From Sylvester Stallone’s memoir to Freida McFadden’s new thriller, up to the literary return of Douglas Stuart, three stories eagerly awaited to inaugurate September.
September brings back to bookstores that particular sense of possibility that accompanies every new beginning. The days begin to get shorter, habits resume their rhythm and the shelves are filled with long-awaited stories, ready to extend the desire for escape elsewhere. Among the numerous new releases of the month, three books tell about as many ways of dealing with what we have been: transforming defeats into a legend, anger into revenge or the return home into a painful search for the truth.
The Steps. How I Became Rocky Balboa by Sylvester Stallone
Before he became one of the most recognizable characters in movie history, Rocky Balboa was the stubborn idea of an actor that Hollywood didn’t seem to want to see. In The Steps. How I Became Rocky Balboaout on September 29th by Rizzoli, Sylvester Stallone retraces the path that led him from the difficulties of childhood to the success of the film destined to transform his life forever.
The story ideally develops between his arrival in New York in 1969 and the night of the Oscars in 1977, when Rocky won the award for best film. In between are the years spent chasing small parts, the rejections, the precariousness and the determination with which Stallone defended a script in which no one seemed to believe as much as he did. He didn’t just want to sell it, but wanted to play the protagonist, recognizing in that unknown boxer a part of his own history.
The stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which Rocky walked down during training, thus become the metaphor for the entire book. Each step represents the distance between the point from which you start and what you want to reach, but also the effort necessary to not give up. More than the celebratory autobiography of a star, The Steps promises to be the portrait of a man who transformed his obstinacy into cinema’s most famous story of redemption.
Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden
Debbie Mullen has spent years solving other people’s problems. Through the advice column “Dear Debbie,” she heard the confessions of New England wives, offering understanding and answers to women ignored, humiliated or abused by their husbands. However, when his life begins to fall apart, the prudent suggestions dispensed for so long no longer seem sufficient.
Out September 8th via Newton Compton, Dear Debbie marks the return of Freida McFadden with a protagonist ready to turn frustration into something much more dangerous. Debbie loses her job, discovers that her daughters are hiding secrets from her and begins to suspect that her husband is unfaithful. Suddenly, the woman used to showing others the right path decides to follow the advice she would never have dared to publish: stop putting up with it and start taking revenge.
McFadden once again builds his thriller around a seemingly ordinary character, letting the cracks of everyday life slowly reveal something dark. The result promises to be a story filled with suspense, dark humor and a satisfying dose of revenge, led by an unpredictable anti-heroine with whom it will be difficult not to become accomplices.
John son of John by Douglas Stuart
Douglas Stuart travels to the Outer Hebrides to talk about a place where the landscape preserves every silence. John son of Johnout on 1 September by Mondadori, follows John-Calum Macleod, known as Cal, a young artist who after years spent in Edinburgh returns to Falabay, the remote community on the Isle of Harris where he grew up.
Waiting for him is his father John, a weaver and deacon of a Presbyterian church, a severe man shaped by work, religion and a very rigid idea of masculinity. There is a deep bond between them, but one that is almost incapable of being translated into words. Cal’s return brings to the surface denied desires, old grudges and family secrets that for years have protected that apparently immutable balance.
Around the relationship between father and son, Stuart builds a novel about duty, faith and the price paid by those forced to hide their identity. The traditions of the island, the making of tweed and the harsh beauty of nature become part of a story in which belonging can offer shelter, but also turn into a cage. Already included in the Booker Prize 2026 longlist, John son of John promises to be one of the most important literary releases of the month.
