “Where did Narnia come from?” In Once Upon a Wardrobe, a dying 8-year-old boy (captivated by a new book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), asks his Oxford physics prodigy sister to find its origins. His older sister is drinking tea with the author in search of answers—and hope.
Three Sisters by Heather Morris
From the author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, this (overlapping) tale follows three Slovakian sisters, Livia, Magda and Cibi, who after surviving years of imprisonment in Auschwitz must make a new home, facing secrets and ghosts of their own past.
Will by Will Smith
From timid West Philadelphia kid to Fresh Prince and Hollywood box office mega-star, Will Smith gets real about his emotional reckoning with the pressures of performance and high-stakes entertainment in Will.
Fight Night by Miriam Toews
Three generations of women (9-year-old Swiv, her pregnant mother, and grandma Elvira) living under one roof therapeutically write letters to those absent in their lives—a project that was sparked after 9-year-old Swiv is suspended from school for fighting. Next, How to Be a Better Ally For Your Friends, According to We Are Not Like Them Authors Jo Piazza and Christine Pride
