Books That Feel Like Fall on My TBR This Year

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The second fall arrives on the calendar; my reading tastes change for books that give me the best fall vibes. I want books that feel like leaves crunching under my Doc Martin’s and gray, gloomy skies that have the perfect nip in the air.

Give me strange little towns, old creepy houses, forests that probably have secrets, witches doing absolutely questionable things, cozy bookstores I wish existed in real life, gothic manors where no one should be wandering around alone after dark, and romances that practically require a warm sweater while reading.

And the best part? None of those things belong to just one genre.

My perfect autumn read could be cozy and magical, gothic and unsettling, wildly romantic, or the kind of book that makes me question why anyone in their right mind would go into that house.

So instead of building my fall TBR around one genre, this year I’m building it around one thing: the perfect fall feeling.

These are the books on my fall TBR that I’m hoping will give me exactly that. From witches to secret societies to creepy houses, atmospheric romances, and stories that feel like October.

One I’ve Already Read

Before we get into my fall TBR, though, there’s one book I’ve already read that deserves a spt here purely because of the fall vibes it brings. The atmosphere is undeniable.

Did I love it? No. 😂

But one, if I didn’t, doesn’t mean you won’t. And two, if we’re judging purely on autumn vibes? It understood the assignment.

If It Makes You Happy by Julie Olivia

Listen, I will not lie to you. I found the FMC absolutely insufferable in this book. 😂 But just because I couldn’t stand her doesn’t mean you won’t love her. And beyond that, the fall vibes are immaculate.

Reading is subjective right? Right!

There’s something about If It Makes You Happy that gives me that nostalgic ’90s, Gilmore Girls kind of fall. The kind that makes you want to throw on a cozy sweater, wander through a small town with a coffee in your hand, and pretend it’s permanently October. Even when the FMC was working my very (and I mean very) last nerve. I couldn’t help but love the setting and get swept up in the story around her.

So, no, this wasn’t necessarily a favorite of mine. But if you’re here specifically looking for books that feel like fall, I’d be lying if I left it off the list.

I’ll drop my full review here so you can see exactly what worked for me, what didn’t, and decide for yourself whether this one belongs on your fall TBR.

if it makes you happy the diary of a reader fall reads

Flirty Fall Fling by Lyra Parish

This one feels like it was specifically designed to end up on a fall TBR.

We have a witch reading the fortunes of people in coffee grounds, a haunted manor that needs a new roof, a mysterious family curse, and a grumpy skeptic who apparently has more money than he has actual common sense.

Then if you throw in an apple orchard, a hay maze, the autumn equinox, small-town matchmakers, and a relationship with a Halloween expiration date.

Come on.

That is PERFECT. It sounds like the exact kind of cozy, slightly magical, and ridiculously autumnal romance 2026 needs (I have to say now I want to curl up with this). Will I actually like the romance? We’ll see. But purely based on the atmosphere it’s giving, it absolutely earned its place on my fall TBR.

Falling Like Leaves by Misty Wilson

Apparently, all you have to do to get me interested in a book and add it to my fall TBR is set it in a tiny Connecticut town preparing for a fall festival.

This has basically everything I want from a quintessential fall read: gorgeous leaves, apple picking, pumpkin carving, a house overflowing with all things autumnal, quirky small-town residents, and an entire festival dedicated to celebrating the fall season.

But I’m also really interested in Ellis being caught between the life she planned for herself in New York and this completely different life waiting for her in Bramble Falls. Add in the childhood best friend/first kiss who now wants absolutely nothing to do with her, and I’m intrigued.

Falling like Leaves feels like it could give me that very specific type of cozy, nostalgic kind of fall. The kind where the town itself becomes part of the reason you want to keep reading. And if Bramble Falls is as charming as promised, I already know I’m going to want to live there by the time I finish the book.

Bonfire & Bliss Bookstore by Brittanée Nicole

A romance set around a bookstore called Bonfire & Bliss? Be serious. I was never leaving this off my fall TBR.

Penny owns the bookstore, would currently rather curl up by the fire with a fictional man than deal with a real one, and then her former best friend comes back to town needing her help learning how to write the perfect book boyfriend.

Naturally, fake dating gets involved because apparently we’re just checking boxes specifically designed to reel me in.

But it’s the setting that really sold me on this one. It has a cozy bookstore in a small town filled with people who don’t know how to mind their own business. This feels like the kind of fall read I want when I’m not looking for witches, haunted houses, or anything particularly dark.

The Pumpkin Spice Café by Laurie Gilmore

I mean… It’s called Pumpkin Spice Café. What more could you want from a fall TBR list? 😂There was no way I was creating this list for us and NOT including this book.

Pumpkin Spice Café has been following me around for what feels like forever. And every fall I see it pop back up as the cozy autumn romance. So I think it’s finally time for me to find out if Dream Harbor actually lives up to the hype.

Of course, we have a small town, a café serving pumpkin spice lattes, a grumpy local farmer, and an overly cheerful new girl. Basically (if you haven’t noticed), all the ingredients for the kind of cozy fall romance I want to read under a blanket with something warm to drink in hand.

I’m going into this expecting unapologetic fall coziness. Will I love it? I have no idea. But if a book called The Pumpkin Spice Café can’t give me fall vibes, we are doomed. 😂

Meet Cute Magic by Morgan Elizabeth

Another bookstore-owning witch with a family curse who accidentally brings someone’s grandfather back as a ghost?

Yeah. That’ll do it.

Rosie can’t fall in love without getting her heart broken, so naturally she decides the solution is to conjure a ghost who can help break the curse. Except now she has to brew a potion to send him to the other side, and completing it requires the help of the one person in town who apparently cannot stand her.

Honestly though, the combination of bookstore (I will always be down for a bookstore) + witch + ghosts + potions + small town is what put this on my fall TBR.

Now I’m curious about Rosie and Jack, because starting a romance with “you are literally forbidden from entering my gaming shop” is an impressive level of grudge-holding 😂.

You, Again by Kate Goldbeck

Okay, hear me out because this one might not immediately scream fall.

You, Again is a modern take on When Harry Met Sally, and honestly, that’s all I needed to know.

So while this one doesn’t have witches, pumpkin patches, haunted houses, or a small town preparing for its annual fall festival, it gives me something the other books on this TBR don’t: rom-com-in-New-York-in-the-fall energy.

And the actual romance sounds like it could be messy in exactly the way I enjoy. Ari and Josh hate each other when they first meet, eventually become friends after their respective breakups, and then discover that maybe the person they’ve been bickering with all over New York is becoming something more.

Enemies-to-friends-to-lovers with When Harry Met Sally inspiration?

Yeah, that counts as fall to me.

Apparently, my perfect fall TBR is a little bit all over the place, and honestly, that feels right.

I want witches and haunted houses, pumpkin spice vibes in a small town. Bookstores I desperately wish were real and that I could visit. Apple orchards, changing leaves, and a little When Harry Met Sally-style New York romance thrown in for good measure. I don’t need every book I read this season to fit neatly into one genre. I just want to open it and somehow feel like it’s October outside.

Now I just have to actually read all of them. 😂

Tell me what’s on your fall TBR this year, and more importantly, what book gives you the ultimate fall feeling?