14  Must-Read Book Club Picks for Your Fall Reading List

If you are looking for the best fall book club books that give you plenty to talk about, you’ll love this list. I know fall is often about reading fall-themed romance, cozy mysteries, or classic autumn novels, but if you’re looking for books beyond that, check out these fall book club suggestions. From bestselling authors like Jodi Picoult to Marjan Kamali, this list features great literary fiction that would make excellent book club reads. These books are perfect for discussing conversation-worthy themes with your book club members. Also, be sure to check out 15 general book club questions to spark even more engaging discussions!

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali is a heartfelt, epic novel set in 1950s Tehran, Iran, following the friendship of two girls, Ellie and Homa. After the death of her father, Ellie faces loneliness and hardship until she meets Homa, a spirited girl who becomes her close friend. They bond over shared dreams, but Ellie’s life changes when she returns to a more privileged existence, and their friendship fades. Years later, Homa reappears, and the two women navigate their ambitions against the backdrop of political unrest in Iran.

Topics to discuss for book club: Friendship under pressure, the impact of political upheaval, and the role of women in shaping their destinies.

Blurb: From the nationally bestselling author of the “powerful, heartbreaking” (Shelf Awareness) The Stationery Shop, a heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.”

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

Written with Marjan Kamali’s signature “evocative, devastating, and hauntingly beautiful” (Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light) prose, The Lion Women of Tehran is a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shape.

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The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The God of the Woods is set in a summer camp in 1975 where a teenager named Barbara Van Laar goes missing . It’s the same place where her older brother disappeared 14 years earlier and was never found. As the search kicks off, all these buried secrets from both the Van Laar family and the local workers come to light.

Topics to discuss for book club: Family secrets, class dynamics, and moody autumn settings.

Blurb: When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

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The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

The Briar Club is set in 1950s Washington D.C., this story follows a group of women living in a boardinghouse during the height of McCarthyism. Grace, the widow who brings these unlikely friends together, has her own dark secret, and the tension between the women builds in fascinating ways.

Topics to discuss for book club: Female friendships, secrets, and the Red Scare’s effect on everyday life.

Blurb: A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears apart the house, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: Who is the true enemy in their midst?

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Agony Hill by Sarah Stewart Taylor

Set in rural Vermont in the 1960s, Agony Hill is a slow-burn mystery . Franklin Warren, a Boston detective new to the area, is investigating a suspicious barn fire, but it’s clear the small town is hiding more than just this tragedy.

Topics to discuss for book club: Small-town dynamics, the impact of the 1960s on rural America.

Blurb: Set in rural Vermont in the volatile 1960s, Agony Hill is the first novel in a new historical series full of vivid New England atmosphere and the deeply drawn characters that are Sarah Stewart Taylor’s trademark.

In the hot summer of 1965, Bostonian Franklin Warren arrives in Bethany, Vermont, to take a position as a detective with the state police. Warren’s new home is on the verge of monumental change; the interstates under construction will bring new people, new opportunities, and new problems to Vermont, and the Cold War and protests against the war in Vietnam have finally reached the dirt roads and rolling pastures of Bethany.

Warren has barely unpacked when he’s called up to a remote farm on Agony Hill. Former New Yorker and Back-to-the-Lander Hugh Weber seems to have set fire to his barn and himself, with the door barred from the inside, but things aren’t adding up for Warren. The people of Bethany—from Weber’s enigmatic wife to Warren’s neighbor, widow and amateur detective Alice Bellows — clearly have secrets they’d like to keep, but Warren can’t tell if the truth about Weber’s death is one of them. As he gets to know his new home and grapples with the tragedy that brought him there, Warren is drawn to the people and traditions of small town Vermont, even as he finds darkness amidst the beauty.

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Hall of Mirrors by John Copenhaver

When mystery novelist Roger Raymond dies in a suspicious fire, his partner Lionel refuses to believe it was a suicide. As Lionel digs into the case, he uncovers a web of government secrets and personal betrayals. The backdrop of 1950s Washington D.C., filled with political tension and fear, adds a unique twist to the usual whodunit.

Topics to discuss for book club: The Lavender Scare, loyalty and betrayal, and the dangers of secrets in a politically charged era.

Blurb: When a popular mystery novelist dies suspiciously, his writing partner must untangle the author’s connection to a serial killer in award-winning John Copenhaver’s new novel set in 1950s McCarthy-era Washington, DC.

In May 1954, Lionel Kane witnesses his apartment engulfed in flames with his lover and writing partner, Roger Raymond, inside. Police declare it a suicide due to gas ignition, but Lionel refuses to believe Roger was suicidal.

A month earlier, Judy Nightingale and Philippa Watson—the tenacious and troubled heroines from The Savage Kind —attend a lecture by Roger and, being eager fans, befriend him. He has just been fired from his day job at the State Department, another victim of the Lavender Scare, an anti-gay crusade led by figures like Senator Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover, claiming homosexuals are security risks. Little do Judy and Philippa know, but their obsessive manhunt of the past several years has fueled the flames of his dismissal.

They have been tracking their old enemy Adrian Bogdan, a spy and vicious serial killer protected by powerful forces in the government. He’s on the rampage again, and the police are ignoring his crimes. Frustrated, they send their research to the media and their favorite mystery writer anonymously, hoping to inspire someone, somehow, to publish on the crimes—anything to draw Bogdan out. But has their persistence brought deadly forces to the writing team behind their most beloved books?

In the wake of Roger’s death, Lionel searches for clues, but Judy and Philippa threaten his quest, concealing dark secrets of their own. As the crimes of the past and present converge, danger mounts, and the characters race to uncover the truth, even if it means bending their moral boundaries to stop a killer.

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A Daughter of Fair Verona by Christina Dodd

In A Daughter of Fair Verona , a witty new series by Christina Dodd, Knives Out meets Bridgerton in a historical mystery featuring Rosie Montague, the fiercely independent daughter of Romeo and Juliet. Set in a world where the famous couple survived and had seven children, Rosie, a 20-year-old spinster, dodges marriage proposals, preferring to manage her chaotic household. But when her latest suitor, Duke Stephano—known for his deceased wives—turns up dead at their betrothal ball, Rosie is thrust into a murder mystery. As deaths and disappearances pile up, Rosie must find the killer before she becomes the next victim.

Topics to discuss for book club: Reimagining classic stories, the pressures of family expectations, and how historical settings can be modernized with humor.

Blurb: Knives Out meets Bridgerton in Fair Verona, as New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd kicks off a frothy, irreverent, witty new series with an irresistible premise—Romeo and Juliet’s daughter as a clever, rebellious, fiercely independent young woman in fair Verona—told from the delightfully engaging point of view of the captivating Rosie Montague herself…

“A sharp, determined heroine, a clever historical mystery, sparkling wit, a unique setting, family drama and a dash of romance.”– Amanda Quick, New York Times bestselling author of The Lady Has a Past

Once upon a time a young couple met and fell in love. You probably know that story, and how it ended ( badly). Only here’s the That’s not how it ended at all.

Romeo and Juliet are alive and well and the parents of seven kids. I’m the oldest, with the emphasis on ‘old’—a certified spinster at twenty, and happy to stay that way. It’s not easy to keep your taste for romance with parents like mine. Picture it—constant monologues, passionate declarations, fighting, making up, making out . . . it’s exhausting.

Each time they’ve presented me with a betrothal, I’ve set out to find the groom-to-be a more suitable bride. After all, someone sensible needs to stay home and manage this household. But their latest match, Duke Stephano, isn’t so easy to palm off on anyone else. The debaucher has had three previous wives—all of whom met unfortunate ends. Conscience forbids me from consigning another woman to that fate. As it turns out, I don’t have to . . .

At our betrothal ball—where, quite by accident, I meet a beautiful young man who makes me wonder if perhaps there is something to love at first sight—I stumble upon Duke Stephano with a dagger in his chest. But who killed him? His late wives’ families, his relatives, his mistress, his servants—half of Verona had motive. And when everyone around the Duke begins dying, disappearing, or descendi

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All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

All the Colors of the Dark is a captivating mix of thriller, mystery, and love story set in small-town Missouri in the 1970s. Patch, the one-eyed local hero, saves a wealthy girl from being abducted, but this act brings unintended heartbreak and sets off a dark mystery.

Topics to discuss for book club: The fine line between heroism and tragedy, small-town secrets, and how personal trauma shapes identity.

Blurb:  From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that spans decades.

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Mohammed Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy with one eye, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession, and the blinding light of hope.

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The Wedding People by Alison Espach

In The Wedding People, Phoebe Stone arrives at a posh inn in Newport, Rhode Island, for what’s supposed to be a romantic getaway—except she’s alone. What follows is a heartwarming, sometimes hilarious exploration of loneliness and unexpected connections. The bride’s need for control contrasts with Phoebe’s sense of loss, and their unlikely friendship provides the emotional core of the story.

Topics to discuss for book club: The unexpected paths life takes, and loneliness versus connection.

Blurb:  A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help us start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamt of coming for years―she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe―which makes it that much more surprising when the women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns uproariously, absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is a look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined―and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.

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Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

Slow Dance is a touching and nostalgic story about missed opportunities and old friendships. Shiloh and Cary were best friends in high school, but life pulled them apart. Now, at thirty-three, Shiloh is divorced, back home, and about to attend a wedding where she might see Cary for the first time in years.

Topics to discuss for book club: Lost friendships and second chances.

Blurb:  Back in high school, everybody thought Shiloh and Cary would end up together . . . everybody but Shiloh and Cary.

They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.

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By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

By Any Other Name reimagines the life of Emilia Bassano, believed by some to be the true author of Shakespeare’s works. The historical storyline is full of rich details, while the contemporary plot about a young playwright fighting for her work to be recognized adds a relevant layer.

Topics to discuss for book club: Gender and authorship, historical revisionism, and the challenges women face in creative fields.

Blurb:  From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Mad Honey comes an “inspiring” (Elle) novel about two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—who are both forced to hide behind another name.

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

In 1581, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her lessons on languages, history, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but like most women of her day, she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theatre productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of playwrights can move an audience. She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage—by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.

Told in intertwining timelines, By Any Other Name, a sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire centers two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. Should a writer do whatever it takes to see her story live on . . . no matter the cost? This remarkable novel, rooted in primary historical sources, ensures the name Emilia Bassano will no longer be forgotten.

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City of Secrets by P.J. Tracy

City of Secrets is an intense, fast-paced mystery that follows LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan as she uncovers a web of corruption and deceit. What starts as a simple carjacking soon turns into a darker investigation involving big business and an elusive Angel of Death.

Topics to discuss for book club: Corruption in law enforcement, justice and revenge, and how personal motives can complicate investigations.

Blurb:  LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan returns in P. J. Tracy’s City of Secrets, the next book in the series praised by the New York Times Book Review: “Tracy seems to have found her literary sweet spot.”

Los Angeles Police Detective Margaret Nolan and her partner have worked a lot of different cases, ones where things aren’t always as they appear. And it’s Nolan’s job to find the truth in the darkness around her. When they’re called to the scene of what looks like a fatal car-jacking, Nolan soon realizes her victim was a founder of a company about to sell for millions, and within a day of his death, his partner’s wife is abducted. As Nolan learns more about the victim and his life, she gets pulled into a disturbing world of sex, violence, and big business; and an even darker world, where whispers of an “Angel of Death” are beginning to surface.

One of today’s finest crime writers, P. J. Tracy has created a series that is a rich and authentic portrait of LA, filled with the tragedy and optimism of her multi-layered characters and a story guaranteed to keep readers enthralled.

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Spirit Crossing by William Kent Krueger

In Spirit Crossing, Cork O’Connor’s family is drawn into a dangerous investigation after his grandson discovers the body of a young Ojibwe woman. Set in Minnesota, the story is a mystery with cultural themes as Cork and the Iron Lake Tribal Police try to uncover the truth.

Topics to discuss for book club: The impact of cultural heritage , family dynamics, and the role of community in solving crimes.

Blurb:  A disappearance and a dead body put Cork O’Connor’s family in the crosshairs of a killer in the twentieth book in the New York Times bestselling series from William Kent Krueger­, “a master storyteller at the top of his game” (Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

The disappearance of a local politician’s teenaged daughter is major news in Minnesota. As a huge manhunt is launched to find her, Cork O’Connor’s grandson stumbles across the shallow grave of a young Ojibwe woman—but nobody seems that interested. Nobody, that is, except Cork and the newly formed Iron Lake Ojibwe Tribal Police. As Cork and the tribal officers dig into the circumstances of this mysterious and grim discovery, they uncover a connection to the missing teenager. And soon, it’s clear that Cork’s grandson is in danger of being the killer’s next victim.

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The Rose Arbor by Rhys Bowen

Set in 1968, the story follows Liz Houghton, a London obituary writer, as she investigates the disappearance of a young girl. What starts as a current mystery soon uncovers a decades-old case involving three missing girls during World War II.

Topics to discuss for book club: The effects of war on individuals and communities and the persistence of unsolved mysteries.

Blurb:  An investigation into a girl’s disappearance uncovers a mystery dating back to World War II in a haunting novel of suspense by the bestselling author of The Venice Sketchbook and The Paris Assignment.

1968. Liz Houghton is languishing as an obituary writer at a London newspaper when a young girl’s disappearance captivates the city. If Liz can break the story, it’s her way into the newsroom. She already has a her best friend, Marisa, is a police officer assigned to the case.

Liz follows Marisa to Dorset, where they make another disturbing discovery. Over two decades earlier, three girls disappeared while evacuating from London. One was found murdered in the woods near a train line. The other two were never seen again.

As Liz digs deeper, she finds herself drawn to the village of Tydeham, which was requisitioned by the military during the war and left in ruins. After all these years, what could possibly link the missing girls to this abandoned village? And why does a place Liz has never seen before seem so strangely familiar?

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The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

Inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lost Story is a whimsical, yet dark story about two boys who disappeared into a magical realm and returned with no memory of their time there. Now adults, one of them is a reclusive artist and the other a missing persons investigator. The story weaves fantasy with emotional depth as the two men confront their shared past and help a woman find her sister, who has also vanished.

Topics to discuss for book club: The lure of escapism, the trauma of lost memories, and the power of childhood friendships in adulthood.

Blurb:  Inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case—from the author of The Wishing Game.

As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.

Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.

Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.

Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.

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