Happy October friends! It is officially spooky season! I am not the biggest Halloween gal because I am not a fan of scary things! Haunted houses, scary movies, cemeteries are not my jam! Now while I am not a fan of scary movies, I am a fan of thrillers!

I love to spend the month of October reading some spooky books and while I don’t like the super scary or horror thrillers I do enjoy a spooky plot line, suspense, or a good mystery. Bonus points if there is a historical aspect to it.

I put together a list of my favorite thrillers or thrillers that I have on my to be read list this October!

Please let me know any other recommendations to share as well!

The Witch Haven

In 1911 New York City, seventeen-year-old Frances Hallowell spends her days as a seamstress, mourning the mysterious death of her brother. Everything changes when she’s attacked and a man ends up dead at her feet—her scissors in his neck, and she can’t explain how they got there. Before she can be condemned as a murderer, two cape-wearing nurses arrive to inform her she is deathly ill and ordered to report to Haxahaven Sanitarium. But Frances finds Haxahaven isn’t a sanitarium at all: it’s a school for witches.

Verity

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity’s recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.

The Witch Of Willow Hall

Two centuries after the Salem witch trials, there’s still one witch left in Massachusetts. But she doesn’t even know it. In the wake of a scandal, the Montrose family and their three daughters—Catherine, Lydia, and Emeline—flee Boston for their new country home, Willow Hall. A creeping sense fills the atmosphere, remnants of a dark history that call to Lydia, and to the youngest, Emeline. All three daughters will be irrevocably changed by what follows, but none more than Lydia, who must draw on a power she never knew she possessed if she wants to protect those she loves. For Willow Hall’s secrets will rise, in the end…

Home Before Dark

A woman returns to the house made famous by her father’s bestselling horror memoir. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past lurk in the shadows. The locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made famous thanks to Maggie’s father’s book. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.

The House Across The Lake

Casey Fletcher is a retired, widowed actress who retreats to her family’s Vermont lake house to escape from the public eye. She loves to cozy up with a bottle of booze and watching her neighbors, Katherine and Tom Royce, across the lake. After striking up a friendship with Katherine, Casey quickly discovers that things are not as good as they seem between the couple. After Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey takes it upon herself to figure out what happened and, in doing so, uncovers more than she ever bargained for about her neighbors.

Behind Closed Doors

Everyone knows a couple like Jack and Grace. He has looks and wealth; she has charm and elegance. He’s a dedicated attorney who has never lost a case; she is a flawless homemaker, a masterful gardener and cook, and dotes on her disabled younger sister. You realize Jack and Grace are inseparable. Some might call this true love. Others might wonder why Grace never answers the phone. Or why she can never meet for coffee, even though she doesn’t work. Some might wonder what’s really going on once the dinner party is over, and the front door has closed.

Wrong Place Wrong Time

If Reese Witherspoon tells us to read a book, we must listen to the queen of reading. Imagine that you’re up waiting for your teenage son to come home. You’re looking out your window and spot him with a stranger, and before you can see who the person is your son kills the person. Your son is taken into custody, and you must go to bed having thinking how your son’s future is ruined forever. When you wake up in the morning, you realize it’s actually the day before the murder. The next time you wake up, it’s the day before that. As you continue to wake up earlier and earlier in the past, you realize that somewhere in is the answer to who your son murdered and why, and it’s up to you to uncover the answers.

Rock Paper Scissors

Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Adam has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife. Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.

A Flicker in the Dark

When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. Chloe’s father had been arrested as a serial killer and promptly put in prison. Chloe and the rest of her family were left to deal with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath. Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She finally has an idea of happiness look like. And then, a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, and that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, and seeing parallels that aren’t really there, or for the second time in her life, is she about to unmask a killer?

The Golden Couple

Wealthy suburbanites Marissa and Matthew Bishop seem to have it all… until Marissa is unfaithful. Beneath the surface, their perfect relationship isn’t what it looks like. She wants to repair things for the sake of their eight-year-old son and because she loves her husband. So they do what all couples do to try to mend their marriage: therapy. Avery Chambers is a therapist who lost her professional license. She still offers counseling those in crisis, though they have to adhere to her unorthodox methods. And the Bishops are desperate. When Marissa reveals her infidelity, all three are set on a collision course. Because the biggest secrets in the room are still hidden, and it’s no longer simply a marriage that’s in danger.

Then She Was Gone

Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter at age fifteen. And then she was gone. Now, her mother Laurel Mack is trying to put her life back together. It’s been ten years since her daughter disappeared. When she meets an unexpectedly charming man in a café, and before she knows it, she is meeting his youngest, Poppy. Looking at Poppy is like looking at Ellie. The unanswered questions she’s tried so hard to stop thinking about, begin to haunt Laurel once again. Where did Ellie go? Did she really run away from home, as the police have long suspected, or was there another reason for her disappearance?

Not So Spooky Reads

The Hex Ex

Break out the candy corn! This quirky, steamy rom-com about a major post-breakup hex will put a powerful spell on you. Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths…and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows she shouldn’t use her magic this way, but a broken heart can make you do some crazy things. Don’t let this sweet cover fool you, this book is spicy!

Boss Witch

Clementine Waterhouse is a perfectly logical witch. She doesn’t tumble head first into love. Rather she weighs the pros and cons and decides if a relationship is worth pursuing. At least that’s always been before. Clem prefers being the one in charge, always the first to walk away when the time is right. Attraction has never struck her like lightning. Until the witch hunter comes to town. Can the bossiest witch in town find a happy ending with the last person she should ever love?

Hocus Pocus & The All New Sequel

In honor of the movie premiere Sept. 30th, I had to include this one on the list. The all-new sequel that continues the story with the next generation of Salem teens. Twenty-five years later, Max and Allison’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Poppy, finds herself face-to-face with the Sanderson sisters in all their sinister glory. When Halloween celebrations don’t quite go as planned, it’s a race against time as Poppy and her friends fight to save her family and all of Salem from the witches’ latest death-defying scheme.

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