It’s October, and there is no better month to curl up on the couch with some fall fiction. Here are a few of the new titles on the shelves this season that we can’t wait to crack open. Grab a pumpkin spice latte and a warm blanket and hunker down with one of these recent releases.

Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins

Gold Fame Citrus is the debut novel from acclaimed short story writer Claire Vaye Watkins. The book is set in a future in which Southern California has been ravaged by drought, and its citizens are confined to the barren region of abandoned mansions, internment camps, bandits, and sinkholes. Watkins tells the love story of a couple who journeys across this landscape.

Honey from the Lion by Matthew Neill Null

Matthew Neill Null’s debut novel, out from Lookout Books, was an early fall favorite. It received a rave review from TMR’s Brett Beach: “…an extraordinary and powerful examination of the steady decimation of ten thousand acres of the West Virginia Allegheny forest. The novel moves with the assured pace of a thriller, while sentence by sentence Null plays with the language of place, of longing, and of violence.”

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

We are huge fans of Lauren Groff, who was the judge of The Masters Review 2012. Groff is an accomplished author and this, her third novel, follows a married couple and is divided into two sections: the first focuses on the husband, the second on the wife. It received a glowing review in The New York Times from Robin Black, who says: “In the end, and from the beginning, Groff has created a novel of extraordinary and genuine complexity.”

Upright Beasts by Lincoln Michel

Upright Beasts is Lincoln Michel’s much anticipated debut story collection, out from the fabulous Coffee House Press. In the words of the publisher: “Twenty-one genre-bending stories of bestial transformation, accidental murder, erotically-challenged dictatorship, and other tales of darkness, absurdity, and confusion.” Need we say more?

The New and Improved Romie Futch by Julia Elliott

We enjoyed Julia Elliott’s debut collection and we are beyond excited about her first novel, The New and Improved Romie Futch, out from Tin House Books this month. In order to pay the bills, taxidermist Romie Futch enters a study at The Center for Cybernetic Neuroscience, in which new information is downloaded into his brain. The “improved” Romie is intent on tracking down “Hogzilla,” an enormous, genetically modified hog.

Charmed Particles by Chrissy Kolaya

In this November debut novel, the residents of Nicolet, Illinois are divided about plans to build a particle collider under the town itself. Peter Ho Davies says: “Charmed Particles is a deftly constructed fable of modernity told in elegant, pellucid prose. Kolaya draws her characters with affectionate acuity and the whole reminds me—in its depiction of childhood precocity and earnest adult eccentricity—of one of Wes Anderson’s wry wonders.”