Top Ten Tuesday/ Fall Covers

I won’t lie to you. I have a few dilemmas when it comes to authors, like which pronouns to use for everyone. I did an oops until I read The Last Time I Lied; I thought Riley Sager was a woman, but then I saw the author photo, and I realised how wrong I was. On top of that, Goodreads keeps duplicating my books, so I have no clue where I am there. am the only one? Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl, who has a new weekly topic.

September 29: Fall-Themed Freebie (or Spring if you live in the Southern Hemisphere). Let’s find some Fall covers from the 6,434 books Goodreads says I’ve read since I started the profile.

Goodreads Blurb:

“Don’t let the white man take the house.”

These are the last words King Solomon says to his son before he dies. Now all four Solomon siblings must return to North Carolina to save the Kingdom, their ancestral home and 200 acres of land, from a development company, who has their sights set on turning the valuable waterfront property into a luxury resort.

While fighting to save the Kingdom, the siblings must also save themselves from the secrets they’ve been holding onto. Junior, the oldest son and married to his wife for 11 years, is secretly in love with another man. Second son, Mance, can’t control his temper, which has landed him in prison more than once. CeCe, the oldest daughter and a lawyer in New York City, has embezzled thousands of dollars from her firm’s clients. Youngest daughter, Tokey, wonders why she doesn’t seem to fit into this family, which has left an aching hole in her heart that she tries to fill in harmful ways. As the Solomons come together to fight for the Kingdom, each of their façades begins to crumble and collide in unexpected ways.

Goodreads Blurb:

When Ava Sharpe and Sara Lance first met at Camp Ogawa as thirteen-year-olds, one stolen kiss by the river changed them forever. But summer ended, letters went unanswered, and life moved on—or so they thought.

Twenty years later, Ava is a brilliant but reserved doctor, and Sara is a passionate Chicago police officer with a habit of guarding her heart. When fate reunites them at the vineyard wedding of their best friends, neither expects to see her again—the girl who became a memory, a myth, a folded note kept in a pocket far too long.

What begins as an awkward reconnection blossoms into something deeper as the two navigate meddling friends, a near-tragic accident, long-distance love, and a lifetime of walls built to keep the past out. But the truth has a funny way of finding its way back—especially when it’s written on a wrinkled piece of notebook paper and sealed with a promise made under starlight.

Now, with a campfire flickering behind them and forever stretching ahead, Ava and Sara must can you really find your way back to the one who first taught you how to love?

Goodreads Blurb::

After losing her mother to cancer, Meredith packed her most prized belongings and her necessities, loaded up her service dog Max, and took off on a cross-country trip.

And ended up settling in a small town in Tennessee.

Chase – the local sheriff – is head over heels for her the moment their eyes meet.

But Meredith is guarded. After a tragic night changed her life forever, left her with almost crippling anxiety, she doesn’t trust easily.

Yet, she can’t say no to the sheriff.

But is he enough to protect her when her past comes crashing back into her life – quite literally?

Goodreads Blurb:

What if one masked encounter could crack open a heart long sealed?

Maeve Carter knows the safety of sarcasm and solitude—especially in October, when her little bookstore glows with pumpkin candles and faux cobwebs. But a friend’s insistence drags her to a Halloween masquerade, where a chance meeting in lace and shadows leaves her unexpectedly unguarded.

He’s a quiet craftsman who prefers carving wood to crowded rooms, yet something about her quick wit and hidden kindness pulls him into her orbit. In that dimly lit world of masks and moonlight, they share moments that feel far more honest than any they’ve lived before.

Back in the real world, their paths cross again in texts and tentative invitations—coffee, late-night banter, a shared pastry—each small step a test of their courage. She battles old fears; he wrestles with ghosts of his own past. Yet each gesture, each gift left on a doorstep or whispered in a workshop, chips away at the walls they’ve built.

When misunderstanding and mistrust threaten to undo them, it’s the quiet bravery of unmasking that proves the deepest magic isn’t in grand gestures, but in showing up—again and again—for the chance at something real.

In a story carved piece by piece, Maeve and Eli discover that the truest kind of love is the one you choose to brave.

Goodreads Blurb:

A high school rebel and a minister’s daughter find strength in each other in this star-crossed tale of “young but everlasting love” (Chicago Sun-Times).There was a time when the world was sweeter….when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats…. Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort High. Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn that he’d been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he’d fall for was Jamie, the shy, almost ethereal daughter of the town’s Baptist minister….Jamie, who was destined to show him the depths of the human heart-and the joy and pain of living. The inspiration for this novel came from Nicholas Sparks’s sister: her life and her courage. From the internationally bestselling author Nicholas Sparks, comes his most moving story yet….

Goodreads Blurb:

Megs’ life is stuck on pause.

Her once-promising acting dreams left her in debt, forcing her to move back home and juggle latte orders instead of auditions. When her mom tells her their house is going up for sale, Megs is forced to enroll in a medical coding certification course at the local community college to get her own place.

Just as Megs hits mute on her ambitions, the whisper of an opportunity a narration competition by the renowned local romance novelist, Oscar Calloway.

In an impulsive moment, Megs enrolls in an Intro to Recording class to get access to recording equipment, only to realize the professor is the mysterious guy with tortoiseshell glasses she’d been eyeing on shift at Green Mountain Grinds.

She can’t admit to anyone that she spent money she doesn’t have to audition again, not when she’s failed so many times already. But then her name appears in the local Sugar Creek paper as a finalist for the competition.

Smack dab next to Gideon’s.

Her hot new professor who was supposed to be helping her land the gig in the first place.

Now Megs is not only enrolled in Gideon’s class for the semester but required to spend evenings and weekends with him in the final romantic stages of Oscar’s elimination rounds.

Megs can’t lose the competition. Gideon can’t date his students.

But surrounded by starlit nights, midnight bonfires, and Oscar’s audition scenes, will they be able to keep their eyes on the prize and off each other?

Goodreads Blurb:

Sophie’s finally happy. Away from home & back with her best friend, she’s doing the one thing in the world she loves, art. Life’s perfect, or is it? Something’s strange about her new home. People are dying; an old house pulls her towards its doors. Sophie’s changing too; is it the recent fox bite? All becomes clear when she meets the seductive Sebastian and learns his family’s secret.

Goodreads Blurb:

Emilie, the 19-year old daughter of a Sioux mother and a Scottish father, finds her home destroyed when her clan is caught up in the US-Dakota war of 1862. Her mother is sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, and Emilie sets out to find her father, who has been missing since the beginning of the war. With help from two new and unlikely friends, Eustis and Anders, she begins a treacherous and emotional journey to track him down. Will she find him? Will her mother be set free? And will Emilie be able to rebuild the home she’s lost?

Goodreads Blurb:

They lie on the hillside, wearing matching white dresses, tiaras in their blonde hair. Each of them clutches a red rose. They could be sleeping, but frost shines on the lashes of their wide blue eyes, frozen open forever…

Detective Lexi Bennett is devastated when she finds the two teenagers lying side by side on the quiet green hillside, their throats cut. Convinced this is no ordinary killer, she vows to draw on all her profiling experience to find justice for these beautiful girls who will never have the chance to grow up.

But when the victims are identified as Lucy and Eden Carter, Lexi’s blood turns cold. The sisters were triplets – and the third girl, Paige , is missing. The case suddenly feels frighteningly personal. Lexi was a triplet too, and she and her sisters were abducted as teens. Two of them escaped but Lexi’s dreams are still haunted by memories of the faceless man who took them, and her sister Rose , who she never saw again.

Her boss thinks she’s too close to the case, but Lexi is sure the monster who took her is back with a message. She throws herself into the investigation, hunting down every clue, certain that time is running out to save Paige.

Then she returns home to find the back door open and Rose’s diary on the kitchen table. As she traces her beloved sister’s handwriting, her heart breaking, Lexi swears she will not rest until this brutal monster is caught. Will the diary help her find him before Paige is killed? Or is she walking into a trap designed just for her?

Goodreads Blurb:

Jayden Holt is totally wrong for me. But then, when have I ever done anything right?

People call me Dizzy Izzy. Between my elopement, divorce, bankruptcy, and arrest, they may not be wrong. (For the record, the misdemeanor wasn’t my fault. I blame my ADD).

Jayden Holt, aka Your Honor, is more buttoned-up than a middle-aged accountant, but he’s the only one who’s ever seen me as more than a screw-up. He just happens to be my first love, my first heartbreak–and the judge at my first courtroom appearance. Imagine my surprise when sparks fly and the possibility of a new relationship has me spinning.

Until some surprising news has me reconsidering my ex-husband and the marriage we once shared.

Giving my ex a second chance may prove that I can finish at least one thing that I’ve started, but it also means giving up the guy who sees me as more than just dizzy.