Lol @ me pretending I wasn’t going to have a chaotic Halloween TBR and then putting eight books on it anyway, four of which are witch books. I was really going to try to spread them out so I didn’t overtax myself on witchy books, but I’ve still got more outside of those four, and whatever. It’s the season of the witch!

I feel like it’s also an appropriate time to tell you that, for the first time in two years, I’m not going to be doing themed posts on the blog for October. I’m really trying not to burn myself out again, and while the month off in August helped a lot, the writing is kind of on the wall if I try to do an entire month of themed posts. Thus, you’ll have to sate yourselves on my monthly wrap-ups, which will have all the spooky film reviews. But the reading, at least, will be plenty scary this month!

I’ve been meaning to read Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova for literal ages now. It’s definitely been on my owned TBR for well over a year, perhaps longer, and I’m really going to try to let it be one of the first books that I read this month. Even though I’ve finished writing my own Latin witches, I’m so excited to hang out in that atmosphere a little while I work on trying to get it published, and this is the perfect vibe for it.

I’ve got two books by Sarah Gailey currently on my owned TBR, and I’m saving one of them for the mood of a book that I don’t actually know when I’ll get around to writing, so I’ll probably end up reading it long before planned, but When We Were Magic is perfect for Halloween! I don’t actually know if it’s like The Craft, but the cover often reminds me of it, so I’m just going to go with my gut feeling and say that’s true.

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson is one of the few recommended books that I own–I’m bad at taking recommendations, it usually means that I end up not reading something–but I’ve been told that it’s very mysterious and thriller-esque, so that feels fitting for this month. I know that a lot of reviewers were disappointed by the later books, but I am notoriously easy to please when it comes to thriller/horror, so bring it on!

How could I not put The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones on this year’s TBR? I may have even put it on last year’s! I have next to no idea what this book is about except for necromancy, and I am okay with that being the only thing I know. I mean, have you seen that cover? I was going to buy this no matter what it was about, which is pretty much what happened because I only vaguely recall finding out what it was about. Look, if it’s got a cover that’s that aesthetically pleasing, I’m in, hook line and sinker.

I can’t believe I’m putting Witch Rising by Paige McKenzie & Nancy Ohlin on here. I can’t believe I’m really going to try to not read it for two weeks. This comes out mid-September, and I’m hoping that I’ll be so blindsided by In the Dying Light and Vespertine releasing that I’ll just quietly shush this one to the side, but you know that means it’s actually going to be the first one I read this month. B*WITCH was truly one of my favorite witch books ever, and I am so hyped for the sequel.

I read some meh reviews for The Ravens by Kass Morgan & Danielle Paige, but I’m excited nonetheless. Granted, I do usually have pretty high hopes for witch books because I wrote the perfect one that I’ve always wanted to read, so while everything else normally falls a little short, I still have solid expectations, and I really hope this one lives up to it. I can’t remember if it’s high school or college witches, but I’m pretty sure it’s sorority witches, which means college, which would make for a very big head start in my world.

Salvaged by Madeleine Roux is me finally admitting that I’m never going to read Escape from Asylum because that series was trash in comparison to her truly fabulous House of Furies series–ohhhhh, this happens every year, I should reread that–and it put me off of reading her new release until even the sequel was out, so I’d like to finally get around to reading this so I can know, definitively, if she was a one-series-wonder for me.

And rounding out this motley crew is perhaps one of my favorite spooky writers–Kali Wallace with Dead Space! I’m so mad at myself that I haven’t read this yet because I’ve loved every single one of Wallace’s books, and she’s definitely an auto-buy author for me. And I just know that this is going to be creepy! Hands down, no matter what, I am reading this damn book this month.

What are you reading for Halloween?