Rebecca's Oct. TBR Wrap-up
YA Paranormal Fantasy
Midnight Sun by Stephanie Meyer - EBook (690 pgs) Still Reading
When Edward Cullen and Bella Swan met in Twilight, an iconic love story was born. But until now, fans have heard only Bella's side of the story. At last, readers can experience Edward's version in the long-awaited companion novel, Midnight Sun.
This unforgettable tale as told through Edward's eyes takes on a new and decidedly dark twist. Meeting Bella is both the most unnerving and intriguing event he has experienced in all his years as a vampire. As we learn more fascinating details about Edward's past and the complexity of his inner thoughts, we understand why this is the defining struggle of his life. How can he justify following his heart if it means leading Bella into danger?
Horror
Black House by Stephen King - Hard Back (585 pgs) Bumped to Nov.
Twenty years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to a parallel universe called The Territories to save his mother and her Territories "twinner" from a premature and agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, WI. He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories and was compelled to leave the police force when an odd, happenstance event threatened to awaken those memories.
When a series of gruesome murders occur in western Wisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades earlier by a real-life madman named Albert Fish, the killer is dubbed "The Fisherman" and Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help his inexperienced force find him. But is this merely the work of a disturbed individual, or has a mysterious and malignant force been unleashed in this quiet town? What causes Jack's inexplicable waking dreams, if that is what they are, of robins' eggs and red feathers? It's almost as if someone is trying to tell him something. As that message becomes increasingly impossible to ignore, Jack is drawn back to the Territories and to his own hidden past, where he may find the soul-strength to enter a terrifying house at the end of a deserted track of forest, there to encounter the obscene and ferocious evils sheltered within it.
Berkley Street by Ron Ripley - EBook (287 pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Shane Ryan returns to Nashua and the childhood memories that drove him to join the Marines. After a prolonged legal battle with his aunt and uncle, Shane has possession of the family home where his parents disappeared over 20 years ago. The house, a monstrous castle filled with ghosts and secrets, is more alive than its inhabitants.
When his aunt and uncle come to town, then vanish, Shane's life takes a turn for the worse. Detective Marie Lafontaine immediately labels Shane as the prime suspect. And in a race against time, Shane desperately searches for clues about his parents.
But there's something lurking beyond the walls and beneath the surface. Something sinister that has haunted him ever since he saw its face in the pond behind the house. And it isn’t happy that Shane is back. It isn’t happy at all.
Classic Horror
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly - EBook (280 pgs) DNF đŸ˜
Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Byron's villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity.
The Shunned House by H. P. Lovecraft - ebook (50 pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
OverDrive
Novels
Middle-Grade Paranormal
City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab - Audio (188 pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cassidy Blake's parents are The Inspecters, a (somewhat inept) ghost-hunting team. But Cass herself can REALLY see ghosts. In fact, her best friend, Jacob, just happens to be one.
When The Inspecters head to ultra-haunted Edinburgh, Scotland, for their new TV show, Cass—and Jacob—come along. In Scotland, Cass is surrounded by ghosts, not all of them friendly. Then she meets Lara, a girl who can also see the dead. But Lara tells Cassidy that as an In-betweener, their job is to send ghosts permanently beyond the Veil. Cass isn't sure about her new mission, but she does know the sinister Red Raven haunting the city doesn't belong in her world. Cassidy's powers will draw her into an epic fight that stretches through the worlds of the living and the dead, in order to save herself.
Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs - EBook (210 pgs) ⭐⭐
Before Miss Peregrine gave them a home, the story of peculiars was written in the Tales.
Wealthy cannibals who dine on the discarded limbs of peculiars. A fork-tongued princess. The origins of the first ymbryne. These are but a few of the truly brilliant stories in Tales of the Peculiar—known to hide information about the peculiar world—first introduced by Ransom Riggs in his Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series.
Riggs now invites you to share his secrets of peculiar history, with a collection of original stories, as collected and annotated by Millard Nullings, ward of Miss Peregrine and scholar of all things peculiar.
Psychological Thriller
Jar of Hearts by Jeniffer Hillier - Audio (318 pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is the story of three best friends: one who was murdered, one who went to prison, and one who's been searching for the truth all these years . . .
When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school.
But fourteen years later, Angela Wong's remains are discovered in the woods near Geo's childhood home. And Kaiser—now a detective with Seattle PD—finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women.
To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he's something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo's first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed.
For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela's death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison.
While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong.
How far will someone go to bury her secrets and hide her grief? How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it?
Horror
The Library of Mount Char by Scott Hawkins - EBook (402pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A missing God.
A library with the secrets to the universe.
A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away.
Carolyn's not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas sweater over the gold bicycle shorts. After all, she was a normal American herself once.
That was a long time ago, of course. Before her parents died. Before she and the others were taken in by the man they called Father. In the years since then, Carolyn hasn't had a chance to get out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's ancient customs. They've studied the books in his Library and learned some of the secrets of his power. And sometimes, they've wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God. Now, Father is missing—perhaps even dead—and the Library that holds his secrets stands unguarded. And with it, control over all of creation.
As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her, all of them with powers that far exceed her own. But Carolyn has accounted for this. And Carolyn has a plan. The only trouble is that in the war to make a new God, she's forgotten to protect the things that make her human.
Populated by an unforgettable cast of characters and propelled by a plot that will shock you again and again, The Library at Mount Char is at once horrifying and hilarious, mind-blowingly alien and heartbreakingly human, sweepingly visionary and nail-bitingly thrilling—and signals the arrival of a major new voice in fantasy.
Novella - Crime Thriller
High Heat by Lee Child - Ebook (87pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thriller master Lee Child returns with an exclusive eBook short story. In the midst of a savage heat wave and an infamous murder spree, a blackout awakens the dark side of the city that never sleeps—and a young Jack Reacher takes action as only he can.
Don’t miss the exciting preview of Lee Child’s highly anticipated Jack Reacher novel, Never Go Back!
July 1977. Jack Reacher is almost seventeen, and he stops in New York City on the way to visit his brother at West Point. The summer heat is suffocating, the city is bankrupt, and the mad gunman known as Son of Sam is still on the loose. Reacher meets a woman with a problem, and agrees to help her . . . but then the power grid fails and the lights go out, plunging the lawless city into chaos. What does a visiting teenager do in the dark? If that visiting teenager is Jack Reacher, the answer is plenty.
Graphic Novel - Horror ⭐⭐⭐
Through the Woods by Emily Carroll - EBook (212 pgs)
'It came from the woods. Most strange things do.'
Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss.
These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll.
Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there...
The Walking Dead Volum 1 by Robert Kirkmen - EBook (146 pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐How many hours are in a day when you don't spend half of them watching television?
When is the last time any of us REALLY worked to get something we wanted?
How long has it been since any of us really NEEDED something that we WANTED?
The world we knew is gone.
The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility.
An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe causing the dead to rise and feed on the living.
In a matter of months society has crumbled.
no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV.
In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living.
On Hold
Gothic Horror
Catherine House by Elizabeth Thomas - Ebook (271 pgs) DNF đŸ˜
A story about a dangerously curious young undergraduate whose rebelliousness leads her to discover a shocking secret involving an exclusive circle of students . . . and the dark truth beneath her school’s promise of prestige.
You are in the house and the house is in the woods.
You are in the house and the house is in you . . .
Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world’s best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years—summers included—completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises its graduates a future of sublime power and prestige, and that they can become anything or anyone they desire.
Among this year’s incoming class is Ines, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, pills, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline—only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. The school’s enigmatic director, ViktĂ³ria, encourages the students to explore, to expand their minds, to find themselves and their place within the formidable black iron gates of Catherine.
For Ines, Catherine is the closest thing to a home she’s ever had, and her serious, timid roommate, Baby, soon becomes an unlikely friend. Yet the House’s strange protocols make this refuge, with its worn velvet and weathered leather, feel increasingly like a gilded prison. And when Baby’s obsessive desire for acceptance ends in tragedy, Ines begins to suspect that the school—in all its shabby splendor, hallowed history, advanced theories, and controlled decadence—might be hiding a dangerous agenda that is connected to a secretive, tightly knit group of students selected to study its most promising and mysterious curriculum.
Psychological Thriller
Final Girls by Riley Sager - EBook (466 pgs) ⭐⭐⭐
Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls. Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them, and, with that, one another. Despite the media's attempts, they never meet.
Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancĂ©, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past.
That is, until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit, and Sam, the second, appears on Quincy's doorstep. Blowing through Quincy's life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa's death come to light, Quincy's life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam's truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.
The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware - EBook (384 pgs) Next Up
When she stumbles across the ad, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss—a live-in nannying post, with a staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten—by the luxurious “smart” home fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family.
What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.
Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the unravelling events that led to her incarceration. It wasn’t just the constant surveillance from the cameras installed around the house, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It wasn’t just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn’t even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman, Jack Grant.
It was everything.
She knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty—at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.
Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, The Turn of the Key is an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.
SyFy Horror
Feed by Mira Grant - EBook (413 pgs) Currently Reading
The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop.
The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED. Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives—the dark conspiracy behind the infected.
The truth will get out, even if it kills them.
Kindle Unlimited
Novels
Dark New Adult Romance
Nightfall by Penelope Douglas - EBook (621pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
From New York Times bestselling author Penelope Douglas comes the thrilling, final installment in the Devil’s Night series…
What happens when it's five against one and nowhere to run?
EMORY
They call it Blackchurch. A secluded mansion in a remote, undisclosed location where the wealthy and powerful send their misbehaving sons to cool off away from prying eyes.
Will Grayson has always been an animal, though. Reckless, wild, and someone who was never bound by a single rule other than to do exactly what he wanted. There was no way his grandfather was going risk him humiliating the family again.
Not that the last time was entirely his fault. He might’ve enjoyed backing me into corners in high school when no one was looking, so they wouldn’t catch on that Mr. Popular actually wanted a piece of that quiet, little nerd he loved to torture so much, but…
He could also be warm. And fierce in keeping me safe.
The truth is… He has a right to hate me.
It’s all my fault. Everything.
Devils Night. The videos. The arrests.
I’m to blame for all of it.
And I regret nothing.
WILL
I never minded being locked up. I learned a long time ago that being treated like an animal gives you permission to act like one. No one has ever looked at me any other way.
Their only mistake is believing anything I do is an accident. I can sit in this house with no Internet, television, liquor, or girls, but I’ll come out of here with something far more frightening to my enemies.
A plan.
And a new pack of wolves.
I just didn’t expect one of my enemies to come to me.
I don’t know who smuggled her in or if they meant to leave her here, but I can smell her hiding in the house. She’s here.
And as the security detail leaves the supplies, the gates close, and the door to my gilded cage opens, giving me free reign of the house and grounds for another unsupervised month, I remember with a smile…
Blackchurch houses five prisoners. I’m only one of her problems.
*Nightfall is a full-length, romantic suspense suitable for readers 18+. It’s necessary to read the prior installments in the series before starting this story.
Devils' Day Party by C. M. Stunich - EBook (406 pgs) RH ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I crashed my shitty yellow VW Beetle into Calix’s Aston Martin.
To be fair, he deserved it.
But Calix and his friends, Barron and Raz, they don’t see it that way.
Not that it matters.
They’ve bullied me for years, and I’ve never known why.
At least today, they have something real to be pissed about.
All of which would be fine, if today was a normal day.
But it’s not. It’s far from normal.
My mantra has always been: this too, shall pass.
But not today.
Not the worst day of my life.
Hot bullies, busted cars, and pain.
Somebody kill me now.
Paranormal Academy
Sinister Wizardry by Eva Chase - EBook (334 pgs) RH ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Do I want to spend my summer with my vicious classmates at Bloodstone University—better known as Villain Academy? No, thank you. But I've got to find a way to tackle my enemies before they try to destroy me again, and the trail to potential answers starts there.
I've had it with taking the high road, though. Come at me, and you'd better believe I'll hit you back just as hard. Maybe that'll mean I have to tap into my dark magic instincts more than I'd ever have planned to, but I'm not letting one more person I care about get hurt.
That also means I've got to steer clear of the one guy I completely trust, or I might ruin his life too. With two of the other scions vying for my attention and the last shifting his campaign against me in an unexpected way, I've got my hands full as it is.
I can't say whether I'll survive everything this summer has in store. All I know for sure is it's going to be a hot one.
*Sinister Wizardry is the third book in a university-age paranormal academy series. Expect magical villainy, a tough heroine who bends to no one’s will, a dollop of steam, and a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers reverse harem romance where there'll be no choosing required.
Graphic Novel - Horror
Lock and Key Vol. 2 by Joe Hill - EBook (186 pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Following a shocking death that dredges up memories of their father's murder, Kinsey and Tyler Locke are thrown into choppy emotional waters, and turn to their new friend, Zack Wells, for support, little suspecting Zack's dark secret.
Meanwhile, six-year-old Bode Locke tries to puzzle out the secret of the head key, and Uncle Duncan is jarred into the past by a disturbingly familiar face.
Open your mind - the head games are just getting started
ARCs
Direct
Broken Kingdom by A. Jade - ECopy (528 pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Releasing Oct. 8 (NARom)
Welcome to their kingdom...
They say you're happy now.
That you can't remember anything from your past and it's for the best.
They told me if I cared about you I'd stay far away and leave you alone for good.
Because you're getting married to a man you love.
Only problem is...
you loved me first.
This is the 4th and FINAL book in the Royal Hearts Academy series. Cruel Prince (Jace and Dylan's book), Ruthless Knight (Cole and Sawyer's book), and Wicked Princess should be read first for a better understanding of the family dynamic.
Possession by T. K. Leigh - ECopy (313 pgs) Oct. 15 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sometimes the right path isn’t the easiest one.
Weston Bradford entered my world in a whirlwind.
Or, more accurately, during a torrential downpour.
After our brief encounter, I didn’t think I’d ever see the attractive man with mesmerizing blue eyes again. Not in a city the size of Atlanta.
Until I agree to take on a historic home renovation and learn the owner is none other than the same Weston Bradford who I met in the rain.
We’re as opposite as two people can be, but there’s no denying the spark, the connection, the invisible tether pulling us toward one another.
But my past has left me broken and scarred, forcing me to erect walls around myself. That doesn’t seem to deter Wes, though. He’s more than happy to scale those walls to possess the one thing I swore I’d never give another person again — my heart.
When the past collides with my present in an unexpected way, will he stand by my side and weather the storm threatening to destroy everything? Or will he abandon me like everyone else in my life?
Bully King by Andi Jaxon - ECopy (345 pgs) Oct. 15 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
*An MM Bully Romance*
I'm the pastor's son.
He's the star quarterback for a small Kentucky high school.
While the town worships him, I pray for God to take my life.
He makes my life a living hell by making me his victim.
This perverse game we play could end us both.
How can something that feels so right be so wrong?
The price if the truth is discovered is death, but I can't stop.
Neither can he.
No one can know.
Can I risk it?
Is Roman King worth dying for?
**This story is a bully romance including dubious consent, assault, talk of suicide, and is intended for readers 18+. Please proceed with caution.**
Deviant by Dani Rene - ECopy Oct. 21 ⭐⭐⭐
Black Mountain Academy was my only choice. It was meant to be freedom. But with those watchful eyes, it’s anything but the fresh start I crave.
When you’re good, nobody ever remembers. But when you’re bad, they can’t stop reminding you. I was labelled a rebel, a party girl, a nuisance, even a… never mind, you don’t need to know that.
That all changed when he gave me a label. I submitted to the nickname.
I am a Deviant. I revel in the dark, alongside him.
Forbidden. Against the rules. A bad idea.
We can’t stop ourselves from breaking the moral compass.
But the stranger is watching me. Every move, every breath, and every dream.
He’s there, waiting, biding his time. In the end, he will get me.
When secrets are spilled… Who will be the deviant then?
Pretty When She Cries by A.Zavarelli - ECopy Oct.23 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Your first kiss is supposed to be sweet. Ours was baptized in fire.
I was the new girl trying to find her place.
Landon was the brooding neighbor I tutored over the summer.
I didn’t know he was a legend at Black Mountain Academy.
I didn’t know they worshipped him like a religion.
But I fell for him before I knew those things.
To me, he was just the tortured soul who drew me in like a magnet.
And then he did something so unspeakable, so unforgivable, it shattered me.
I ran away then because I was weak, but I’ve shed my tears.
He stole my heart and my dignity, and I’m here to take it back.
The only problem is… he’s not giving it up without a fight.
Best Foot Forward by Bea Stevens - ECopy (299 pgs) ⭐⭐⭐
Free Oct. 14th - 18th (RomCom)
Liberty ‘Libby’ Lawrence adores designer labels – even though she can’t afford many. And she especially loves shoes. Her favourites are Christian Louboutins – though not those fake ones Bianca Morrison-Wright gets from the market (the red paint rubs off the soles and everything!)
She’s working as a manager (albeit junior manager) at a London hotel, when the boss announces that there has been a theft from his office. Libby couldn’t help noticing some strange marks on his carpet when she was called in for a reprimand recently (not that it was her fault, or anything) which lead her to surmise who the thief is.
Detective Sergeant James Harper, the hunky policemen who is assigned the case, seems interested in her theory – until she names her number one suspect. Libby is devastated, not only because he doesn’t believe her but – more importantly – that this guy knows NOTHING about shoes!
As Libby struggles to convince the sergeant that her hunch is right, her boss that she’s ready for promotion and herself that she’s not really falling for the gorgeous copper, she realises that maybe she’s wrong about the theft, she’s not suited to the hotel industry and that the handsome hunk is married!
Ascension by J. Haney and S. I. Hayes ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
After the assassination of her father and the suicide of her mother leaves Princess Maya Meleke spinning, it is up to those around her to get her to the throne.
It was the King’s wish that Maya one day unite the Normal and Paranormal realms, yet being held to court and under the thumb of a straightlaced Royal Guard is the last thing on the young Princesses agenda.
Maya fights Officer Zane Coreleali on everything. He knows that he is going to have his hands full with Princess Maya, but he wants them full of something else.
HER.
He is, however, not the only one after young Maya’s affections. Valaria Cosumos, daughter to Lesser King Usar is her Lady in Attending, and attend she shall.
Not My Hero By Michelle Heard (Black Mountian Academy) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
He walked into school on his first day and didn’t care what the other students thought of him.
Dark. Broody. Dangerous.
He didn’t care where I cared too much.
Then the rumors started.
He failed his senior year at his previous school. His brother committed suicide. It’s his fault.
And for one blessed week, I wasn’t the topic of discussion.
You see, I’m the daughter of a socialite who has no soul. I’m the one paying for her sins. They never let me forget where I come from, and she never stops telling me what a failure I am.
But then Colton Lawson looks at me, and unlike the other students, his dark gaze seems to see through the lies spun around me.
He starts appearing out of nowhere, fighting my battles for me only to stalk away, making me feel like I’m nothing but a nuisance.
My name is Brie Weinstock, and this is my story of how a boy walked into my hell and fought for me, even though I never expected him to.
The question is, am I strong enough to repay the favor?
This is a high school romance that deals with sensitive subjects. Adult readers only.
Netgalley
Horror
The Hollow Places by Ursula Vernon - ECopy (352 pgs) Oct. 6 ⭐⭐⭐
A young woman discovers a strange portal in her uncle’s house, leading to madness and terror in this gripping new novel from the author of the “innovative, unexpected, and absolutely chilling” (Mira Grant, Nebula Award–winning author) The Twisted Ones.
Pray they are hungry.
Kara finds these words in the mysterious bunker that she’s discovered behind a hole in the wall of her uncle’s house. Freshly divorced and living back at home, Kara now becomes obsessed with these cryptic words and starts exploring the peculiar bunker—only to discover that it holds portals to countless alternate realities. But these places are haunted by creatures that seem to hear thoughts…and the more you fear them, the stronger they become.
With her distinctive “delightfully fresh and subversive” (SF Bluestocking) prose and the strange, sinister wonder found in Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, The Hollow Places is another compelling and clear-knuckled horror novel that you won’t be able to put down.
Paranormal Gothic Thriller - time travel
A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong - ECopy (360 pgs) Oct. 13 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thorne Manor has always been haunted...and it has always haunted Bronwyn Dale. As a young girl, Bronwyn could pass through a time slip in her great-aunt’s house, where she visited William Thorne, a boy her own age, born two centuries earlier. After a family tragedy, the house was shuttered and Bronwyn was convinced that William existed only in her imagination.
Now, twenty years later Bronwyn inherits Thorne Manor. And when she returns, William is waiting.
William Thorne is no longer the boy she remembers. He’s a difficult and tempestuous man, his own life marred by tragedy and a scandal that had him retreating to self-imposed exile in his beloved moors. He’s also none too pleased with Bronwyn for abandoning him all those years ago.
As their friendship rekindles and sparks into something more, Bronwyn must also deal with ghosts in the present version of the house. Soon she realizes they are linked to William and the secret scandal that drove him back to Thorne Manor. To build a future, Bronwyn must confront the past.
Suspense Thriller
All Your Little Lies by Marianne Holmes - ECopy (273 pgs) Oct. 22 ⭐⭐
Annie lives a quiet, contained, content life. She goes to work. She meets her friend. She’s nearly in a relationship. She’s happy. Not lonely at all.
If only more people could see how friendly she is — how eager to help and please. Then she could tick “Full Happy Life” off her list.
But no one sees that side of Annie and she can’t understand why. That all changes the night Chloe Hills disappears. And Annie is the last person to see her.
This is her chance to prove to everybody that she’s worth something. That is, until she becomes a suspect.
- Backlog -
if I get through my TBR
BookSiren
Tentacles and Teeth (Land of Szornyek bk 1) by Ariele Sieling (294 pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
City of Dod (Land of Szornyek bk 2) by Ariele Sieling (244 pgs) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
