New release time in the book shop is always a highlight for me. The mountain of books continue to grow and grow. The environment swells and readers eyes light up when seeing their anticipated books hit shelves – I’m one lucky girl to see those anticipated books as soon as they jump out of a box. Here are my 5 highly anticipated September new releases:

‘Defy the Night’ by Brigid Kemmerer

“In a kingdom where sickness stalks the streets and only the richest can afford a cure, King Harristan and his brother Prince Corrick are forced to rule with an iron fist. Tessa Cade is a masked outlaw marked for death, but she likes it that way. Together with the mysterious, handsome Weston, she robs from the rich to help the poor, distributing food and medicine to those who need it most. As it becomes clear that the only way to save her people is to assassinate the King, Tessa must face a deadly mission that will take her to the dark heart of the kingdom … and force her to work with the very people she intended to destroy.”

I was incredibly lucky to get my hands on a pre-release edition of this novel. I was thrilled to learn that Brigid Kemmerer had a new series on the way as I adored her trilogy ‘A Curse so Dark and Lonely’. I have made a start on this one and I’m surprised to see that it has some Covidy elements to it. It seems like a lot of YA fantasy and contemporary will be pulling on our recent climate for inspiration in world building and environment.

‘Love & Virtue’ by Diana Reid

“Whenever I say I was at university with Eve, people ask me what she was like, sceptical perhaps that she could have always been as whole and self-assured as she now appears. To which I say something like: ‘People are infinitely complex.’ But I say it in such a way–so pregnant with misanthropy–that it’s obvious I hate her.
Michaela and Eve are two bright, bold women who befriend each other their first year at a residential college at university, where they live in adjacent rooms. They could not be more different; one assured and popular – the other uncertain and eager-to-please.
But something happens one night in O-week – a drunken encounter, a foggy memory that will force them to confront the realities of consent and wrestle with the dynamics of power.
Initially bonded by their wit and sharp eye for the colleges’ mix of material wealth and moral poverty, Michaela and Eve soon discover how fragile friendship is, and how capable of betrayal they both are.”

Now this one folks, is pretty exciting! Through my work I was invited to jump on a zoom meeting with the one and only Diana Reid and her publishers, Ultimo Press. What an incredibly talented human being and now debut author Diana is. Said to be the Australian Sally Rooney, I am very much looking forward to seeing how Diana has crafted life at university through the lens of women my age. Seriously pre-order this one book lovers, it’s going to be HUGE!

‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’ by Sally Rooney

“Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a distribution warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend Eileen is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon are still young-but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?”

Now I haven’t actually read any Sally Rooney myself. I have ummd and ahhed about reading her debut novel, ‘Normal People’, (I watched the mini-series #whoops) but for some reason my brain keeps saying, no don’t do it – it is too literature for you. I know her stories are hard hitting but blurry at the same time which I don’t always enjoy in a novel. ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’ has already been a stand out this year in pre-orders and now it has hit shelves. I am mainly thinking of reading it to see what all the hype is about …

‘Build Your House Around My Body’ by Violet Kupersmith

“1986- The teenage daughter of a wealthy Vietnamese family gets lost in an abandoned rubber plantation while fleeing her angry father, and is forever changed by the experience.

2011- Twenty-five years later, a young, unhappy American named Winnie disappears from her new home in Saigon without a trace.

The fates of these two women are inescapably linked, bound together by past generations, by ghosts and ancestors, by the history of possessed bodies and possessed lands. Barrelling through the sweaty nightclubs of Saigon to ramshackle zoos, colonial mansions and haunted forests, Violet Kupersmith’s heart-pounding fever dream of a novel deftly combines Vietnamese history and folklore to create an immersive, playful, utterly unforgettable debut.”

Emma Roberts the awesome actor, actually runs a feminist/intelligent woman/inspiring/culturally diverse book club called Belletrist (you should really check out some of their picks). This is her September read and my gosh, doesn’t it sound gooooddd!!

‘Women Don’t Owe You Pretty’ by Florence Given

“Florence Given will explore all progressive corners of the feminist conversation; from insecurity projection and refusing to find comfort in other women’s flaws, to deciding whether to date or dump them, all the way through to unpacking the male gaze and how it shapes our identity.

Women Don’t Owe You Pretty is an accessible leap into feminism, for people at all stages of their journey who are seeking to reshape and transform the way they view themselves. In a world that tells women we’re either not enough or too much, it’s time we stop directing our anger and insecurities onto ourselves, and start fighting back to re-shape the toxic structures of our patriarchal society.”

Now when I saw this land in store, I was so pumped! ‘This Small Edition’ is a brand-new shortened version of Florence’s most important and poignant points throughout her book Woman Don’t Owe You Pretty. For those of us who are short on time (me 👈🏼) and has over 50 book on her TBR (me👈🏼, hehe) finding an awesome short and sweet version of this book was a must-have!! A friend of mine originally recommenced this to me and suggested I follow her social media – I highly recommend you do the same. She’s a real change driver and helps you to start rethinking all we have been taught in a male ruling society.