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Readers' Most Anticipated October Books
At the beginning of each calendar month, Goodreads’ editorial team assembles a list of the hottest and most popular new books hitting shelves, actual and virtual. The list is generated by evaluating readers’ early reviews and tracking which titles are being added to Want to Read shelves by Goodreads regulars.
Each month’s curated preview features new books from across the genre spectrum: contemporary fiction, historical fiction, mysteries and thrillers, sci-fi and fantasy, romance, horror, young adult, nonfiction, and more. Think of it as a literary smorgasbord. Check out whatever looks delicious.
New in October: Stephanie Garber explores the supernatural substrates of Los Angeles in Alchemy of Secrets. Nic Stone delivers a gritty mystery among the strip clubs of Atlanta in Boom Town. And Kirsten Miller introduces a family of Long Island witches in The Women of Wild Hill.
Also on tap this month: family dramedy in Massachusetts, temporal loops in the time-space continuum, and new coauthored books from Reese Witherspoon and M. Night Shyamalan. Hollywood attacks!
If you like your psychological thrillers mixed with a bit of heavy-weather survival drama, consider this latest story from industrious genre ace Freida McFadden. The story begins with a woman alone in a small forest cabin as a massive hurricane blows through. When a bloodied young girl shows up with a knife in her hand, things get even more perilous. McFadden toggles between the present and the past for both characters until things get properly dark and scary. Expect twists. Several.
One of the most anticipated sequel books of the fall season, Mate is the second installment in Ali Hazelwood’s Bride series—her paranormal romance arc featuring vampires and werewolves and the humans who love them. This new companion book follows orphaned human-were hybrid Serena Paris and her complicated relationship with Koen Alexander, undisputed Alpha of the Northwest pack. He’s very, hmm…protective is maybe the proper term. Many readers of the first book were hoping for this matchup.
Esteemed YA author Stephanie Garber (the Caraval series) makes her adult debut with this intriguing blend of supernatural thriller, dark academia, and old-school urban fantasy. The gist: A college class on folklore and urban legends leads young Holland St. James into a shadowy world of magic just beneath the glossy surface of Los Angeles. On Halloween night, no less. Early readers are digging the romance elements and the general spooky Hollywood vibe.
With last year’s family vacation dramedy Sandwich, author Catherine Newman introduced anxious middle-aged matriarch Rachel, a.k.a. Rocky, and her loving but chaotic family. Newman’s sequel, Wreck, picks up the story two years later with Rocky and the clan safely ensconced back in their Massachusetts home. Rocky’s widowed father has moved into the house, and daughter Willa is back home from college. Newman has clearly hit a nerve with this relatable story of a devoted, funny, and perpetually worried mom.
As undisputed heavyweight champion of the legal thriller, John Grisham has provided a lot of courtroom drama over the years, what with his Firms and Juries and various waterfowl Briefs. For his latest novel, Grisham goes in another direction entirely—a traditional whodunit-style mystery featuring a small-town lawyer, a significant inheritance, and some shady business in rural Virginia. Alert readers will have already deduced that there is a widow involved as well.
Billed as the first book in a planned trilogy, Conform is the first novel from debut author Ariel Sullivan and might best be tagged as dystopian romance. Romantopia? No, that doesn’t work. The setup: After a devastating world war, a tech-forward elite known as the Illum presides over what’s left of the city. Twentysomething Emeline is chosen to participate in the Courting program to become a Mate of a high-ranking Illum. But a dashing resistance leader offers another way forward. Early readers are making the inevitable Handmaid’s Tale comps.
Meanwhile, on the gentler side of speculative romance, contemporary cozy author B.K. Borison is back on shelves with a spectral holiday love story. Good Spirits introduces Nolan Callahan, whose job as the Ghost of Christmas Past is necessarily lonesome. But things start looking up when Nolan is scheduled to haunt antiques dealer Harriet York, “the sweetest assignment he’s ever had.” Turns out the two have some surprising things in common, and advance readers are praising the clever ending.
One of the year’s most intriguing forays into occupied spec-fic territories, The Everlasting tells the story of a lady knight and a terrified historian caught in a thousand-year time loop of mythmaking and nation building. Author and recovering academic Alix E. Harrow (The Ten Thousand Doors of January) is one of our most ambitious storytellers and likes to tinker with the very architecture of genre fiction. Recommended for readers who like the interesting bits between fantasy, sci-fi, romance, mythology, and historical fiction.
Dabbling in the occult rarely produces happy outcomes, but it always generates interesting ones, as evidenced by this latest novel from genre pro Joe Hill. Clocking in at 896 pages, hardcover, King Sorrow follows a group of New England college students who use an ancient and forbidden tome to conjure a vengeful dragon. Hill’s dragon is the demonic Old Testament sort, and things get messy in a hurry.
For five generations, the women of the Duncan clan have perfected their powers of witchcraft, bequeathed by the Earth Herself. Now young Sibyl Duncan, along with her mom and her aunt, have been chosen to take their powers out into the wider world. It seems the Old One wishes to have a word with menfolk regarding ecological stewardship. About time, really. Author Kirsten Miller (The Change) delivers a feminist fable with urgent contemporary relevance.
When new dancer Damaris “Charm” Wilburn disappears from Atlanta’s most notorious Black strip club, former headliner Michah “Lyriq” Johanssen must delve back into her own past to solve the mystery. It turns out that Charm wasn’t the first dancer to disappear, and Lyriq may be next. Early readers are clearly enjoying this harrowing mystery-thriller and its willingness to ask uncomfortable questions about sex, race, and oppression.
The first of two celebrity storyteller pairings this month, Gone Before Goodbye is a collaboration between mystery-thriller don Harlan Coben and actor-producer Reese Witherspoon. The story introduces Maggie McCabe, a disgraced army combat surgeon recruited to perform plastic surgery on an extremely wealthy mystery man. Things get weird. Bonus trivia: Witherspoon’s father was a military surgeon, and her mom was a professor of nursing.
Winner of this month’s Most Disturbing Cover Art award, Hazelthorn is the latest scary story from Australian author C.G. Drews (Don't Let the Forest In). Blending gothic horror, queer romance, and YA fantasy, the book spotlights young Evander, who has just inherited the Hazelthorn estate from his late guardian. The complications: Evander is pretty sure his mentor was murdered. His only ally kinda-sorta tried to kill him a few years back. And the haunted garden out back is out for blood, quite literally.
The second of this month’s celebrity storyteller pairings, Remain is a hybrid romance-mystery from author Nicholas Sparks and filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan. The setup: New York architect Tate Donovan (not that one), recently discharged from psychiatric treatment, is recuperating in Cape Cod when he meets a mysterious young women named Wren. What happens next will upend everything Tate knows about love, life, and death. Is it a psychological mystery story? A paranormal romance story? The Shyamalan brand is all about twists, so bear that in mind.
Forced by poverty to perfect her formidable thieving skills, young Yining is thrilled to be actually given an enchanted ring—by a magical carp, no less. Unfortunately, her wicked step-aunt has taken the ring and absconded to the imperial palace. Well, Yining will just have to steal it back, won’t she? Author Sue Lynn Tan (Daughter of the Moon Goddess) riffs on Chinese fairy tales and the Cinderella legend with her new foray into YA romantasy.
Book No. 2 in Jasmine Mas’ Villains of Lore series centers on the adventures—martial, carnal, and otherwise—of a female Hercules in a kind of updated, alternate world of Greek mythology. With the Spartan War Academy behind her, our heroine Alexis has a whole new set of problems this time around, including Underworld gods and something called the Assembly of Death. Also, Alexis’ own husbands. Plural. Bonus trivia: Author Mas has a degree in Greco-Roman classical studies from Georgetown.
Kadeesha, Princess of the Aether Dominion, is perfectly content to do what she does best: protect her people as a formidable warrior princess. But the men of her world have other plans, and they’re used to getting their way. Now Kadeesha is caught in the middle of a war between the two kings. One has claimed her in an arranged marriage. The other just kidnapped her. But Kadeesha likes to get her way, too. Author N.E. Davenport (The Blood Gift Duology) is back on shelves with a new vision of fantasy, romance, and female empowerment.
In 1780, the Dutch slave ship known as The Zorg set sail from the Netherlands to the coast of Africa, scheduled to return with a cargo hold full of enslaved human beings. Subsequent events—incredible and appalling—would spark a global abolitionist movement. Author Siddharth Kara’s rigorous primary-source research reveals for the first time what really happened on The Zorg, bringing an important and long-obscured story back into the light.
Generally acknowledged as one of the greatest nonfiction writers of her generation, Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief) has spent a lifetime rooting out interesting stories from around the globe. Orlean returns to bookstore shelves this fall with Joyride, a comprehensive memoir of her professional life, her personal life, and all the interesting in-between bits. The new book is also structured to function as a guide for aspiring writers, with practical tips and advice.
It’s one of the most perplexing mysteries of the 21st century: How did the internet get this awful? Why has the basic user experience degraded so severely? Why is everything so confusing and toxic? With his newest book, journalist and sci-fi author Cory Doctorow coins a delightful new phrase to explain these phenomena. The short answer is: relentless pursuit of profit. Doctorow’s longer answers provide further insight, startling details, and grim humor.
