It’s almost Halloween season and I’m so excited! This really is the time of year where all I want to do is sit and read — I mean, that is always, but honestly, from like October to February it being so dark outside so early is really hard for me so all I want to do is read and escape. Anyway, this time of year especially, all I want to do is read dark and scary books; lots of intense mystery/thrillers and a lot of horror novels.
While I have my Fall TBR, I also wanted to do a Halloween themed TBR for the month of October. Now, my mystery/thriller and horror TBRs are never ending, so there were a lot of options for books to be on this list. I then thought “Hey, you’re trying to get your physical TBR down, how about this list is just the mystery/thriller/horror books that you’ve got physical copies of” and then suddenly it became a little bit easier to figure out this TBR!
So, if you’d like to see what scary and spine-chilling reads I want to get to in October, let’s go!
From Olivie Blake, the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes Masters of Death, a story about vampires, ghosts, and death itself!
Viola Marek is a struggling real estate agent, and a vampire. But her biggest problem currently is that the house she needs to sell is haunted. The ghost haunting the house has been murdered, and until he can solve the mystery of how he died, he refuses to move on.
Fox D’Mora is a medium, and though is also most-definitely a shameless fraud, he isn’t entirely without his uses—seeing as he’s actually the godson of Death.
When Viola seeks out Fox to help her with her ghost-infested mansion, he becomes inextricably involved in a quest that neither he nor Vi expects (or wants). But with the help of an unruly poltergeist, a demonic personal trainer, a sharp-voiced angel, a love-stricken reaper, and a few high-functioning creatures, Vi and Fox soon discover the difference between a mysterious lost love and an annoying dead body isn’t nearly as distinct as they thought.
I feel like the girlies who get Olivie Blake get Olivie Blake, and I am one of the girlies. I have deeply loved everything I have read by Olivie Blake so far, but Masters of Death has been sitting on my shelves for over a year now (oops) and I think I’ve just been waiting for the right time to read it. I’ve decided that now is the right time 🤣honestly, I’m just really excited to read another Olivie Blake and hopefully it’ll rewire my brain chemistry the way her other books have.
An audacious novel of feminine rage about one of the most prolific female serial killers in American history–and the men who drove her to it.
They whisper about her in Chicago. Men come to her with their hopes, their dreams–their fortunes. But no one sees them leave. No one sees them at all after they come to call on the Widow of La Porte.
The good people of Indiana may have their suspicions, but if those fools knew what she’d given up, what was taken from her, how she’d suffered, surely they’d understand. Belle Gunness learned a long time ago that a woman has to make her own way in this world. That’s all it is. A bloody means to an end. A glorious enterprise meant to raise her from the bleak, colorless drudgery of her childhood to the life she deserves. After all, vermin always survive.
I had actually never heard of In the Garden of Spite until I got it when I did a Blind Date with a Book earlier this year and I am really looking forward to reading it. Based on the summary I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those “I support women’s rights, but I also support women’s wrongs” books. The fact that this is also based on a true story of a female serial killer has me very intrigued.
Goddess, goddess, count to five
In the morning, who’s alive?
In the course of a single winter’s night, four people vanish without a trace across a small town.
Nora’s estranged best friend, Becca, is one of the lost. As Nora tries to untangle the truth of Becca’s disappearance, she discovers a darkness in her town’s past, as well as a string of coded messages Becca left for her to unravel. These clues lead Nora to a piece of local folklore: a legendary goddess of forgotten origins who played a role in Nora and Becca’s own childhood games…
An arresting, crossover horror fantasy threaded with dark magic, THE BAD ONES is a poison-pen love letter to semi-toxic best friendship, the occult power of childhood play and artistic creation, and the razor-thin line between make-believe and belief.
I picked up a copy of The Bad Ones pretty shortly after its release in February (actually, I think I bought it the week that it came out), and had tried to read it shortly after that but I wasn’t in the right headspace and it wasn’t gripping my attention even though I was looking forward tot it. I keep staring at it on my shelves, so I do think that this is the time for me to read it. This one is described as “an arresting, crossover horror fantasy threaded with dark magic” and I am loving all of those words together.
In a world where the dead can wake and walk among us, what is truly real?
Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth—strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries—is the only good thing in Roos’ life, which is filled with sordid backroom séances organized by her mother. That is, until wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop attends one of these séances and asks Roos to come live with her at the crumbling estate she inherited upon the death of her husband. The manor is unsettling, but the attraction between Roos and Agnes is palpable. So how does someone end up dead?
Roos is caught red-handed, but she claims a spirit is the culprit. Doctor Montague, a psychologist tasked with finding out whether Roos can be considered mentally fit to stand trial, suspects she’s created an elaborate fantasy to protect her from what really happened. But Roos knows spirits are real; she’s loved one of them. She’ll have to prove her innocence and her sanity, or lose everything.
I’m obsessed with this cover. Honestly, I think I added this book to my TBR before I even read the summary just because of how much I loved the cover. Luckily, the summary of the book intrigues me just as much as the cover does. A girl who has a spirit companion that only she can see? Yes, sign me up! Add in a crumbling estate and someone turning up dead? I need to read it right now.
A cemetery full of the restless dead. A town so wicked it has already burned twice, with the breath of the third fire looming. A rural, isolated bridge with a terrifying monster waiting for the completion of its summoning ritual. A lake that allows the drowned to return, though they have been changed by the claws of death. These are the shadowed, liminal spaces where the curses and monsters lurk, refusing to be forgotten.
Hauntings, and a variety of horrifying secrets, lurk in the places we once called home. Written by New York Times bestselling, and other critically acclaimed, authors these stories shed a harsh light on the scariest tales we grew up with.
Stay / Erica Waters
The tallest poppy / Chloe Gong
Loved by all, save one / Tori Bovalino
One-lane bridge / Hannah Whitten
Ghost on the shore / Allison Saft
Petrified / Olivia Chadha
Third burn / Courtney Gould
It stays with you / Aden Polydoros
Truth or dare / Alex Brown
The burning one / Shakira Toussaint
Can anthologies be very hit or miss for me? Yes, they can be and I think that’s true for everyone. However, this one really intrigues me. I’ve had The Gathering Dark on my TBR for a long time and earlier this month I was at the bookstore and saw this gorgeous purple edition that I’d never seen before, so obviously, I had to buy it. Plus, it has stories by Chloe Gong, Tori Bovalino, Allison Saft and Courtney Gould who are all authors that write amazing atmospheres and authors that I’ve given 4-5 stars, so I have high hopes for this one.
I am fully aware that with my fall TBR, ARCs and other mood reads this is kind of a ridiculous list of books to try and get through in the month of October, especially since I’ve been slowing down with my reading the last few months and have a very busy October. However, my excitement for these books is really through the roof and I think that I’ll be able to read them all.
Are there any books that you’re planning on prioritizing this October? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time 💜
