Jamie Canavés is the Tailored Book Recommendations coordinator and Unusual Suspects mystery newsletter writer–in case you’re wondering what you do with a Liberal Arts degree. She’s never met a beach she didn’t like, always says yes to dessert, loves ‘80s nostalgia, all forms of entertainment, and can hold a conversation using only gifs. You can definitely talk books with her on Litsy and Goodreads. Depending on social media’s stability maybe also Twitter and Bluesky.
Whether you consider yourself a mood reader or not, we all use mood to navigate our reading in some way or another. It may go unnoticed, like reaching for something different on vacation than when you’re exhausted after a hard day of work, or it may be intentional, like fully leaning into seasonal mood reading to guide your next read (or giant monthly TBR stack). With the spirit of fall and the countdown to Halloween in mind, I decided to roundup some books that, while all different from each other, can fit an October reading vibe. Let’s call them different fall reading flavors!
A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer by Maxie Dara
The actual title of this book could have gone in two directions in regard to tone, but let the cover image guide you: it’s on the fun side instead of the dark side while not being a cozy. Kathy Valence is pregnant and divorcing her husband because a marriage just can’t survive keeping a massive secret: in our current world, she’s a grim reaper for S.C.Y.T.H.E. (Secure Collection, Yielding, and Transportation of Human Essences). But all things stop being rosy at her job when a soul she’s sent to collect refuses to come willingly because he claims someone in S.C.Y.T.H.E. murdered him. This puts Valence in the awkward position of having to lie at her job about the missing soul while she investigates a potential murder.
Reprieve by James Han Mattson
If you like your seasonal-mood read to stay in the world of literary fiction, this character-driven novel is a great blend of mystery tropes: a court case, transcripts, a full-contact haunted escape room, and a slow build-up to a whodunit and whydunit murder case. Follow various characters’ lives to find out how they all ended up in a full-contact haunted house and how/why one of them was murdered…
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
If this time of year has you craving a ghost story and a mystery, reach for this eerie novel with past and present chapters. Carly doesn’t just randomly take a job at a motel, it’s the place her aunt Viv was working at when she disappeared 35 years ago. Now Carly wants to know what happened to her aunt, but the motel is creepy and haunted…
Bonus: Simone St. James has at least a handful of novels to satisfy a ghost story mystery craving.
Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking (A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery #2) by Raquel V. Reyes
Of course I have a seasonal cozy, with the bonus of it being a foodie cozy! South Florida may not get the north’s fall temps but that doesn’t mean decorations and festivities aren’t at maximum. Miriam Quiñones-Smith, a food show host who keeps getting involved in murder mysteries, wouldn’t find it odd to find a corpse in her Halloween display, except this one belongs to a once-living human.
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Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
If fall screams dark academia to you, then here’s a backlist title that’s also perfect for fans of past-and-present storylines, historical murder mysteries, fictional best-selling authors, and stories set on film sets. The Brookhants School for Girls is abandoned a century after mysterious deaths, but is now “reopened” for the filming of a horror adaptation.
Model Home by Rivers Solomon
If you want a dark and uniquely voiced exploration of trauma through the lens of “Is the house haunted?” this delivers! Ezri, Eve, and Emanuelle escaped the horrors of the house they grew up in only to have to return upon their parents’ mysterious deaths.
The narrator, Gabby Beans, was the perfect choice for the audiobook.
(TW I did not keep notes but suicide/ideation and child sexual assault are present)
Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!
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