Book tips fall 2023
Romance novels
© izzy71 / Adobe Stock
Anyone who loves books never goes to bed alone! So that there is no rude awakening, we have found the best new books of the season for you. Have fun with our favorite romance novels for fall 2023!
Jacobo Bergareche – The perfect days
Go or stay? Jacobo Bergareche has found a creative twist to write down this old relationship topic in a completely new way. And I am completely in love with his thoughts, his language, the form of this novel, which consists of only two letters. The Spanish journalist Luis flies to Texas, where he wants to meet his lover Camila. But she breaks up with him. Luis discovers unpublished letters from the author William Faulkner in an archive. His words change Luis’ view of his own life. He writes Camila a letter in which he tells the story of their love in flashbacks – without accusations, but grateful for the time together and even the pain, “as irrefutable proof of everything you gave me.” His second letter goes to his wife Paula. He writes to her unsparingly about his marital weariness. And gives her a suggestion on how they can save their marriage. (T: Kristin Band, 320 pages, 22 euros, Thiele)
Coco Mellors – Cleopatra and Frankenstein
Cleo and Frank meet in a New York elevator. He wants to get beer, she doesn’t know where she’s going – and that says it all. Cleo is an art student, Frank is the owner of an advertising agency with a penchant for alcohol. In love, they throw themselves into the New York scene and realize too late how they are destroying each other. An entertaining one novel about people in the big city with their fears and neuroses who are overwhelmed by life and love. (T: Lisa Kögeböhn, 512 pages, 25 euros, Eichborn)
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir – Hotel Silence
“I’m packing for a corpse,” is one of the phrases that grabs me – and there are a few of them in this one clever novel. Jonas is 49, divorced, has a mother with dementia and has just found out that his daughter is not his. He decides to die and books a one-way ticket to a country at civil war, with only his toolbox in his luggage. Weeks later he wrote in his diary: “I’m still here. I’m trying to understand why.” What happened in between? Read for yourself! (T: Tina Flecken, 208 p., 23 euros, island)
Laura Imai Messina – The hidden life of colors
Sometimes reading makes the world bigger. Laura Imai Messina from Tokyo, born in Rome, broadens our horizons wonderfully: in her novels (“The Telephone Booth at the End of the World”) she takes us into Japanese culture. In your new book Mio and Aio fall in love. She comes from a family that makes wedding kimonos and perceives colors in all their diversity. He is an undertaker with red-green vision deficiency. As opposite as the two are, their questions about life are very similar. Every page is a pleasure to read! (T: Judith Schwaab, 384 pages, 22 euros, btb, from October 11th)
Claire Daverley – From the End of the Night
For almost 20 years we have watched Will and Rosie as they can’t live without each other, but also with each other. There is Rosie: strict with herself and disciplined by her mother. And she wants her to be slim and have a career – and not hang out with Will. He lives with his grandmother because his mother abandoned him and his sister and is not in the least bit controlled. One love story, which plays with our longing for a happy ending until the end. (T: Margarita Ruppel, 448 pages, 22 euros, Hanserblau)