Number of books read: 10
Number of rereads: 0
Number of physical books: 4
Number of ebooks: 0
Number of audiobooks: 6
Number of ARCS: 0
I had a few books on my October TBR that I wanted to get through. All linked to Halloween in some way. I didn’t get through all of them but I did manage to get a few finished. I also crossed off a few of the books at the top of my general TBR and an anticipated sequel. Who knows what November brings but I feel like I’m ending the month in a good place.
5* reviews: 0
4.5* reviews: 0
4* reviews: 1
THE SURFACE BREAKS BY LOUISE O’NEILL
Synopsis:
Deep beneath the sea, off the cold Irish coast, Gaia is a young mermaid who dreams of freedom from her controlling father. On her first swim to the surface, she is drawn towards a human boy. She longs to join his carefree world, but how much will she have to sacrifice? What will it take for the little mermaid to find her voice?
Hans Christian Andersen’s original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens, with the stunning, scalpel-sharp writing and world building that has won Louise her legions of devoted fans. A book with the darkest of undercurrents, full of rage and rallying cries: storytelling at its most spellbinding.
Read my review.
THE BULLET THAT MISS BY RICHARD OSMAN
Synopsis:
It is an ordinary Thursday, and things should finally be returning to normal.
Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club are concerned. A local news legend is on the hunt for a sensational headline, and soon the gang are hot on the trail of two murders, ten years apart.
To make matters worse, a new nemesis pays Elizabeth a visit, presenting her with a deadly mission: kill or be killed…
While Elizabeth grapples with her conscience (and a gun), the gang and their unlikely new friends (including TV stars, money launderers and ex-KGB colonels) unravel a new mystery. But can they catch the culprit and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?
Read my review.
LET DOWN YOUR HAIR BY BRYONY GORDON
Synopsis:
Barb may have zero friends IRL, but online, she is popular. Like, several-hundred-thousand-followers popular. Or at least, her hair is popular. Because Barb’s hair is glossy and beautiful. Which is why hairbrush manufacturers pay her stupid money for a 30-second clip. But most of the time Barb just wants to be a normal teenager, who has friends and a life. One who isn’t confined to her bedroom on the 12th floor of the tower-block flat she shares with her aunt making content. One who can go about her business without everyone obsessing over the way she looks. Barb just needs to save up some money to make a new life for herself.
But it’s soon clear something isn’t right. Because when Barb runs her fingers over her scalp, she feels something smooth and different. She gets out her mirrors and combs for a video and sees it … a bald patch the size of a ten pence coin, slap bang in the middle of her head.
Barb has alopecia.
In this stunning retelling of Rapunzel, Barb must learn that she is so much more than her hair and that there is no such thing as a happy ending … just lots of complicated new beginnings.
Read my review.
THE HAUNTING SEASON: GHOSTLY TALES FOR LONG WINTER NIGHTS
Synopsis:
Winter, with its unsettling blend of the cosy and the sinister, has long been a popular time for gathering by the bright flame of a candle, or the warm crackling of a fire, and swapping stories of ghosts and strange happenings.
Now eight bestselling, award-winning authors – master storytellers of the sinister and the macabre – bring this time-honoured tradition to vivid life in a spellbinding collection of new and original haunted tales.
From a bustling Covent Garden Christmas market to the frosty moors of Yorkshire, from a country estate with a dreadful secret, to a London mansion where a beautiful girl lies frozen in death, these are stories to make your hair stand on end, send shivers down your spine and to serve as your indispensable companion to the long nights of winter.
So curl up, light a candle, and fall under the spell of The Haunting Season . . .
Read my review.
Synopsis:
Open with your best gag. Finish with your second best.
Make sure your face matches the material.
Sell your routine…
Matt Millz LOVES stand up comedy. He’s studied the best. He’s memorised all the advice. He spends hours writing new gags and thinking up crazy sketches…. So when the school run a talent contest, of course he’s going to enter.
What he doesn’t count on is:
Last minute total meltdown
His best mate pulling out zero seconds before going on
Teeny tiny Kitty Hope and her own bonkers ambitions
His stepdad’s own “funny” ideas
And headmaster, Meredith Pavey, who very definitely has it in for him.
Comedy gold from a comedy genius.
Read my review.
FOLLOWING FRANKENSTEIN BY CATHERINE BRUTON
Synopsis:
Sometimes I was jealous of the monster of Frankenstein. I grew up believing my father cared more for him than he did for me. And was I wrong?
Maggie Walton’s father has dedicated his life to a single pursuit: hunting down the monster created by Victor Frankenstein. It has cost Maggie and her family everything – and now her father is staking everything on one last voyage to the Arctic, with Maggie secretly in tow, where he hopes to find the monster at last.
But there they make a shocking discovery: Frankenstein’s monster has a son…
A breathtaking, epic adventure, spanning the icy wastes of the Arctic Tundra to the vaudeville circus of New York, from the award-winning author of No Ballet Shoes in Syria and Another Twist in the Tale.
Read my review.
Synopsis:
Lou is a shy and diligent librarian at the local Heritage Institute. She works monotonous and dusty hours long into the night but she has found nothing – and no one – to go home to. She has resigned herself to passionless sex on her desk with the Director of the Institute.
When she is summoned to a remote island to inventory the estate of Colonel Cary, she takes it as an opportunity to get out of the city, hoping for an industrious summer of cataloguing.
Colonel Cary left many possessions behind, but she didn’t expect the bear. She soon begins to anticipate the bear’s needs for food and company. But as summer blossoms across the island and Lou shakes off the city, she realises the bear might satisfy some needs of her own.
Read my review.
THE LAMPLIGHTERS BY EMMA STONEX
Synopsis:
Inspired by a haunting true story, a gorgeous and atmospheric novel about the mysterious disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from a remote tower miles from the Cornish coast–and about the wives who were left behind.
What strange fate befell these doomed men? The heavy sea whispers their names. Black rocks roll beneath the surface, drowning ghosts. And out of the swell like a finger of light, the salt-scratched tower stands lonely and magnificent.
It’s New Year’s Eve, 1972, when a boat pulls up to the Maiden Rock lighthouse with relief for the keepers. But no one greets them. When the entrance door, locked from the inside, is battered down, rescuers find an empty tower. A table is laid for a meal not eaten. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a storm raging round the tower, but the skies have been clear all week. And the clocks have all stopped at 8:45.
Two decades later, the wives who were left behind are visited by a writer who is determined to find the truth about the men’s disappearance. Moving between the women’s stories and the men’s last weeks together in the lighthouse, long-held secrets surface and truths twist into lies as we piece together what happened, why, and who to believe.
In her riveting and suspenseful novel, Emma Stonex writes a story of isolation and obsession, of reality and illusion, and of what it takes to keep the light burning when all else is swallowed by dark.
Read my review.
LONG LIVE THE PUMPKIN QUEEN BY SHEA ERNSHAW
TBD
Synopsis:
Sally Skellington is the official, newly-minted Pumpkin Queen after a whirlwind courtship with her true love, Jack, who Sally adores with every inch of her fabric seams — if only she could say the same for her new role as Queen of Halloween Town.
Cast into the spotlight and tasked with all sorts of queenly duties, Sally can’t help but wonder if all she’s done is trade her captivity under Dr. Finkelstein for a different — albeit gilded — cage. But when Sally and Zero accidentally uncover a long-hidden doorway to an ancient realm called Dream Town in the forest Hinterlands, she’ll unknowingly set into motion a chain of sinister events that put her future as Pumpkin Queen, and the future of Halloween Town itself, into jeopardy.
Can Sally discover what it means to be true to herself and save the town she’s learned to call home, or will her future turn into her worst… well, nightmare.
Review coming soon.
THE DUTCH HOUSE BY ANN PATCHETT
TBD
Synopsis:
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.
The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.
Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.
Review coming soon.
Yipee ki-yay, motherbooker 
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