It is time for another seasonal reading roundup. This batch of reviews covers the books and series I read in October and November. All total, not counting rereads, I read 25 books, which included three complete series and six standalone novels. At least two of these books will definitely be making an appearance on my end-of-the-year best books of 2025 list. There are two additional titles in this post that are also in the running, but the competition is pretty stiff this year...and we've still got the rest of this month to go!
Before we dive into the reviews, be sure to check out my updated Winter Reading List. If you don't find anything there that strikes your fancy, be sure to browse through my latest TBR update. You can always stay up to date with my bookshelf by clicking on the "Read With Me" drop-down in the main menu at the top of this page.
Now for the reviews!
Author: Julie Clark
What a book to start October with! This book completely sucked me in and had me second-guessing everything. Olivia Dumont is a ghostwriter trying to make a comeback from a career-ending misstep when her estranged father hires her to help write his memoir. Vincent Taylor is a renowned horror writer whose brother and sister were murdered when he was a teenager, and Vincent has never been able to shake the whispers that he's the one who did it. Now at the end of his life and suffering from Lewy Body Dementia, Vincent is finally ready to tell the story of what really happened that fateful night, and he'll only tell the tale to Olivia. This story is told in a dual timeline and multiple points of view. As Olivia discovers, or thinks she's discovered something, there will be a corresponding flashback to corroborate or disprove her findings. The truth Olivia uncovers is complicated and not black and white, but in the end she and her father find forgiveness and justice.
Author: H.P. Mallory
This is a series I started several years ago, then realized that it wasn't finished, so I stopped. It's finished now, so I started back over and read the whole thing. It took me the better part of October to read all ten books, and it pretty much took over all of my reading for the month. These are all basically reimagined fairy tales featuring Snow White, Goldilocks, Ariel, Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty), Rose Red, Belle, Tinkerbell, Little Bo Peep, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood (not in that order). Each of these fairy tale protagonists is Chosen in a prophecy to defeat Morningstar and prevent him from destroying Fantasia. In my opinion, the series started out strong but fizzled at the end. The books get progressively shorter, and the plot gets progressively weaker. The last book, especially, left lots of unanswered questions, and many of the characters' stories felt incomplete. The final epilogue did leave room for another book, but I haven't seen anything...and truthfully, I don't think I would read it. By the time I got to the last book, I was ready for the series to be over.
Author: Mia Smantz
Mia Smantz is the author of one of my favorite series, Cardinal. In fact, I recently reread that entire series so that I was fresh on the details for the follow-up book, King of Hearts. In that book, Callie and her team are hunting a serial killer who managed to escape in the original series. The Stillwind series is part of this same world and falls between the last Cardinal book and King of Hearts. In the Cardinal books, Callie works with a super-secret government agency called Delta. In this series, the main character, Sasha, falls in with a group of agents from a super-secret sister agency called Gamma. Stillwind is a tiny mountain town where an infamous mobster decides to set up shop. Sasha ends up being targeted by him when he figures out who she actually is -- the long-lost daughter of a world-renowned crime boss who had no idea she was alive. Similar to Callie, Sasha is taken into protective custody and works with the Gamma team to bring this group down. But Sasha's story is much darker than Callie's. She's kidnapped and tortured more than once, eventually finding herself in a death trap created by the same serial killer that Callie and her team are hunting. There is a happy ending, but honestly, I don't know how Sasha doesn't end up in a psychiatric facility due to all the serious trauma she incrues. I enjoyed the series, but it was definitely on a different level than the Cardinal series.
Author: Tirzah Price
This is the third Jane Austen murder mystery retelling that I've read by Tirzah Price. This one is based on Austen's novel, Mansfield Park, which I've not read, so I can't speak to the accuracy of the story details. However, in the author's note at the end of the book, Price states she did modify some of the details and that everything is not historically accurate. That said, the story itself was good...once I got into it. It took me longer to get into this one versus the first two. I felt that it started off slow, despite the murder happening right at the start. The story didn't really start to move for me until about halfway through. Alright, so here's a brief synopsis. Fanny Price is taken in by the Bertram family as a child. She is the daughter of Lady Bertram's estranged sister, who married beneath her. Relegated to role of companion, Fanny is never truly treated as family by her cousins, but her uncle, Sir Thomas, sees her potential as an artist and encourages her to work at it. Then, Sir Thomas is murdered, and Fanny is the only one who seeks to find the truth of what happened. There is a good bit of crossover with Pride and Premeditation; Lizzie Bennet is Sir Thomas's solicitor and plays a rather large role in the overall story. While this one is good, it's not as good as the first two in my opinion. I also have discovered that the author has started a spin-off series with Lizzie and Darcy, and I'm excited to check those out.
Author: Tasha Coryell
Y'all, this book was one I could not put down, and no one is more surprised by that than me! Every few pages or so I found myself disparaging over the complete and utter stupidity of the protagonist, Hannah, but I kept reading, which is a testament to how well written this book actually is. Hannah has been ghosted by her loser of a boyfriend, is working a dead-end job that she doesn't actually like, and is growing more and more distanced from her best friend. She has no real aspirations in life until she becomes obsessed with a serial killer and his victims. Her obsession leads to her not only losing her job but writing to and eventually falling for the accused murderer. Aimless and with nothing better to do, she drives across the country for the trial where he's found not guilty. Afterward, he shows up at her hotel room and proposes! She says yes! They move in together, even though she still suspects him of being a killer. All throughout the story, Hannah rationalizes her actions by saying that she's investigating, which couldn't be further from reality. Alright, I've given enough of the plot away that I need to stop here, but this book was so wild and ended on the craziest note. Does anyone know if there's going to be a sequel? Suffice to say that if you are a fan of true crime stories, read this one. Seriously, I should have made this my October or November book club pick. Wow.
Author: Daisy Pearce
When I first started reading this one, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but I'm so glad I stuck with it. This book was wild. Mina is a just-graduated child psychologist with no experience and no prospects. She's also still grieving the loss of her brother from several years prior. When she thinks she's captured his ghost in a photograph, her fiancé convinces her to start back going to a bereavement group. There she meets Sam, who's grieving the loss of his daughter. Sam is a reporter who's stumbled onto a strange story about a teenage girl who is being haunted by the ghost of a witch. Skeptical of the story's validity, Sam reaches out to Mina for help. She agrees to go with him to investigate. What they find is a massively superstitious town that truly believes the girl, Alice, is a witch. As they deepen their investigation, Sam and Mina discover nothing is at it seems, and the real villain drives a wedge between them. This book is full of twists and turns. It is truly a psychological thriller. It reminded me of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery with all the herd mentality going on inside the pages. I will say that by the end of the book, though, I'm still not sure about the witch...which I think was the point. Herd mentality is crazy, y'all.
Author: Shea Ernshaw
This was my October book club pick, which I technically read the first week of November. I got caught up trying to read all of my library holds that became available at the same time and got behind. That said, it really was the perfect pick for October. At its core, this is a romance novel. It's set during present day but has flashbacks woven into the story to help explain what's happening. The basic plotline is that Marguerite, Aurora, and Hazel Swan were falsely accused of witchcraft in 1822 and drowned. Now, every summer the sisters return to the town of Sparrow to seek their revenge by possessing three teenage girls and luring at least three boys to their deaths in the harbor. Only once you know the full truth of what happened in the past can you fully understand the present. The blurb says it's a mix of Practical Magic and the Salem Witch Trials, and I agree. You can read my full review here.
Author: K.C. Keane
I don't read a lot by this author...or rather, I don't finish a lot of series by this author, but I did finish this one. Was it the best thing I've ever read? No. But it was interesting enough to hold my attention. The premise of this world is that the supernatural community are all under what is called the Blood Bound Curse. Essentially, every supernatural is born with a connection to another. Only one will survive into full adulthood. When they turn 21, they have one year for one of them to be victorious over the other. Until then, they are linked together; if one dies before turning 21, so does the other. Now it's up to Polaris, a mind witch, and her chosen coven to reverse the curse and free all supernaturals.
Author: Joy Jordan-Lake
My November book club pick was a historical fiction book that revolved around the newly-erected Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. Kerry MacGregor's family is one of the last holdouts on the mountain, refusing to sell their family land to George Vanderbilt II. However, Kerry's daddy is at the end of his life, and the family is struggling to hold on. Kerry has been away at college for the last two years but is forced to come home to not only care for her daddy but also her thirteen-year-old twin siblings. With no other options, she takes a job at Biltmore as a kitchen maid where she finds herself in the middle of a budding scandal involving an heiress from New Orleans, an Italian fugitive on the run with his brother, and a former heir who's lost everything. It took me awhile to get into this one, but once it got going, I really enjoyed it. I'll have a full review on the blog soon.
