Hi historical fiction fans, and happy (almost) Halloween week!
Things I’m most looking forward to this week: watching some campy old Halloween movies (Hocus Pocus and Halloweentown, here I come!), making lots of jokes about my snake named Casper, dressing up as Wednesday Addams, and all the cute little kids in costumes. What’s your favorite part about Halloween?
This time of year is the perfect time to curl up with a great read and get cozy—whatever your version of cozy looks like. Whether it’s romance, creepy reads, modern classics, or escapist reads you crave, TBR can help you find the perfect books for your fall reading, with options curated to your specific reading tastes. As a former bibliologist, I can confirm that a lot of time and effort is put into finding the perfect reads just for you. So why not sign up today as a little fall treat for yourself or a loved one?
Bookish Goods
Clear Ghost Bookmark from Little Black Bats
This little ghost bookmark would love to haunt whatever book you’re reading right now. Really, they don’t even care what genre it is. $8
New Releases
Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward (October 24, 2023)
Jesmyn Ward’s lyrical writing brings to life the story of an enslaved girl, Annis, sold south by the white man who fathered her. On the long march, Annis distracts herself from the hellish realities all around her with memories and stories of her mother and her warrior grandmother. It’s a brilliant and haunting novel, sure to be a modern classic.
The Herbalist’s Secret by Annabelle Marx (October 27, 2023)
A woman dreams of becoming a doctor at the end of the 19th century, but her marriage to one of Glasgow’s richest men snatches any possibility of that future from her grip. Exiled to the highlands, she comforts herself with a medical herb garden. Years later, in the present day, a skeleton will be uncovered as another woman attempts to restore Ardbray House to its former glory. What secrets lie in wait here? What will uncovering them, in both the past and present, mean for these two women?
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
For the last week of October and our last week of Supernatural October Historical Fiction, we’re exploring haunted houses and haunted places in Mexico and Vietnam.
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
A young woman desperate for security after her father was executed in the Mexican War of Independence ignores the rumors swirling around a wealthy man courting her and agrees to marry him. But when she arrives at Hacienda San Isidro, the darkness that resides there is impossible to ignore. And the local priest she’s impossibly attracted to may be the only one able to help her ride the house of its literal and metaphorical ghosts.
Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith
Three women, one haunted by her experiences at a rubber plantation in the 1980s, one involved in a dangerous scheme in the 2000s, and one who disappears in 2011 without a trace: what do their stories have to do with one another and, more importantly, with the possession of bodies and land?
That’s it for now, folks! Stay subscribed for more stories of yesteryear.
If you want to talk books, historical or otherwise, you can find me @rachelsbrittain on Goodreads, Instagram, and Litsy, my favorite bookish social media.
Right now I’m reading Most Ardently: A Pride and Prejudice Remix by Gabe Cole Novoa. What about you?