Back to school means back to the books. (And for your book club, that means back to the wine.) If you never made it through that ambitious list of summer beach reads, consider these fabulous picks by local authors.

Quinn Holladay, a Bellaire High School and Rice grad, wrote her first bit of chick lit while holding down a full-time job. The main character in Dropping the Other Shoe lives in Midtown, hunts for Jimmy Choos at the Galleria and finds out what happens when life as a 20-something Houstonian completely unravels.

Robert Leleux grew up in a teeny rural town outside of Houston, and the highlight of his week was escaping to Neimans with his wildly eccentric mom to get their hair and nails done. The hilarious Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy chronicles Robert’s eventual coming out and the torture his mom endures to snag a rich husband (from botched lip injections to shaving her scalp for a custom wig).

Katherine Center, a St. John’s grad, details the life of a Heights hipster who gets dumped by her fiancé the night before she goes into labor. The Bright Side of Disaster beautifully tells the story of a woman facing challenges as a new mother all alone – it’s touching and laugh-out-loud funny all at once.

When you hear the name Ike, you think of two things: the weeks you endured without power and how your friends and neighbors came together like never before. Just in time for the first anniversary, Ike: The Book, from the authors of kitchy Houston. It’s Worth It, follows the days post-hurricane through real stories and images.