Spooky Season is here.
October 2023
Last month, I guessed 3 out of the 5 main selections and two add-ons. Not bad! I’m excited for Spooky Season, and I don’t think these predictions will disappoint. I did lean more toward magical, fantasy-type books than the horrors that I WISH BOTM would offer in the month of October.
Are you ready for spooky season, or do you like to avoid it altogether?
For those of you who are new here, Book of the Month is a subscription box where you get to pick a new release hardback book to be sent to you every month. There are five choices (called picks), often representing different genres. You choose one out of the five picks, and Book of the Month will mail it to you. While only one book is included in your subscription plan, you can “add-on” an additional book for $10.99. Sometimes, Book of the Month will include addition books as add-ons, but you have to choose from the main picks before you can choose one of those add-ons. In addition to offering new releases, Book of the Month will often work with the publishing companies to offer early releases, so you can get the book a few weeks (or even a month or two) before the general public! Best of all, Book of the Month ships to APO/FPO addresses, which is a requirement for our familiy these days. If you’re interested in subscribing, follow my referral link here: https://www.mybotm.com/2j8z5ybfh29h33di?show_box=true
Here are my top 12 guesses about what could be coming to a blue box near you:
After the Forest by Kell Woods
DEBUT AUTHOR
| Genre: | Fantasy- Fairy Tale Retellings |
| Goodreads Rating: | 4.04 |
| Pages: | 376 |
| Publication Date: | September 26, 2023 |
From the Publisher: "After the Forest is a dark and enchanting fantasy debut from Kell Woods that explores the repercussions of a childhood filled with magic and a young woman contending with the truth of “happily ever after.”
Ginger. Honey. Cinnamon. Flour.
Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their mother and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war.
Greta has a secret, the witch’s grimoire, secreted away and whispering in Greta’s ear for the past two decades, and the recipe inside that makes the best gingerbread you’ve ever tasted. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat.
But in a village full of superstition, Greta and her mysteriously addictive gingerbread, not to mention the rumors about her childhood misadventures, is a source of gossip and suspicion.
And now, dark magic is returning to the woods and Greta’s magic—magic she is still trying to understand—may be the only thing that can save her. If it doesn’t kill her first.”
The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok
| Genre: | Thriller |
| Goodreads Rating: | 424 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Publication Date: | October 10, 2023 |
From the publisher: "Jasmine Yang arrives in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support, fleeing a controlling husband, on a desperate search for the daughter who was taken from her at birth--another female casualty of China's controversial One Child Policy. But with her husband on her trail, the clock is ticking, and she's forced to make increasingly desperate decisions if she ever hopes to be reunited with her daughter.
Meanwhile, publishing executive Rebecca Whitney seems to have it all: a prestigious family name and the wealth that comes with it, a high-powered career, a beautiful home, a handsome husband, and an adopted Chinese daughter she adores. She’s even hired a Chinese nanny to help her balance the demands of being a working wife and mother. But when an industry scandal threatens to jeopardize not only Rebecca’s job but her marriage, this perfect world begins to crumble and her role in her own family is called into question.
The Leftover Woman finds these two unforgettable women on a shocking collision course. Twisting and suspenseful and surprisingly poignant, it’s a profound exploration of identity and belonging, motherhood and family. It is a story of two women in a divided city–separated by severe economic and cultural differences yet bound by a deep emotional connection to a child.”
Let us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
BOTM REPEAT AUTHOR
| Genre: | Historical Fiction |
| Goodreads Rating: | 4.33 |
| Pages: | 20 |
| Publication Date: | October 3, 2023 |
From the publisher: "From Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow—comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.
“‘Let us descend,’ the poet now began, ‘and enter this blind world.’” — Inferno, Dante Alighieri
Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages.
The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young
BOTM REPEAT AUTHOR/ CONFIRMED PICK
| Genre: | Fantasy |
| Goodreads Rating: | 4.53 |
| Pages: | 336 |
| Publication Date: | October 17, 2023 |
From the publisher: "A woman risks everything to end her family’s centuries-old curse, solve her mother’s disappearance, and find love in this mesmerizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Spells for Forgetting.
In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.
It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.
After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’sdecades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.
With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible—a story you will never forget.”
My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon
| Genre: | Thriller |
| Goodreads Rating: | 4.11 |
| Pages: | 320 |
| Publication Date: | October 3, 2023 |
From the publisher: "A spine-tingling psychological thriller about a woman who, after taking in her dying, alcoholic mother, begins to suspect demonic possession is haunting her family.
Alison has never been a fan of Christmas. But with it right around the corner and her husband busily decorating their cozy Vermont home, she has no choice but to face it. Then she gets the call.
Mavis, Alison’s estranged mother, has been diagnosed with cancer and has only weeks to live. She wants to spend her remaining days with her daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters. But Alison grew up with her mother’s alcoholism and violent abuse and is reluctant to unearth these traumatic memories. Still, she eventually agrees to take in Mavis, hoping that she and her mother could finally heal and have the relationship she’s always dreamed of.
But when mysterious and otherworldly things start happening upon Mavis’s arrival, Alison begins to suspect her mother is not quite who she seems. And as the holiday festivities turn into a nightmare, she must confront just how far she is willing to go to protect her family.”
What We Kept to Ourselves by Nancy Jooyoun Kim
BOTM REPEAT AUTHOR/CONFIRMED PICK
| Genre: | Historical Mystery |
| Goodreads Rating: | 3.96 |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Publication Date: | October 10, 2023 |
From the publisher: "The New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club pick The Last Story of Mina Lee returns with a timely and surprising new novel about a family’s search for answers following the disappearance of their mother.
1999: The Kim family is struggling to move on after their mother, Sunny, vanished a year ago. Sixty-one-year-old John Kim feels more isolated from his grown children, Anastasia and Ronald, than ever before. But one evening, their fragile lives are further upended when John finds the body of a stranger in the backyard, carrying a letter to Sunny, leaving the family with more questions than ever about the stranger’s history and possible connections to their mother.
1977: Sunny is pregnant and has just moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her aloof and often-absent husband. America is not turning out the way she had dreamed it to be, and the loneliness and isolation are broken only by a fateful encounter at a bus stop. The unexpected connection spans the decades and echoes into the family’s lives in the present as they uncover devastating secrets that put not only everything they thought they knew about their mother but their very lives at risk.
Both a riveting page-turner and moving family story, What We Kept to Ourselves masterfully explores the consequences of secrets between parents and children, husbands and wives. It is the story of one unforgettable family’s search for home when all seems lost, and a powerful meditation on identity, migration, and what it means to dream in America.”
A Winter in New York by Josie Silver
BOTM REPEAT AUTHOR
| Genre: | Romance |
| Goodreads Rating: | 4.13 |
| Pages: | 384 |
| Publication Date: | October 3, 2023 |
From the publisher: "A young chef stumbles on a secret family recipe that might lead her to the love—and life—she’s been looking for in this stunning novel.
When Iris decides to move to New York to restart her life, she realizes she underestimated how big the Big Apple really is—all the nostalgic movies set in New York she’d watched with her mom while eating their special secret-recipe gelato didn’t quite do it justice.
But Bobby, Iris’s best friend, isn’t about to let her hide away. He drags her to a famous autumn street fair in Little Italy, and as they walk through the food stalls, a little family-run gelateria catches her eye—could it be the same shop that’s in an old photo of her mother’s?
Curious, Iris returns the next day and meets the handsome Gio, who tells her that the shop is in danger of closing. His uncle, sole keeper of their family’s gelato recipe, is in a coma, so they can’t make more. When Iris samples the last remaining batch, she realizes that their gelato and her gelato are one and the same. But how can she tell them she knows their secret recipe when she’s not sure why Gio’s uncle gave it to her mother in the first place?
Iris offers her services as a chef to help them re-create the flavor and finds herself falling for Gio and his family. But when Gio’s uncle finally wakes up, all of the secrets Iris has been keeping threaten to ruin the new life—and new love—she’s been building all winter long.”
Midnight is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead
| Genre: | Thriller |
| Goodreads Rating: | 4.06 |
| Pages: | 400 |
| Publication Date: | October 3, 2023 |
From the publisher: "From the critically acclaimed author of In My Dreams I Hold A Knife and The Last Housewife comes a gothic Southern thriller about a killer haunting a small Louisiana town, where two outcasts—the preacher's daughter and the boy from the wrong side of the tracks—hold the key to uncovering the truth.
For fans of Verity and A Flicker in the Dark, this is a twisted tale of murder, obsessive love, and the beastly urges that lie dormant within us all…even the God-fearing folk of Bottom Springs, Louisiana. In her small hometown, librarian Ruth Cornier has always felt like an outsider, even as her beloved father rains fire-and-brimstone warnings from the pulpit at Holy Fire Baptist.
Unfortunately for Ruth, the only things the townspeople fear more than the God and the Devil are the myths that haunt the area, like the story of the Low Man, a vampiric figure said to steal into sinners’ bedrooms and kill them on moonless nights. When a skull is found deep in the swamp next to mysterious carved symbols, Bottom Springs is thrown into uproar—and Ruth realizes only she and Everett, an old friend with a dark past, have the power to comb the town’s secret underbelly in search of true evil.
A dark and powerful novel like fans have come to expect from Ashley Winstead, Midnight is the Darkest Hour is an examination of the ways we’ve come to expect love, religion, and stories to save us, the lengths we have to go to in order to take back power, and the monstrous work of being a girl in this world.”
The Rosewood Hunt by Mackenzie Reed
DEBUT AUTHOR
| Genre: | Mystery/Young Adult |
| Goodreads Rating: | 4.31 |
| Pages: | 368 |
| Publication Date: | October 31, 2023 |
From the publisher: "Lily Rosewood dreams of taking over her family's company one day. Her grandmother, Rosewood Inc's current chair, has always encouraged her, and Lily can't wait for Gram to teach her everything she needs to know to run the business.
But then Gram dies suddenly, and Lily’s world is upended. When it’s revealed that Gram’s quarter of a billion dollar fortune is missing, Lily can’t fathom what her future will hold now.
Even in death, Gram has a few tricks up her couture sleeve. A last letter from her with a cryptic clue sends Lily and three other teens on a treasure hunt that could change their lives forever-if they can survive it. And if they pull it off, they may be rewarded with more than just money. But they’re not the only ones hunting for Gram’s treasure, and soon the hunt becomes more dangerous than they ever could have imagined.
Irresistible intrigue, captivating suspense, a swoony friends-to- rivals-to-lovers romance, and heartbreaking betrayal drive this thrilling debut novel to its explosive end.”
The Roaring Days of Zora Lily by Noelle Salazar
| Genre: | Historical Fiction |
| Goodreads Rating: | 4.61 |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Publication Date: | October 3, 2023 |
From the publisher: “The discovery of a hidden label on a famous gown unearths the story of a talented young seamstress in this glittering novel of family, love, ambition, and self discovery by the USA Today bestselling author of The Flight Girls.
2023, The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American A costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes from the 1920s to present day. As she gingerly places a gown once worn by Greta Garbo on a mannequin, she discovers another name hidden beneath the designer’s label, leaving her to wonder—who is Zora Lily?
1924, Poverty-stricken Zora Hough spends her days looking after her younger siblings while sewing up holes and fixing hems for clients to bring in extra money, working her fingers to the bone just to survive. But at night, as she lies in the bed she shares with one of her three sisters, she secretly dreams of becoming a designer like Coco Chanel and Jeanne Lanvin.
When her best friend gets a job dancing in a club downtown, Zora is lured in by her stories of music, glittering dresses and boys. She follows her friend to the underground speakeasies that are at once exciting and frightening—with smoke hanging in the air, alcohol flowing despite Prohibition, couples dancing in a way that makes Zora blush and a handsome businessman named Harley. It’s a world she has only ever imagined, and one with connections that could lead her to the life she’s always dreamed of. But as Zora’s ambition is challenged by tragedy and duty to her family, she’ll learn that dreams come with a cost.”
Kill Show by Daniel Sweren-Becker
| Genre: | Thriller |
| Goodreads Rating: | 4.13 |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Publication Date: | October 3, 2023 |
From the publisher: "When sixteen-year-old Sara Parcell goes missing, it’s an utter tragedy—and an entertaining national obsession—in this thoughtful and addictively readable novel that offers a fresh and provocative take on whodunits and true crime. When sixteen-year-old Sara Parcell goes missing, it’s an utter tragedy—and an entertaining national obsession—in this thoughtful and addictively readable novel that offers a fresh and provocative take on whodunits and true crime.
Sara Parcell disappeared without a trace on a crisp April morning in Frederick, Maryland. Her tragic story was a national obsession and the centerpiece of a controversial television docu-series that followed her disappearance in real time–but is it possible that everyone missed the biggest secret of all? Ten years after these events, the people who knew Sara best are finally ready to talk.
In this genre-bending novel, Daniel Sweren-Becker fashions an oral history around the seemingly familiar crime of a teenage girl gone missing–yet Kill Show, filled with diabolical twists and provocative social commentary, is no standard mystery. Through “interviews” with family members, neighbors, law enforcement, television executives, and a host of other compelling characters, Sweren-Becker constructs a riveting tale about one family’s tragedy—and Hollywood’s insatiable desire to exploit it.
By revealing the seedy underbelly of the true crime entertainment machine, Kill Show probes literary territory beyond the bounds of the standard whodunit. It’s a thoughtful exploration into our obsession with the mysteries, cold cases, and violent tales we turn to for comfort. Groundbreaking, fast-moving, and informed, this is a novel about who’s really responsible for the tragedies we love to consume. “
Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis Chin
DEBUT AUTHOR
| Genre: | Memoir |
| Goodreads Rating: | 3.97 |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Publication Date: | October 17, 2023 |
From the publisher: "Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal.
Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where—between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions—he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.
Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung’s, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an to step inside one boy’s childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him—and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.
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