Get some hot tea, cozy up in your favorite chair, and open up Goodreads because your October TBR is about to get even longer!
If you like old films, the occult, and curses this is the book for you!
Silver Nitrate by New York Times best-selling author Silvia Moreno-Garcia follows a young woman trying to make her way in the film industry as a sound editor in 1990s Mexico City. She and her childhood best friend/crush work to lift a curse on a cult horror director by filming the missing scenes of his unfinished movie. Yet the two friends soon notice a dark presence haunting them and must unravel the mystery of the film before it’s too late.
Content Warnings can be found here
Have you ever wanted a book that gives Daphne and Fred from Scooby Doo off on their own spooky adventure? Then Murder Road is the perfect book for you. While it lacks some of the comedy of the beloved TV show, this book radiates the same energy of those spine-chilling scenes mixed with a little bit of Twin Peaks!
Murder Road by Simone St. James tells the story of newlyweds April and Eddie, who while on their honeymoon, take a wrong turn onto a deserted road where they find an injured young woman. When she dies at the local hospital, the couple find themselves at crosshairs with the local police as they’re the only suspects and they must dig into the history of the town and that spooky road to clear their names. Though they soon learn that there may be something more supernatural at work. . .
There isn’t an official list of content warnings; however, this book is on the tamer side, for a horror novel but please still read with caution.
I was hesitant to enjoy a book featuring the Covid-19 pandemic, yet this book is a necessary read for anyone who felt lost during lockdown and an eye opener to the illogical hatred the pandemic caused towards chinese people.
Bat Eater by Kylie Lee Baker is about Cora Zeng a crime scene cleaner in Chinatown who witnessed her sister get pushed in front of a train. Before fleeing, the murderer said only two words: Bat Eater. Months later, her sister’s murderer still hasn’t been caught, and Cora is barely keeping herself together without her sister. Now, as the Hungry Ghost festival looms and Cora ignores her aunts advice to prepare she soon finds herself haunted by hungry ghosts and a chain of gruesome murders that Cora and her co-workers keep finding bat carcasses at.
There isn’t an official list of content warnings for this book, but it contains quite a bit of gore and graphic violent imagery, so please read with caution.
Lesbian necromancers in space. Enough said. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is a masterpiece of unique magic systems and world building strange enough that you’re going to have to re-read the book once or twice just to understand it (it’s worth it though).
The book follows Gideon an unhappy servant of the Ninth house ready to abandon her miserable life. When she packs up her sword, shoes, and dirty magazines, she has no intent of letting anything stop her from leaving, until her childhood nemesis and the reverend daughter of the Ninth house refuses to let her go unless Gideon acts as her Swordswoman in a deadly trial to become the Emperor’s disciple.
Content Warnings can be found here
If you love witches, vulgar, manipulative, and brave women, and delicious banter then you’re going to become obsessed with Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin.
This book follows Lou a young witch who fled her coven two years ago and forsakes magic to escape fate. Now she resides in a city where witches like herself are hunted and burned. Sworn to the church, Reid is a handsome witch hunter who’s always lived by one principle: “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Lou and Reid’s paths were never meant to cross but a terrible stunt forces them into an impossible union — holy matrimony.
Content Warnings can be found here
Short and not sweet. Magical realism at its finest as Siren Queen by Nghi Vo tells a horrifying and glamorous tale of pre-Code Hollywood with monsters not only on the screen and a Chinese American girl willing to do anything to become a star, even if that means becoming a monster herself.
Content Warnings can be found here
Want a mix of Practical Magic and Coraline? Then Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert is going to be your new favorite read! Told through alternating stories of a daughter’s present and her mother’s past this book is about seventeen-year-old Ivy, who must contend with increasingly eerie events and the fragments of memories long kept locked away, as well as the unraveling of secrets her mother has been keeping from her.
I adored this book so much that I even wrote a poem about it!
Content Warnings can be found here
Have you ever wanted to eat a book? Probably not, but maybe if it gave you special abilities you would. The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean is a story about Devon who is a part of an old reclusive family of book eaters. When her son is born with a rare and darker magic Devon must do everything she can to protect him.
Content Warnings can be found here
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi is a gorgeously written gothic story that combines magical realism with the dangers of believing in fairytales.
When a man marries a beautiful, yet mysterious woman, they make a promise to each other. In exchange for her love, he would never pry into her past. When the couple is forced to return to her childhood home, the man can’t help himself when he discovers that his wife’s childhood best friend suddenly disappeared when they were younger and the house starts to reveal the dark secrets within its walls.
Content Warnings can be found here
And lastly who doesn’t love a good vampire story? This one will certainly sink its teeth into you!
A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson follows the tale of Dracula’s first bride Constanta, who was once a peasant until taken in by the undead king. When Dracula draws in more lovers, Constanta realizes the man she loves truly is a monster. After finding comfort within the arms of her rival consorts who help her unravel her husband’s dark secrets Constanta must decide between her own freedom and her love for her husband.
Content Warnings can be found here
Thank you for reading! Now it’s time to go buy some books 📖