Publication Date: August 18, 2026
Cozy up with your pumpkin spiced latte and a slice of apple pie, because it’s time to fall in love in Bramley Hollow…
A fall-inspired second-chance romance about a woman who returns home after inheriting her grandmother’s diner, only to discover the contractor she must hire was her high school crush.
Sweater weather is better together.
Rebecca Macintosh has always felt that there’s just something about September-nostalgia, crisp mornings, and possibility. But not this year. Rebecca has thirty days to return home to fix up her late grandmother’s diner or face the consequences. And the only contractor in town? Cort Adams. The man who rejected her one year ago. He’s somehow even better looking as a single dad than when he was the high school football star she once tutored. She’d been hoping to avoid him forever.
As the golden leaves start to fall, Rebecca may find that there’s more to her hometown-and to Cort-than she’d realized, and that the dreams she’s been chasing might have been the wrong ones. Could a spark kindle hot enough in the cool autumn air to call Rebecca home for good?
Something About September by Julia McKay starts with a diary entry from 2014 when Rebecca was a senior in high school. Fast forward twelve years to the present, and we catch up with her again.
Rebecca is currently a lecturer in the literature department at a university in Toronto, and books are front and center, but she doesn’t seem all that enamored of her life.
When she has to return to her small hometown for personal reasons, she expects to return home in a month. There, her path crosses with many of the townspeople, but especially her best friend Sabrina and Cort, whom she tutored in high school so he could play football, and he’s also the reason she stayed away for a year.
Crispin is the chair of the Business Improvement Association and the reason she had to return since she was told she has thirty days to take care of the property or incur more fines since mowing and landscaping don’t seem to be enough. Rebecca moves into the apartment above her late grannie’s diner, which has been closed and is now her responsibility, and it’s causing chaos in more ways than one, since Cort is still the only contractor in town. She plans to renovate and sell the diner, but will she?
There are a lot of memories being shared throughout the town of her life in Bramley Hollow. Many she had forgotten about. There’s also a lot of gossiping, and she learns more about her mom, who passed away just after she was born. The memories and words of wisdom Rebecca reminisced about her grannie were heartwarming.
There are vivid descriptions of the small town, the businesses, the autumn festival and its activities. Vibrant and colorful language is used to describe the scenery. You can feel the fall in the air as all the senses are engaged. The story flows nicely, with secrets, surprises, and, finally, romance between Rebecca and Cort, especially after she makes some life changes. There is some closure in the epilogue, which takes place a year later, with new dreams coming to life, but I wish it went on a little further, since there’s definitely one loose end.
Something About September is a sweet contemporary romance that skirted around the romance for most of the story. But when it finally came to fruition, it was very satisfying.
Julia McKay is the pen name of Marissa Stapley, a former magazine editor and the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club Pick Lucky, soon to be an AppleTV series, as well as many other international bestsellers. She has coauthored several holiday rom-coms, including bestseller The Holiday Swap, writing as Maggie Knox. She lives in Toronto with her family.
