#5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook and you can learn more about it here. It occurs every Monday when we post about 5 books on our TBR.
Absolutely perfect topic for the first Monday of October! Because I read horror year-round, I find my ‘spooky season’ reads skew towards something a touch different: maybe something a bit more lighter, or something featuring the ‘classic’ spooky monsters like vampires, zombies, werewolves etc. I like reading paranormal romance and more cheesy types of books this time of the year.
These 5 books are all on my current reading challenges, so I’m really hoping I can get through at least a couple this month!
#5OnMyTBR October 7th: Spooky Season
The First Days
Rhiannon Frater
Genre: Horror – Post-Apocalyptic (Zombies)
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: August 14th, 2008
Katie is driving to work one beautiful day when a dead man jumps into her car and tries to eat her. That same morning, Jenni opens a bedroom door to find her husband devouring their toddler son.
Fate puts Jenni and Katie—total strangers—together in a pickup, fleeing the suddenly zombie-filled streets of the Texas city in which they live. Before the sun has set, they have become more than just friends and allies—they are bonded as tightly as any two people who have been to war together.
During their cross-Texas odyssey to find and rescue Jenni’s oldest son, Jenni discovers the joy of watching a zombie’s head explode when she shoots its brains out. Katie learns that she’s a terrific tactician—and a pretty good shot.
A chance encounter puts them on the road to an isolated, fortified town, besieged by zombies, where fewer than one hundred people cling to the shreds of civilization.
It looks like the end of the world. But Katie and Jenni and many others will do whatever they have to to stay alive. Run, fight, pick each other up when they stumble, fall in love…anything is possible at the end of the world.
A Hunger Like No Other
Kresley Cole
Genre: Paranormal Romance (Vampires)
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: March 28th, 2006
A fierce werewolf and a bewitching vampire become unlikely soul mates whose passion will test the boundaries of life and death.
After enduring years of torture from the vampire horde, Lachlain MacRieve, leader of the Lykae Clan, is enraged to find the predestined mate he’s waited millennia for is a vampire. Or partly one. Emmaline Troy is a small, ethereal half Valkyrie/half vampire, who somehow begins to soothe the fury burning within him.
Sheltered Emmaline finally sets out to uncover the truth about her deceased parents—until a powerful Lykae claims her as his mate and forces her back to his ancestral Scottish castle. There, her fear of the Lykae—and their notorious dark desires—ebbs as he begins a slow, wicked seduction to sate her own dark cravings.
Yet when an ancient evil from her past resurfaces, will their desire deepen into a love that can bring a proud warrior to his knees and turn a gentle beauty into the fighter she was born to be?
A Discovery of Witches
Deborah Harkness
Genre: Paranormal Romance (Vampires/Witches)
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: February 8th, 2011
Fall under the spell of Diana and Matthew in the stunning first volume of the No.1 internationally bestsellling ALL SOULS trilogy.
A world of witches, daemons and vampires. A manuscript which holds the secrets of their past and the key to their future. Diana and Matthew – the forbidden love at the heart of it.
When historian Diana Bishop opens an alchemical manuscript in the Bodleian Library, it’s an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordered life. Though Diana is a witch of impeccable lineage, the violent death of her parents while she was still a child convinced her that human fear is more potent than any witchcraft. Now Diana has unwittingly exposed herself to a world she’s kept at bay for years; one of powerful witches, creative, destructive daemons and long-lived vampires. Sensing the significance of Diana’s discovery, the creatures gather in Oxford, among them the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, a vampire genticist. Diana is inexplicably drawn to Matthew and, in a shadowy world of half-truths and old enmities, ties herself to him without fully understanding the ancient line they are crossing. As they begin to unlock the secrets of the manuscript and their feelings for each other deepen, so the fragile balance of peace unravels…
Enchanted Wales
Miranda Aldhouse-Green
Genre: Nonfiction – Mythology – History
Age: Adult
Format: Hardback
Published: October 5th, 2023
The magical world of Welsh mythology deserves to be better known outside its homeland, with its cast of heroes and tricksters, animals that can talk and change shape, and magicians and witches who can bring disaster or triumph to the people in their paths.
Enchanted Wales is an invitation to voyage through the key stories of Welsh mythic literature, exploring not just their medieval texts but also their ancient roots, which can be glimpsed in sculptures, carvings and other artefacts from at least a thousand years earlier. These stories are more than epic they allow us to explore our deepest questions about life and death, war and peace, and good and evil, secure in the knowledge that a skilful storyteller will guide us safely to the end of the tale.
On this journey, you will encounter severed heads that speak, birds that can tell the future, cauldrons with magical properties, quests that are as intricate and exciting as the Labours of Hercules, and ghostly underworlds where strange and frightening things happen to the humans who visit them. Enter these pages, and prepare to discover a weird, wonderful and Narnia-like world of dreams – the world of enchanted Wales.
Agony’s Lodestone
Laura Keating
Genre: Horror
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: April 8th, 2023
A grave could be visited. Ashes could be scattered.
But simply vanishing?
That ripped a hole in the world the size of a life, and through that hole sighed a terrible wind repeating a single note:
Gone.
For years, Aggie had forgotten the real Joanne, the way her sister had laughed, fought, been.
But now that the videotape made her real again—no matter how many times the recording changed, no matter how terrifying the flickering images—it was all Aggie wanted. To trade the Gone for the One. She owed Joanne that much. To say she was sorry. That it had been her fault.
It had been all their faults.
I’d love to hear what your October reading looks like – do you lean towards certain genres/subgenres? Is your reading a little different around Halloween than the rest of the year? And how do you balance it with other reading commitments like arcs or reading challenges?
Unwrapping Words 