October Monthly Essentials
Welcome one and all to spooky season! It’s that moment again when everything turns to pumpkin spice and ghosts. As an arachnophobe, I’m not crazy about the number of spider decorations that always pop up, but I will admit to having a soft spot for tiny Snickers bars. Whatever you enjoy most about the season, there are some great books to check out, either on our favorite horror list or from the new release lists! Let’s take a look.
What’s Your Favorite Scary Story?
Shop the What’s Your Favorite Scary Story? list in Marketplace
Featured Titles
The Unknown by Riley Sager
Buy The Unknown ebook in Marketplace
Buy The Unknown audiobook in Marketplace
From the publisher:
In 1926, five women disappeared from a remote island in Vermont. Now, one hundred years later, it’s happening again.
Struggling actress Marin Keane is shocked when she lands a role in a major motion picture about the unsolved mystery of New Avalon, an island on sprawling Lake Faraday in Vermont. She’s even more surprised when she learns that the role requires a weeklong research trip to that very spot.
Because New Avalon isn’t your ordinary island. A century ago, it was a commune for spiritual mediums—until they all vanished in 1926. The only trace of them was five dresses hanging from the branches of an old oak tree in the middle of the island, one for each missing woman. Some locals say they simply left. Others think they were murdered. But the prevailing opinion, thanks to a diary left behind by one of the vanished, a young woman named Daisy Rue, is that a séance gone wrong conjured something supernatural that took them all one by one.
Not long after arriving, Marin and her castmates, including legendary actress Violet Wright and white-hot director Ronan Peters, begin to realize all is not right with New Avalon. They hear strange noises in the night and notice mysterious symbols left behind by the island’s previous occupants. And after a sudden health emergency leaves Marin, Ronan, and the other actors stranded on the island, the disappearances begin again.
Is it the work of someone trying to derail the movie? Or is the island’s alleged supernatural past catching up with the present? As fear and suspicion mount, Marin turns to Daisy’s diary, hoping it holds the key to figuring out what really happened to the women of New Avalon—and how to keep the island’s terrible history from repeating itself.
Off the Reservation by Stephen Graham Jones
Buy the Off the Reservation ebook in Marketplace
Buy the Off the Reservation audiobook in Marketplace
From the publisher:
Five years have passed since the massacre on the Blackfeet reservation in Stephen Graham Jones’s breakout bestseller The Only Good Indians. Nathan Yellow Tail, one of the survivors of the revenge murders, finds himself in the hospital after a terrible accident that should’ve killed him and that nearly killed his best friend, Sebby, who is hanging on to life in a room a few doors down.
Nate’s life is out of balance, so when he is given the chance to reset his life, and maybe save Sebby in the process, Nate steps up, again. This time it’s into a camper van that is almost as run down as his broken body, filled with three older Blackfeet, to find the bones of the lone Blackfeet boy who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School—where many Indigenous children were abused—and repatriate this boy home. The problem is, when they get the bones, something terrible has escaped with them.
By turns terrifying and deeply moving, Off the Reservation is a haunting American Indian novel of survival, reckoning, and redemption, shining light on the dark corners of this country’s history while also showing the desperate choices people make when they’re put up against a wall.
Top Books of October
Shop the Top Books of October list in Marketplace
Featured Titles
A Court of Splintered Harmony by Sarah J. Maas
Buy the A Court of Splintered Harmony ebook in Marketplace
Buy the A Court of Splintered Harmony audiobook in Marketplace
Does anyone really need to see the blurb for this? Well, just in case!
From the publisher:
What was broken will be remade.
Deep in the heart of the continent, Koschei the Deathless is stirring. Though he’s been bound to a mountain lake for millennia, the insidious threat of his return now spreads across the Fae territories, attracting powerful allies hell-bent on reclaiming what was once theirs: the human lands.
The Night Court will not stand idly by while innocents are attacked. But with Prythian still piecing itself together in the wake of the devastating Hybern War, the task of uniting is proving more difficult by the day.
To make matters worse, those who rule and protect the Night Court are reeling from recent betrayals and revealed truths. The rifts dividing them seem insurmountable.
But to defeat Koschei’s creeping shadow, they must find a way back to each other and resurrect their former alliances. To survive, they must find a way to repair the splintered harmony all around them.
Partita by Barbara Kingsolver
Buy the Partita ebook in Marketplace
Buy the Partita audiobook in Marketplace
From the publisher:
The story of a brief, passionate, life-changing love affair, wrapped up in what might be the greatest romance of all: our eternal human longing for art and beauty.
Livia Cable has made her peace with her marriage and modest livelihood in the farm country where she grew up, until a shocking phone call from an old lover shakes her to the core. Decades earlier, this man knew her as Livia Bohusz, a music conservatory student estranged from her home and family, uncertain of anything except her passion for music and promise as an extraordinary pianist. His request, now, to see her again stirs up ghosts she’s kept at bay for a lifetime.
Shifting between past and present, Livia’s decision to meet or reject the reunion means confronting step by step, in memories framed as musical dances, the experiences of childhood loss, abandonment, self-immolating passion, and perilous attachment to a man who broke her belief in love and ruptured the course of her life.
With razor-sharp acuity and deep affection, Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver’s unforgettable new novel reflects on class barriers, the risks of ambition, and the timeless, life-changing power of art.
Top Mystery/Thriller of October
Shop the Top Mystery/Thriller of October list in Marketplace
Featured Title
The Witch by Freida McFadden
Buy The Witch audiobook in Marketplace
From the publisher:
Some secrets don’t die―they wait.
When Julia Barlow loses her job and her apartment, she has nowhere left to go but Pemberton, her family’s sprawling seventeenth-century estate in rural Massachusetts. Officially, she’s there to check in on her aging grandmother. Unofficially, she’s hoping the old house will give her a place to disappear.
Instead, Pemberton begins to unravel her.
Every night, the grandfather clock stops at exactly 3:41 a.m. The lights flicker without warning. And a disembodied voice cries for help outside Julia’s bedroom door.
As Julia digs into the house’s dark history, she uncovers the story of a woman executed for witchcraft in 1692―and realizes the past may not be finished with Pemberton yet. When decades of family lies begin to surface, Julia must confront a terrifying truth: Pemberton may be haunted by women whose voices refuse to stay silent.
Top Romance of October
Shop the Top Romance of October list in Marketplace
Featured Title
Bad Words by Rioghnach Robinson
Buy the Bad Words ebook in Marketplace
Buy the Bad Words audiobook in Marketplace
From the publisher:
Parker Navarro’s debut novel was meant to define his career – until critic Selina Chan’s blistering review made it the flop of the decade. Four years later, his new book is his shot at redemption; for Selina, reviewing him again is a professional risk she can’t refuse. When her second takedown ignites a viral feud, both their fortunes shift overnight. But as the literary world feeds on their public sparring, a quieter dialogue begins – one that challenges everything they thought they knew about success, sincerity, and each other.
Both incisive and tender, Bad Words lays bare the costs of creation – the pull between ambition and integrity, the vulnerability of being seen, and the unexpected closeness that can grow in the space between critique and care.
Top Sci-Fi of October
Shop the Top Sci-Fi of October list in Marketplace
Featured Title
Soulhider by Dan Aykroyd
Buy the Soulhider ebook in Marketplace
Buy the Soulhider audiobook in Marketplace
From the publisher:
Doug Beeston is an ordinary insurance adjustor in his mid-thirties, living an unremarkable life with his wife and kids in central New York State. Until one day, out of the clear blue sky, Doug is tapped by alien lifeforms to take on an extraordinary mission. The assignment? Hide the human souls they’ve harvested for mysterious reasons of their own in various locations across Earth—using his prowess as a risk assessor to assure their precious commodities will not go missing.
Doug embraces his responsibility with pride, believing he’s playing a crucial role in something far bigger than himself and enjoying the lucrative side of his new vocation. But as he soon discovers, he’s not just a courier—he’s a pawn. Multiple alien species are locked in a silent interdimensional rivalry, using Doug as an unwitting middleman in their cosmic chess game. The more he understands his role, the more Doug realizes that the fate of Earth itself may hang in the balance.
Channeling Dan Aykroyd’s signature hilarious wit and deep fascination with the supernatural, Soulhider is a high-stakes, hilarious ride that only he could write, exploring the unseen forces shaping our world—both terrestrial and otherwise.
More Recommended Lists You Don’t Want to Miss
If you ever need help shopping, you can always email your Digital Content Librarian! Find your DCL in the SUPPORT tab of Marketplace.
About the author: Shelia did everything from answering questions at the Reference Desk to tech training to running a classic lit book club in her 17 years in public libraries. Now she helps other public libraries make the most of their OverDrive collections. In her spare time, she’s either writing or reading, usually with an opera playing in the background. If you ever run into her, ask Shelia about #WITMonth.