September is here. The cozy is calling. π
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Originally emailed September 1, 2026. Archived newsletter: the September 5β6 event has passed. Release dates, stock updates, and donation announcements reflect the original edition.
Dear Reader β¨
Can I tell you a secret? I've been ready for fall since approximately August 1st.
And now that September is actually, officially here, I'm leaning all the way in. Blankets. Tea. Books that make the outside world feel very far away. You know the feeling.
This week I finished two books that have me fully convinced that fall 2026 is going to be an extraordinary season for readers. I need to tell you about both of them.
π The one I can't stop thinking about:
This is Riley Sager at his very best, and if you've read him before, you know that's saying something.
A remote island in Vermont. Five women who vanished without a trace in 1926, leaving only their dresses hanging from the branches of an oak tree. And now, a hundred years later, a film crew arrives to tell their story and the disappearances start again.
What Sager does so brilliantly here is keep you suspended in that uncomfortable space between rational and terrified. You'll spend the entire book asking yourself: is this actually supernatural, or is someone just very, very good at making it feel that way? The answer keeps shifting. Your skin keeps crawling. You keep turning pages.
The dual timelines are perfectly executed with past and present weaving together until the island's secrets start to crack open. And the setting itself feels alive in the way only Sager can pull off. Isolated. Atmospheric. Deeply unsettling in the most fun way.
If you're looking for your fall spooky-season read, a witchy, ghost-story-adjacent, sleep-with-the-lights-on kind, then this is it. This is the one. π»
We've ordered it and it's on its way. Keep an eye out, it'll be wrapped and ready at an upcoming event soon.
π Another one we're obsessing over:
Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley & Agatha Christie
I got an advanced copy of this one. I know. I KNOW. π
And I have to tell you. Lucy Foley has done something truly remarkable here. This is a slower burn than her usual thrillers, and that's completely intentional because she's not writing a Lucy Foley book. She's writing an Agatha Christie book. And she absolutely, completely, 100% nails it.
Miss Marple. A grand hotel sealed off by a blizzard high in the Swiss Alps. A Hollywood actress, a war hero, a society wife, mysterious nuns, and a body that nobody saw coming. The language, the manners, the social dynamics, even the drinks (EVEN THE DRINKS!). It all feels lifted straight from Christie's pen. There were moments I genuinely forgot I was reading something new.
The New York Times recently declared we're living in a golden age of mystery, and this book is exactly the kind of thing they're talking about. It's nostalgic and sharp and atmospheric and deeply satisfying with just enough twists to keep you guessing until the very end.
This one releases September 22 and will be wrapped and ready at our October events. It is going to be such a good fall read.
π» See us this weekend β Bellemont Farm, Lambertville NJ
September 5 & 6
Archive note: this event has passed.
We'll be there both days with wrapped books across every genre, picked by clue card. But we're also bringing two things that feel especially meaningful this weekend:
π The Elders Mailbox β Stop by and write a short letter to a local elder, right at the festival or bring a card from home. Every letter gets hand-delivered to local senior living facilities after the event. No stamp needed. Just a few words from your heart. Need writing tips? Here are some guidelines.
π 10% of all festival sales go to the Imagination Library β in honor of Dolly Parton and the legacy she built making sure no child grows up without books.
Come shop. Come write a letter. Come be part of something good.
Until next week β may your TBR be long and your blanket be soft. π
With love,
Kimberly
Main Street Chapters