Books I want to read this autumn

I haven’t stopped talking about how much I love the autumn season, so I thought I’d tell you all about the books I plan on reading in the coming weeks. It was super hard to cut it down, but I think I’ve ended up with a good mix of backlist titles and new releases that sound amazing.

The Lessons by Naomi Alderman

I stumbled upon The Lessons as I was compiling a list of dark academia books – coming next week if all goes to plan. At first, I wasn’t massively interested as The Power (review here) was just average for me but the synopsis reeled me in:

Hidden away in an Oxford back street is a crumbling Georgian mansion, unknown to any but the few who possess a key to its unassuming front gate. Its owner is the mercurial, charismatic Mark Winters, whose rackety trust-fund upbringing has left him as troubled and unpredictable as he is wildly promiscuous. Mark gathers around him an impressionable group of students…

Add it to your Goodreads shelf.

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

I loved Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern so when I hear that this book is considered on par with them both I have to read it! It’s a mixture of dystopia and fantasy which sounds right up my street.

As a Gracekeeper, Callanish administers shoreside burials, laying the dead to their final resting place deep in the depths of the ocean. Alone on her island, she has exiled herself to a life of tending watery graves as penance for a long-ago mistake that still haunts her. Meanwhile, North works as a circus performer with the Excalibur, a floating troupe of acrobats, clowns, dancers, and trainers who sail from one archipelago to the next, entertaining in exchange for sustenance...

Add it to your Goodreads shelf.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This has been getting a lot of buzz online at the moment and seems to be the book of the season so of course I’m interested. I haven’t read anything from this author before but the tagline is brilliant ‘an isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . .‘

Also, you hardly ever see horror books with beautiful covers like this so what could possibly go wrong?

Add this to your Goodreads shelf.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

As one of the most anticipated releases of the year I don’t have to say much about it other than I have read all of V. E. Schwab’s backlist so of course I’m going to read her newest release!

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name

Add this to your Goodreads shelf.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

What a title, huh? I started this one last night because I couldn’t wait a second longer after hearing such mixed things about it. It’s exactly what it sounds like. A bunch of older ladies living in the south, going to their book club, and potentially slaying vampires… totally ridiculous but an incredible premise – let’s see how it turns out!

Add this to your Goodreads shelf.

In the Woods by Tana French

This isn’t the kind of thing that I would usually pick up but after reading the synopsis it sounded like the kind of TV show I would watch so I thought I’d give it a go – maybe I’ll fall in love with a new genre this season?

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children. He is gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours…

Add this to your Goodreads shelf.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

I read Neverworld Wake earlier this year and really enjoyed it so I’m excited to get to Pessl’s backlist titles. This one is a classic dark academia that is PERFECT for this time of year.

After a childhood moving from one academic outpost to another with her father, Blue is clever, deadpan, and possessed of a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge—and is quite the cineaste to boot. In her final year of high school at the elite (and unusual) St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider…

Add this to your Goodreads shelf.

Night Film also by Marisha Pessl

Yeah, I wasn’t joking when I said I was excited to get to her backlist… Night Film is not a quick read – sitting at over 640 pages it’ll be a time investment but I’m excited to see what all the fuss is about. Also the first line of the synopsis is ‘On a damp October night…’ how perfect is that?

On a damp October night, 24-year-old Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror film director Stanislaus Cordova–a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than thirty years...

Add this to your Goodreads here.

Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

His Dark Materials is one of the last books on my 20 books I want to read in 2020 list so I feel like it’s now or never! I’m sure most have read this but here is the synopsis if, like me, you don’t know what it’s all about.

Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal–including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world. Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors?

Add this to your Goodreads shelf.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Lol what a cliché. If I’m going to read it, it has to be now, right?

Add this to your Goodreads shelf.

The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

Another classic that I’m keen to get too. I don’t think this has any spooky vibes but I do believe it’s a little creepy and autumn always feels like a good time of year to read a classic.

Add this to your Goodreads shelf.

Fall for Anything by Courtney Summers

This is my last backlist book for Summers before I’m all caught up – lovely. Fall for Anything is a dark contemporary novel so this is a good time of year to get it ticked off of my list.

When Eddie Reeves’s father commits suicide her life is consumed by the nagging question of why? Why when he was a legendary photographer and a brilliant teacher? Why when he seemed to find inspiration in everything he saw? And, most important, why when he had a daughter who loved him more than anyone else in the world? 

Add this to your Goodreads shelf.

Phew, we made it. Those are all of the books I hope to get to by November… Hopefully I can manage them all and more importantly  love them all! Have you got a seasonal TBR? If so, let me know what you’re most excited to read.