Tom Lake by Ann Patchett In this thoughtful exploration of family bonds and unpredictable life paths, a former aspiring actress, now married and living in Michigan with three grown daughters, unspools the story of her long-ago love affair with an actor who has become a Hollywood star. Meryl Streep narrates the audiobook. (August 1)

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride The Good Lord Bird author has another winner with this novel, set in the 1970s in a Pennsylvania town where Jewish and Black Americans live side by side but racial tensions simmer. When a mysterious skeleton is found at the bottom of a well, the investigation uncovers a terrible long-held secret. (August 8)

The Fraud by Zadie Smith Smith (White Teeth) offers a twisty tale based upon a trial that riveted Victorian England. At its center is an Australian butcher—possibly an impostor—who claimed to be the rightful heir to an estate. (September 5)

Holly by Stephen King King’s chilling latest revisits the private detective Holly Gibney (Mr. Mercedes, The Outsider), who’s now on the case of a string of disappearances and contending with strange husband-and-wife professors as suspects. (September 5)

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff Always captivating, Groff (Fates and Furies) returns to meticulously researched historical fiction, bringing us a gripping story about a girl who exchanges starvation and violence in the 17th-century colonial settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, for the trials of surviving alone in the wilderness. (September 12)

Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton & Me by Bernie Taupin The Oscar-winning songwriter, 73, describes meeting the young Reg Dwight before he became Elton John, and their famous longtime collaboration and friendship. He revisits their early years—Taupin wrote the lyrics to “Your Song” when he was just a teenager—through John’s megastardom, with plenty of wild times along the way. (September 12)

23⅓ Lies by James Patterson From the bestselling author comes a trio of thrillers, each with some awfully mean characters. They include “Fallen Ranger,” about a Texas Ranger hunting down thieves, one of whom might be a formerly esteemed fellow Ranger gone bad. (September 12)

Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe The pair that wrote about Cooper’s own famous family in Vanderbilt now tackles the rich history of the Astors, whose beaver trapping business fueled their real estate fortune and reign over Gilded Age New York society. Darker moments also burble up, including the death of John Jacob Astor IV on the Titanic. (September 19)

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman The four septuagenarian sleuths in Osman’s Thursday Murder Club mystery series return for another caper, this time involving a dangerous package gone missing and a killer on the loose. (September 19) —Christina Ianzito