"The Marriage Portrait," by Maggie O'Farrell. The author of "Hamnet" imagines the fictionalized story of another real person — Lucrezia de' Medici, a Renaissance teenager who married at 15 and was dead within the year. Of putrid fever? Or of murder? "Hamnet," a reimagining of the life and death of Shakespeare's son, won the Women's Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
"The Ski Jumpers," by Peter Geye. In his new novel, the Minnesota Book Award-winning Geye writes about a ski jumper with a terrible diagnosis — and a secret past. Geye's earlier novels include the North Shore series about the Eide family. Events: 7 p.m. Sept. 28, Zephyr Theater, Stillwater, $15; 6 p.m. Oct. 5, in conversation with Nicole Helget, Next Chapter Booksellers, St. Paul; 7 p.m. Oct. 7, Excelsior Bay Books, Excelsior.
"Painting Beyond Walls," by David Rhodes. Set in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin, "Painting Beyond Walls" is the story of August, who leaves his job in Chicago to go back home, where he finds everything the same — and also deeply changed. Rhodes is the author of "Driftless," "Jewelweed," and other novels set in the Driftless Area.
"The Bullet That Missed," by Richard Osman. The beloved Thursday Murder Club is back, exploring a cold case that has no body. Until the venerable Elizabeth faces a terrible choice — kill, or be killed. Laced with Osman's trademark wry humor and plenty of twists and turns. (Sept. 20)
"The Book of Goose," by Yiyun Li. The story of a friendship between two inseparable — and, it must be said, devious — French girls after the war, told years later by the one who survived. In a starred review, the trade journal Publishers Weekly called it "a powerful Cinderella fable with memorable characters." (Sept. 20)
"Shrines of Gaiety," by Kate Atkinson. Set in London just after World War I. Club owner Nellie Coker has just been released from prison, working hard to protect her turf in the face of a multitude of shady characters and difficult problems. A stand-alone novel, not one of the fine Jackson Brodie mysteries, but a gripping read nonetheless. (Sept. 27)
"The Furrows," by Namwali Serpell. From the author of "The Old Drift," a tale about two siblings, one of whom vanishes, the other who looks for him for years — until one day, years later, when she meets a man who is also searching for someone. Born in Zambia, Serpell is the recipient of numerous writing awards, including the Anisfield-Wolf Book prize for fiction, the Arthur C. Clarke Award and others. She teaches at Harvard University. (Sept. 27)
"Fen, Bog and Swamp," by Annie Proulx. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Proulx ("The Shipping News," "Barkskins") turns to nonfiction, writing about climate change, the history of wetlands, and what their destruction means for the planet. (Sept. 27)
"Sinister Graves," by Marcie Rendon. The latest Cash Blackbear mystery has Cash returning to the White Earth Reservation to uncover the truth about missing Native women and their babies. Rendon was named a McKnight Distinguished Artist in 2020. Her previous Cash Blackbear novels will be republished this year by Soho Press; "Murder on the Red River" was chosen last year as a One Book / One Minnesota title. (Oct. 11)
"The Sky Watched: Poems of Ojibwe Lives," by Linda LeGarde Grover. In this new and updated collection, Grover writes in English and sometimes in Ojibwe about family life and history, including the trauma of boarding schools and the massacre at Wounded Knee. Grover is a novelist and memoirist and winner of a Minnesota Book Award for "Onigamiising: Seasons of an Ojibwe Year." (Oct. 25)
Laurie Hertzel is the senior editor for books at the Star Tribune. Twitter: @StribBooks
Sandhill cranes coming to roost
Oscar-winning actor Maggie Smith dies at 89
