Keisha Woodson, the only other Black girl in Liz’s high school, walked into the woods with a mysterious man and was later found with her chest cavity ripped open and her heart removed. But on the day of the wedding, somewhere between dancing and dessert, the couple’s daughter, Caroline, disappears–and the only thing left behind is a piece of white fabric covered in blood.Īs a frantic search begins, with the police combing the trees for Caroline, Liz is the only one who notices a pattern: A summer night. Liz has grown, though she can handle whatever awaits her.

But her best friend is getting married, so she braces herself for a weekend of awkward, passive-aggressive reunions. As a Black woman, Liz doesn’t exactly have fond memories of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town.

Additionally, the last book on this month’s list features a collection of resistance histories where magic practitioners sought power and kinship in a patriarchal world. However, sprinkled in, we’ve found at least one graphic novel memoir about the all-too-real terror of a country that values guns more than people. Each one is colored by the sinister aspects of humanity, such as real trauma and bigotry that ends in violence. This list features mostly stories of fiction in the realm of horror, fantasy, and thriller mysteries. Of course, talented writers like Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Victor LaValle and Stephen Graham Jones write these stories year-round, but it feels like in September and October, there’s an influx of these stories as publishing capitalizes on the collective want to read about the supernatural and macabre.

When the clock struck midnight on September 23, the spooky season began, so of course, most of October’s books have to reflect that.

Tor house october 1st