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I love to read seasonally. In October, I love to read witchy romances, spooky books, and anything themed in the fall season. In the last few years, I’ve read a good handful, and I’ve been keeping my eye on what I want to read this October. This year, I’ve decided to share books I’ve read before and books that are on my TBR.

In this post you’ll find:
Paranormal Romance
Spooky Books & Thrillers
Witchy/Fantasy Books
Graphic Novels
Quick Reads
Classics

Paranormal romances are a staple of October reading. Whether it’s a witch falling in love, someone getting duped by a vampire, or other weird spooky vibes plus love, they bring some fun and levity to the season.

Morbidly Yours – “Callum Flannelly would rather dive into an open grave than take a stranger to dinner and a movie. But he can only inherit the family undertaking business and carry on their legacy under one condition: He must marry before his 35th birthday. So it’s out of the mortuary and into the dating scene.”
Amazon | Goodreads

Love and Other Conspiraces – “The hardest thing for a paranormal conspiracy theorist and a web series producer to believe in is finding love in this swoony debut romantic comedy.”
Amazon | Goodreads

My Roommate is a Vampire – This is exactly what it sounds like. Cassie finds herself with an odd roommate to say the least, but he’s kind of hot.
My review | Amazon | Goodreads | Book #2 on Amazon

Haunted Ever After – “Small Florida coastal towns often find themselves scrambling for the tourism dollars that the Orlando theme parks leave behind. And within the town limits of Boneyard Key, the residents decided long ago to lean into its ghostliness. Nick Royer, owner of the Hallowed Grounds coffee shop, embraces the ghost tourism that keeps the local economy afloat, as well as his spectral roommate. At least he doesn’t have to run air-conditioning.”
Amazon | Goodreads

The Witchwood Knot – “The faeries of Witchwood Manor have stolen its young lord. His governess intends to steal him back.”
Amazon | Goodreads

The Spellshop – “Sarah Beth Durst’s romantasy debut–a lush cottagecore tale full of stolen spellbooks, unexpected friendships, sweet jams, and even sweeter love”
Amazon | Goodreads

A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon – “Mariel Spark knows not to trust a demon, especially one that wants her soul, but what’s a witch to do when he won’t leave her side—and she kind of doesn’t want him to?” This series now has three books to add to your TBR!
Amazon | Goodreads

A Dark and Secret Magic – “A warm, spellbinding tale about a witch and the secrets her coven has been keeping from her, with echoes of the classic Hades and Persephone story” This book releases on October 8!
Amazon | Goodreads

The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling – This has been a popular rec for the last few years, but for good reason. This is just book one in a series of cute, witchy romances, with the third, The Wedding Witch, being published this month!
My review of The Ex Hex | My review of The Kiss Curse | Amazon | Goodreads

Payback’s a Witch – The Witches of Thistle Grove series now has five books of queer witchy romance!
My review | Amazon | Goodreads

The Modern Girl’s Guide to Magic – I’ve only read the first in this series, but it was cute! “So here’s the deal—I’m a magical disaster. A witch from a family of witches, and the only one whose magic blows up in her face. Which is why I came up with my rules…”
KindleUnlimited | Goodreads

Hot Hex Boyfriend – “Delia Merriweather does not believe in magic. But she does believe in family, and her family happens to identify as witches. Their lack of magic doesn’t dampen this heartfelt belief, because according to lore and legend, they’re hexed. Convenient? Yes. True? Probably not.”
Amazon | Goodreads

Rewitched – “Belladonna Blackthorn hasn’t lost her magical spark . . . but she hasn’t seen it in a while, either.”
Amazon | Goodreads

You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight – I will read anything Kalynn Bayron writes, and so should you. “Charity Curtis has the summer job of her dreams, playing the “final girl” at Camp Mirror Lake.”
My review | Amazon | Goodreads

The Taking of Jake Livingston – This book has stuck with me since I read it back in 2021. Excellent story! “Jake Livingston is one of the only Black kids at St. Clair Prep, one of the others being his infinitely more popular older brother. It’s hard enough fitting in but to make matters worse and definitely more complicated, Jake can see the dead.”
My review | Amazon | Goodreads

The Thirteenth Child – I’m really looking forward to reading this one. “This is the story of Hazel, a young healer navigating a ruthless court to save the life of the king, grappling with a pantheon of gods with questionable agendas as she fights for agency and true love in her own life as the goddaughter of none other than Death himself.”
Amazon | Goodreads

Don’t Let the Forest In – I’ll be waiting very impatiently for my preorder to get here! Out October 29! “Once upon a time, Andrew had cut out his heart and given it to this boy, and he was very sure Thomas had no idea that Andrew would do anything for him. Protect him. Lie for him. Kill for him.”
Amazon | Goodreads

Starling House – “A grim and gothic new tale from author Alix E. Harrow about a small town haunted by secrets that can’t stay buried and the sinister house that sits at the crossroads of it all.”
My review | Amazon | Goodreads

Ace of Spades – “An incendiary and utterly compelling thriller with a shocking twist that delves deep into the heart of institutionalized racism, from an exceptional new YA voice.”
My review | Amazon | Goodreads

The God of the Woods – “When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide.”
Amazon | Goodreads

Hell Followed With Us – “Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.”
Amazon | Goodreads

Cackle – “A darkly funny, frightening novel about a young woman learning how to take what she wants from a witch who may be too good to be true.”
My review | Amazon | Goodreads

Truthwitch – “Young witches Safiya and Iseult have a habit of finding trouble. After clashing with a powerful Guildmaster and his ruthless Bloodwitch bodyguard, the friends are forced to flee their home.”
KindleUnlimited | Goodreads

Magic Bites – “When the magic is up, rogue mages cast their spells and monsters appear, while guns refuse to fire and cars fail to start. But then technology returns, and the magic recedes as unpredictably as it arose, leaving all kinds of paranormal problems in its wake.”
Amazon | Goodreads

Practical Magic – “For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape.”
My review | Amazon | Goodreads

The Turn of the Screw – “A very young woman’s first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate… An estate haunted by a beckoning evil.”
KindleUnlimited | Goodreads

The Haunting of Hill House – “It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House… At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.”
Amazon | Goodreads

Frankenstein – While I can’t actually say a lot of good things about Frankenstein or Dracula, they are both classics that have heavily influenced literature, movies, and pop culture. “Obsessed with the secret of creation, Swiss scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein cobbles together a body he’s determined to bring to life. And one fateful night, he does. When the creature opens his eyes, the doctor is repulsed: his vision of perfection is, in fact, a hideous monster.”
KindleUnlimited | Goodreads

Dracula – “When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the ‘Master’ and his imminent arrival.”
KindleUnlimited | Goodreads

Beloved – “Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.”
Amazon | Goodreads

The Phantom of the Opera – “First published in French as a serial in 1909, The Phantom of the Opera is a riveting story that revolves around the young, Swedish Christine Daaé. Her father, a famous musician, dies, and she is raised in the Paris Opera House with his dying promise of a protective angel of music to guide her. After a time at the opera house, she begins hearing a voice, who eventually teaches her how to sing beautifully…”
KindleUnlimited | Goodreads

Pumpkinheads – “Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends. Every autumn, all through high school, they’ve worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world.”
My review | Amazon | Goodreads

Garlic and the Vampire – “Garlic feels as though she’s always doing something wrong. At least with her friend Carrot by her side and the kindly Witch Agnes encouraging her, Garlic is happy to just tend her garden, where it’s nice and safe…”
My review | Amazon | Goodreads

Mooncakes – “A story of love and demons, family and witchcraft. Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers’ bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town.”
My review | Amazon | Goodreads

Sheets – “Wendell is a ghost. A boy who lost his life much too young, his daily routine features ineffective death therapy, a sheet-dependent identity, and a dangerous need to seek purpose in the forbidden human world.”
Amazon | Goodreads

Into the Shadow Collection – This is a collection of seven stories on Kindle Unlimited with audio narration! I really enjoyed these.
KindleUnlimited | Goodreads