Hello, my darlings! October was a not great month for reading for me. I had high hopes—this is my favorite time of year, and all I wanted was to wallow in some cozy autumn witchy books. But I kept borrowing witchy romances from the library, starting them...and they just didn't work for me. Sigh. I finally did a few rereads of autumn favorites (I put together a list of my favorite books for this time of year over here), which was much better. And I did read a few new-to-me books this month that did work for me:
Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu: Mooncakes is an adorable YA graphic novel about a witch who comes across a white wolf in the woods—who happens to be her childhood crush. The story takes a through a sweet romance between Nova and Tam while they also have to figure out and fight some evil magic and go on a journey of self-discovery about themselves and home and family. The story is heartwarming, and the art is lovely.
Spirited Situation and Vortex Conundrum by Louisa Masters: Witchy books might not have worked for me this month, but ghostly ones did. I binge read these first two books in the Ghostly Guardians series (and am waiting impatiently for book three!). Both books are set at a historic hotel that is haunted, but these aren't scary ghosts. In fact, they are absolutely part of the found family that has grown among some of the employees of the hotel and are pretty hilarious (there is some creepy stuff with another creature and the history of the hotel that our characters have to deal with, but it's not super scary). In the first book, a man who has been able to see/hear/speak to ghosts his whole life and has lost friends and family and jobs over it finds a job and a home (and love, of course!) at the hotel, where everyone believes in ghosts and loves their own exasperating group of them. The second book picks up with a new couple at the hotel and the continuing story of the supernatural situation there.
The Forgotten Dead by Jordan L Hawk: I've had this book on my Kindle for far too long, but maybe October was the right month to read it! The Forgotten Dead is a modern set paranormal romance, very heavy on the paranormal story and less on the romance. And the ghost story here is suuuuper creepy (I should not have read before bed!). The mix of creepy ghosts in haunted house and human evil created a very scary story. The romance itself was incredibly sweet with little angst (which seemed totally fine in such an otherwise creepy story). Medium Oscar and parapsychologist Nigel are adorable together, and I'm looking forward to how their relationship develops over the series. Also, Nigel is trans and Oscar's ghost-hunting team includes a nonbinary person and a queer woman, and everyone is absolutely accepting—there are no issues with any of it and no bigotry, just the way it should be. Definitely looking forward to the next book.
What have you read and loved lately? (And does anyone have any witchy romances to recommend to me?)
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