Books to "Fall" in love with...plus a giveaway!

By Cindy Roesel

**Giveaway is now closed**

Reading this Fall is very exciting. I’ve found several books I want to share with you which include compelling women characters I hope you will put on your “to be read list.”

In The Affairs of Others by Amy Grace Loyd (Picador), prudent Celia loses her husband and then buys a Brooklyn brownstone hoping it’ll bring order to her life. She chooses tenants with the expectations to create a neatly compartmentalized existence. When one tenant moves out and another in without being properly vetted, the harmony of the building and people living there is disrupted. “Women say sorry too often. We say it when it’s not ours to say.” Expect quite a few unexpected surprises. Amy Grace Lloyd’s debut novel is a “literary peep show.”

Aimee Bender is back with a collection of short stories in The Color Master (Doubleday). Her reputation for creating well-written surreal and bizarre dreamy tales about strange magical worlds (like in her previous novel, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake) will only be reinforced. This is a collection of fifteen fresh new stories. It’s not chick-lit. It’s dark, wicked and will challenge you as a reader.

And if you enjoy well-written short stories that explore relationships, you’ll want to read and study The Hypothetical Girl (Other Press). What I love about this collection is all the characters are pretty normal except for the ones who aren’t, because they are all desperate to find love. Stop. Pause and take a moment. We’ve all been there. That’s why I wrote pretty normal. You can be pretty normal and behave completely abnormal in a relationship or in the pursuit of it. All of the relationships are pursed in the landscape of current social media. Author Elizabeth Cohen teaches at State University New York, Plattsburgh.

Forget a glass of wine or a chocolate bar! I’m hooking myself up to a sauvignon blanc IV and buying a case of Halloween candy, heavy on the snickers. At nearly 800-pages, on October 22nd Donna Tartt’s new tome, The Goldfinch (Little, Brown) is being released and I’m ready to settle in. You either love reading her or not. I do. This time 13-year Theo Decker and his mother are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when a bomb explodes killing mother and leaving Theo an orphan. It’s a mystery spanning the globe centered on the real Dutch Master Painting, "The Goldfinch" by Carel Fabritius.

In Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (Knopf), by the one and only Helen Fielding, a lot has changed since we last read about Bridget 14-plus years ago. In addition to some new things like Twitter, texting, on-line dating on the current landscape, some have stayed the same...like booze. But will she be married? Single? The book comes out tomorrow! Until then, check out an excerpt in the October “Vogue.” It tells you A LOT! I’m not going to spill any beans because I’ll have LOTS of you texting me nasty emails! But let me tell you there are LOTS of changes in Bridget’s life … and let me say, some for the good! Chick Lit Central is giving away a copy to a lucky US reader, so be sure to enter to win it right here!

For the first time in any of our lifetimes, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah fall on the same day – Thursday, November 28th. And it is currently being called THANKSGIVUKKAH. To celebrate the spirit of the upcoming winter holidays, some of our favorite chick-lit authors are putting together six tales of Christmas cheer titled Merry and Bright. It’s a collection of short stories, edited by Lucie Simone, that will be out next month and the authors featured include:

• Isabella Louise Anderson
• Cindy Arora
• Laura Chapman
• Lauren Clark
• Libby Mercer
• Nancy Scrofano

Looking forward to lots of additional reviews and giveaways right here on Chick Lit Central. There's never a shortage from new authors and novels for lucky members to win. Enjoy the Fall season and wearing your autumn wardrobe.

Thanks to Knopf for sharing a copy of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy with one lucky US reader.

How to win:
Aside from any spoilers you've heard, tell us something you predict will happen to/for Bridget this time around. (Or share a favorite memory from one of the first two books.)

One entry per person.

Please include your e-mail address or another way to reach you if you win. Entries without contact information will NOT be counted.

US only. Giveaway ends October 20th at midnight EST.