Falling Like Leaves (Bramble Falls) 

352 pages publisher Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing | Margaret K. McElderry Books Publication date September 2, 2025 Reading age14 years and up

ABOUT THE BOOK

Gilmore Girls meets Jenny Han in this autumnal teen rom-com about a city girl stuck in a quaint small town who must confront her future and her old flame while the town prepares for an annual fall festival.

Ellis has a plan: spend her senior fall prepping her application for Columbia, get into their journalism program, and set the foundation for a respectable career. So when her parents announce that not only are they separating, but Ellis has to move with her mom from New York City to Bramble Falls, Connecticut, to live with her aunt and cousin, it couldn’t come at a worse time.

From past summers spent in Connecticut, Ellis knows Bramble Falls is idyllic and charming. But it also seems to be full of distractions. There’s local barista Cooper Barnett, Ellis’s one-time best friend and first kiss who now wants nothing to do with Ellis. And then there’s the Falling Leaves Festival, a local autumnal celebration run by Ellis’s aunt where people from all over come to see Bramble Falls’s beautiful foliage. The house is stuffed with decorations, and every conversation seems to center around the festival.

Dragged to every oh-so-charming event from apple picking to pumpkin carving, Ellis can’t stop bumping into Cooper…or falling for the quaint town and its quirky residents. As her return to Manhattan gets repeatedly delayed, Ellis finds herself caught between two very different places—and the futures they represent.

MY THOUGHTS

Falling Like Leaves is a teen-age rom com.
Picture this, Ellis is a total city girl. More comfortable with the blare of traffic, sirens and the congestion of people everywhere. New York City is home, she’s happy there and looking forward to her senior year of high school and already has her college planned out there as well.

So, when her mother says they must move to Bramble Falls, Connecticut because she and her father are separating, she feels like she’s been hit by a truck as the surprise is so great.
Sure, she’s been to Bramble Falls to spend the summer a few times but to move there for good is just unimaginable.

Bramble Falls to me sounds idyllic, with its country charm, quiet, peaceful small-town vibes and everyone into decorating for Fall it sounds superb.
When the guy she had a crush on previously wants nothing to do with her she shouldn’t be surprised as she wasn’t the nicest to him.

She adores her father and will do anything to win his approval even though they live separately now, she also finds her mother most annoying. As the story progresses, we see some hard truths come to light as she realizes things may not be exactly as she had assumed.

She does make some pretty rash decisions, and I believe this is because she’s a teenager and doesn’t have the maturity to think of the long-term consequences of her actions.

I enjoyed this fun book and will continue with the series as it releases.

I was given a complimentary copy of this book.
All opinions expressed are my own.

About the author

Misty Wilson is the author of Falling Like Leaves and the award-winning middle grade graphic memoir Play Like a Girl. Misty is a teacher, registered nurse, and a voracious reader. She loves binge-watching television series and adores rom-coms. She lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband and their two daughters.

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