Shuffling of the Shelves: October, Part One

By Anais Aguilera

Trick or treat! It’s finally October and whether you have a taste for sweet romances or twisty thrillers, this list is sure to give you something to take home.

Amazon

October is the perfect month to pick up a spine-chilling thriller and what better than a work by the queen of psychological thrillers herself, Freida McFadden. McFadden has two amazing thrillers holding spots on the Amazon charts this month. First up is The Housemaid. The gripping first-person narrative will catapult you through each twist and turn alongside our main character, Millie Calloway. Millie works as a housekeeper for an affluent older woman, Nina Winchester, and her family. Living in the attic of the house, she has intimate access to the family’s lives, which soon reveals darker secrets lurking beneath the surface.

Next up is The Coworker. After Dawn Schiff, an accountant at a supplement company, goes missing one morning, Natalie Farrell finds herself caught in the middle. Working at the same company as Dawn, Natalie and the rest of the office don’t know much about Dawn’s life. After receiving an unsettling phone call, Natalie realizes that someone knew Dawn well. Well enough to want her dead.

WHSmith

The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh is a heart-wrenching portrait of a woman confronting her past. Emma has a seemingly picture-perfect life with a loving husband and daughter. However, Emma’s secrets come to light when she comes down with an illness. Her husband, an obituary writer, begins researching and writing about her life, leading him to discover more about who Emma really is. She must open herself up to her past and the love she left behind. Will she be able to prove to her husband that she is who he thought she was after all?

If you’re in the mood for something a bit darker, pick up Lee and Andrew Child’s new thriller, No Plan B. Part of the infamous Jack Reacher series, this particular story takes place in a town in Colorado where a woman has just died. Two conflicting stories. Was it suicide or murder? As Reacher investigates, he realizes the violence goes much deeper than he anticipated.

Waterstones

Erin Kelly hits the Waterstones Bestsellers chart with her novel, The Skeleton Key. It’s the summer of 2021, and Nell is reunited with her family for the first time in ages. Fifty years ago, her father released a book encouraging readers to search across England and dig up jeweled bones, piecing together the skeleton of his character, Elinore. The book quickly became a cult classic, with people from all over traveling to join the search. Nell retreated when interest turned to obsession and fans to stalkers. But now, the book is being republished and a new treasure hunt ensues, bringing with it even more chaos.

Also on the list is Agatha Christie’s Halloween Party. It is no surprise to see this prolific author’s work in the charts and the season draws more to her work than ever. Our familiar Hercule Poirot investigates the drowning of a young girl at a Halloween party who may have known too much. When you’ve finished the novel, be sure to check out the film adaptation, A Haunting in Venice, released just last month.

Social Media

Dark academia is always a hit on social media and Ava Reid’s A Study in Drowning is the latest pick. This new release has been much anticipated. Effy Sayre is scraping by in her first term at an esteemed college for architecture. When a contest to design Effy’s favorite author’s house is announced, Effy jumps at the chance. But, as she discovers more about the author’s legacy, Effy and a rival student must deal with unforeseen forces, both magical and mortal.

Another popular dark tale on Instagram and TikTok is A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher. Visiting her family home, Sam Montgomery finds that things are not as they used to be. Her memories of a warm, inviting home have been replaced with sterile white walls. Her mother is jumpy and unstable. Jars of teeth, circling vultures and more lurk in this seemingly ordinary suburban home.

Noteworthy Author

This month coincides with both Halloween and Hispanic Heritage Month, so we think Mariana Enriquez is a perfect pick for our noteworthy author. The Argentinian author gained immense traction with her haunting short story collections, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed and Things We Lost in the Fire. Her latest release, Our Share of Night, which follows a father-son pair tracing back their late wife and mother’s unsettling legacy, stirred up a buzz on social media. The journey into all that is macabre provided by her novels draws from her own experiences growing up in the midst of a military dictatorship. Her work has been translated from Spanish into twenty other languages, and she was awarded the acclaimed Premio Herralde Prize for her work of Gothic political horror.