Autumn rules now. Time to get out the warm clothes, cook hearty meals and read books set in the cold and the dark. I have three weeks of Halloween Bingo left and seven books still to read. I’ve also got a few new releases on pre-order that I’d like to get to this month.
Anyway, here’s what I read and bought this week and what’s coming up next.
This was a great reading week. I finished three novels that kept me fully engaged, but in very different ways. Kate Atkinson swept me along on a wave of chaos and character-building that still set and solved a mystery. C. J. Turner delivered a complex horror novel that made living in an idyllic small town in Florida seem like a very bad idea. Kylie Lee Baker gave me a grim, challenging, blood-soaked novel that was complex and satisfying. I heartily recommend all three books. They were also all great audiobooks..
Welcome to Rook Hall.
The stage is set. The players are ready. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed.
Ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off a bad case of midlife malaise when he is called to a sleepy Yorkshire town, and the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting.
But one theft leads to another, including the disappearance of a valuable Turner from Burton Makepeace, home to Lady Milton and her family.
Once a magnificent country house, Burton Makepeace has now partially been converted into a hotel, hosting Murder Mystery weekends.
As paying guests, a vicar, an ex-army officer, impecunious aristocrats, and old friends converge, we are treated a fiendishly clever mystery; one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie to Dorothy Sayers.
‘Death at the Sign of the Rook’ (2024) is the sixth Jackson Brodie book. It’s one of the few series I’ve read out of order, but it hasn’t suffered for it. Each of the five books I’ve read so far (I haven’t gotten to the second book, ‘One Good Turn‘, yet) was a delight in its own right. It’s a series that started strong and has remained strong.
I’ve hesitated to read ‘Death at the Sign of the Rook’ as the publisher’s summary makes it sound like a pastiche of golden age fiction. Thankfully, it isn’t. If you know golden age mysteries, you’ll find a few more things to smile at in this book than if you don’t, but you don’t need any background in mysteries or in this series to enjoy Kate Atkinson’s storytelling.
‘Death at the Sign of the Rook’ was a wonderful, joyous read. It had me smiling all the way through. I loved the carefully choreographed chaos, the gentle humour, the joy in language and the courage to introduce characters who will later be central to the plot by focusing entirely on them and their inner worlds without needing immediately to tie them to the narrative.
Jackson Brodie has had some of his rough edges smoothed off (perhaps by the jury of formidable women he carries in his head) but remains fundamentally himself and is proud of it.
I felt old when I realised that, over the course of reading these novels, I’ve watched Reggie grow up, just as Jackson has. I loved seeing the two of them fencing with each other with concealed but never doubted affection..
2026
Lee can’t remember exactly where he hid the body, but he can remember the blood. Hiding out at his father’s centuries-old home in Japan, Lee knows something is wrong with him, and he knows it has something to do with his mother’s disappearance almost a decade ago.
1877
A female samurai, Sen, stalks the borders of her home to protect her family from slaughter after the abolition of the samurai class. She’s not sure how they’ll ever survive, not without her father, who has returned from war with a different soul behind his eyes.
When Lee and Sen find one another through a door between their worlds, they’re both looking for answers. But what they find in the creaking old house they share is beyond what either of them could imagine…
‘Japanese Gothic‘ is grim, bloody, complicated and mesmerising.
I was engrossed in this book from the beginning but, at times, I felt my grip on what was going on slipping, not because the text was poorly written but because it took me too long to let go of my expectation that this was a Portal novel where the physical connection between timelines would have some kind of pseudo-scientific explanation. None of the explanations I could think of made any sense. It turned out that I needed to think bigger, much bigger, and stop worrying about the small stuff.
This is a story about two broken people, both carrying crippling burdens imposed on them by a parent, but from different times and cultures, brought together by strange circumstances. They are both young, both outsiders, both own debts to a parent, and both are killers.
It’s a story about identity, abuse, loyalty and the choices we make about letting ourselves become the people our parents tried to shape us into.
Welcome to Serenity Falls – the most idyllic, and safest, town in the US – a place to grow up, grow your family and grow old together. For Dan and his daughter, Sadie, it’s the perfect relocation option. A fresh start, thousands of miles from their troubled past in the UK.
But their idyll is shattered when they find a dead body in the swimming pool of their new house – a house Dan’s late mother kept secret from him all his life.
It’s just the start of a series of disturbing discoveries. Abandoned houses where people have seemingly just upped and left. The strange woman Sadie sees around town putting up ‘missing’ posters for a child who drowned almost thirty years ago. An ice cream van that drives arund at night making sure residents are asleep…
As plans gear up to celebrate Serenity Falls’ fiftieth anniversary, something is stirring beneath the surface of the blissful façade. Is Serenity Falls really the perfect town or is it founded on something far darker? And is someone so desperate to keep its secrets that they’d resort to anything to preserve them?
At the start of the week, I didn’t know C. J. Tudor had published a new book. I heard her being interviewed on the radio, sampled the book and then pushed everything else aside so I could read it.
The writing was taut and vivid. The multi-narrator audiobook format was perfect for getting the most from the multiple points of view the story was told from. Having an English single dad and his teenage daughter unexpectedly inherit a luxury house in a gated community in Florida and then making the inheritance conditional on them living there was inspired because, like me, they were creeped out by how wholesome and perfect and crime-free the place appeared to be. No English person would take that at face value. Of course, finding a body on their first day didn’t help, and the ice cream van moving through the empty streets at night was even more unsettling than the curfew. I was completely absorbed in the story and engaged with the people, even the dead ones.,
This week, I bought eight books: a supernatural historical fiction novel set in Tudor England, a horror book about what really goes on on the ranch of a Trad Wife influencer, the start of a speculative fiction trilogy, a standalone Christmas mystery novella, a horror book about darkness in November, a thriller about killings the alleged killer can’t remember, a New Zealand cosy mystery about a retired assassin and a mostly humorous novel by Kate Atkinson.
‘The Queen’s Witch‘ (2026) is the first book in a new historical supernatural fiction series by Nancy Kress called The Tudor Witches. I’ve been reading her speculative fiction novels since the 1990s. I’m hoping her historical fiction is up to the same standard.
I bought ‘Trad Wife’ (2026) because it was recommended as a Halloween read by Stephen King.
I bought ‘The One‘ (2026) because I enjoyed John Marrs’ recent novella ‘Warm Bodies‘ . ‘The One’ is the first book in a trilogy. It was originally published in 2017. John Marrs released a revised version this year with five extra chapters set a decade after the events in the original version of the book.
Peter Swanson’s Christmas mystery novella ‘The Christmas Guest’ was one of my favourite reads of 2023, so when I saw that he’d released ‘Do You See What I See?‘, a second standalone Christmas mystery novella, I snapped it up.
‘Darker Days‘ (2026) seems like the perfect book for me to read next month, after Halloween Bingo. When the original Dutch version of this novel was published in 2022, it was titled ‘November‘. I’m hoping it will capture the bleak nature of the month.
‘Nightjars’ (2026) calls to me because it plays with the boundaries between memory, contemporary experience, dream, repressed memories and memory loss and mixes in death, blood and night predators.
‘The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Country Gardening’ (2025) is another book I’ve garnered from Halloween Bingo reviews. It’s the first book in a cosy(ish) mystery series set in New Zealand. The third book in the series will be published this month.
‘Emotionally Weird‘ (2000) is an early Kate Atkinson book that I found in her back catalogue. Reading ‘Death at the Sign of the Rook’ reminded me of how funny Kate Atkinson can be. ‘Emotionally Weird’ sounds like a hoot, and it has a dog on the cover.
Alysoun Rowe descends from an ancient line of cunning women—healers and hedge witches whose full power only awakens when they bond with their destined Third. But after a spell goes frightfully wrong, she discovers her familiar is no ordinary object or animal. It’s a distant kinswoman: Anne Boleyn, a brilliant young lady on the rise in King Henry VIII’s luminous yet treacherous court.
Anne will do anything to wear the crown of England. And Alysoun will go just as far to unlock the wild magick spiraling inside her, even if it means breaking her coven’s age-old rules.
As the king’s desire morphs into a dangerous obsession and a ruthless witch hunt closes in, the two women form a reluctant truce. Bound by fate in a realm of lust, rivalry, and betrayal, they each face a choice. But how far will they go to seize power in a world that would gladly watch them burn?
In Lock Haven, a quiet little town in Washington State, there is a very special street.Bird Street. The residents of Bird Street are all successful, wealthy, healthy and happy. And their children are all well-mannered and smart and high achievers.
At least they are for eleven months of the year.
In November, however, the ‘Darker Days’ begin. For November’s the month when things take a turn for the worse: accidents, bad luck, familial conflict and illness take hold. And it is in November that a stranger comes to Bird Street to collect the debt owed by the residents.
Because, you see, there is a price that must be paid for all the happiness and good fortune they enjoy for the other eleven months of year. And that price is one human life. Every November. Without fail.
And so it has been for over a hundred years. To ease their guilt, the residents of Bird Street seek out individuals – usually the elderly or the terminally ill – who wish to die with dignity and are content to be helped on their way.
But this year, things don’t go to plan. This year events take a terrifying turn . . .
Every day, millions watch Mia Wright, the “trad wife” queen, on her idyllic 300-acre farm. With her handsome husband, seven perfect children, and a life of from-scratch meals, she’s an icon of modern femininity. But behind every perfect image is a lie.
Desperate to save her tarnished career, journalist Jenny Kaplan arrives at Black Swan Farm to profile Mia. Jenny is ready to write a scathing exposé, determined to uncover the deception behind Mia’s curated life.
But there’s something wrong at the farmhouse.
It slithers through Jenny’s dreams when the children sing strange nursery rhymes at night. She’s losing time. She’s losing her hair. She starts to worry that she’s losing her mind.
There is a horror at the heart of Black Swan, and it’s waiting just for Jenny.
HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO FIND THE ONE?
A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner – the one you’re genetically made for.
That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been Matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless previously secure relationships, and shattered traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.
Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been Matched. They’re each about to meet their one true love. But ‘happily ever after’ isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…
This updated edition of The One comes complete with an exclusive letter from the author, and five never-seen-before bonus chapters catching up with all the key characters ten years later.
Struggling mystery writer Nicholas Child is commissioned to help another writer finish the overdue follow up to his breakout bestseller.
Travelling to Grey Gables, the writer’s Cape Cod home, in the week before Christmas, he discovers a house full of secrets, and a cast of very suspicious guests.
When two shocking deaths occur, Nicholas tries to write his account of what happened, and a perfectly fiendish puzzle starts to emerge.
On a rainy night, Luke Oshel gets stood up halfway through dinner. But before his date walks off to the bathroom and never returns, she leaves an old photograph under her napkin—Luke as a child, a dead body in the shadows of his bedroom, and a terrifying masked man. He has no recollection of this event.
Then more photos disrupt his life—Luke posing with murder victims, covered in blood—and he falls back into the deep paranoia and repressed memories he’s tried to leave behind. All the drugs and alcohol, therapy, and hypnosis sessions have never conquered his deepest fear—that he hasn’t escaped the hidden legacy of his late father, who killed his victims by blood loss. But now there is a new string of serial killings, and the evidence all points to Luke.
As his journey to uncover the truth unfolds in the North Georgia Appalachians, a threat arises that will risk everything he holds close, including his ex-wife and their young daughter. Now Luke must chase his father’s darkness through a centuries-old secret and learn what monsters truly are. And decide if he’s one of them.
Dante has come to the small coastal town of Te Kohe, New Zealand, for a fresh start in life.
But he doesn’t want to open a B&B, or save a charming bookshop, or start a romance with a single mother in need of rescuing.
He just wants to forget about his past career (which involved a lot of dead bodies) and have everyone leave him the heck alone. Unfortunately for Dante, life has other plans…
On a peat and heather island off the west coast of Scotland, Effie and her mother Nora take refuge in the large mouldering house of their ancestors and tell each other stories.Nora, at first, recounts nothing that Effie really wants to hear, like who her father was – variously Jimmy, Jack, or Ernie.
Effie tells of her life at college in Dundee, the land of cakes and William Wallace, where she lives in a lethargic relationship with Bob, a student who never goes to lectures, seldom gets out of bed, and to whom the Klingons are as real as the French and the Germans (more real than the Luxemburgers).But strange things are happening. Why is Effie being followed?Is someone killing the old people? And where is the mysterious yellow dog?
My books this week have been chosen to fit Halloween Bingo squares.I have the second book in a Weird West series about a cursed revolver, a closed-room mystery that kicks off an historical mystery series, a book about a too-good-to-be-true American gated communinty, a cosy Science Fiction story and Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’.
Curiosity didn’t kill the cat; it mutated it into a vigilante crime fighter.
Dan’s cats are acting weird. One has grown into a strength powerhouse, the other wants to communicate… verbally. And now other kitties have begun to go missing from his quiet suburban street. Could the man in the parka that haunts a nearby industrial estate have answers? Or perhaps it’s something to do with the strange disappearing woman in the woods? Can our hero figure out the conspiracy before it turns into a catastrophe?
This is the first book in a trilogy about Mousebane and Red Mist, two crime-fighting cats. I’m hoping it’s a smile and that I’ll want to read the next two books.
Standing on the edge of the icy Irish sea, the village of Ballybrady typically has a warm embrace for locals and a cold shoulder for outsiders. So when corporate interests threaten the nearby island colony of rare birds, all-weather swimmer Grace – usually so keen to do things on her own – is alarmed to find that her allies in the fight are the Duckie Divers Swimming Club, a raft of city women with expensive gear and good intentions.
Grace reluctantly joins forces with the Duckies to mount an audacious fundraising event that will draw in villagers and city folk alike. As she teaches them the art of the cold swim, she finds herself softening in their company, learning that each woman has her own powerful reason to commit to their cause.
I’ve been looking forward to this book ever since I met Grace in ‘Night Swimmers’, one of my favourite books of 2024. It was Roisin Maguire’s debut novel and it was remarkably good. I have high hopes for ‘Snow Birds‘.
Meghan, Brecia, and Skye have just one thing in common. They were all murdered by the same man.
He hunted them online, masquerading as an eligible bachelor. Then he played the perfect gentleman, a thick layer of charm and a thousand-watt smile hiding the fact that his first dates end in shallow graves.
He’s gotten away with murder three times now. The only thing that might keep him from killing again? The women he murdered.
Meghan, Brecia, and Skye might be dead, but they’re not gone. They’ve found each other. And they won’t rest until they find a way to stop him.
‘Ask For Andrea‘ has been one of the most frequently recommended thrillers in this year’s Halloween Bingo game, so I bought it to use for the Psych square. If I like it, then Noelle Ihli’s new novel, ‘The Last To Drown‘ should be on my shelves by the end of the year.
