Mabon – #MindforBooksPrompt

Autumnal books were kind of hard to come up with. A lot of these would likely be seen as spooky season books but I’m writing this post the day before Halloween so it’s very hard to get out of that mindset. There is a lesson about procrastination here! 😀

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (The Physick Book #1) by Katherine Howe

I haven’t actually read this book but I have to post this super autumny picture.

A spellbinding, beautifully written novel that moves between contemporary times and one of the most fascinating and disturbing periods in American history–the Salem witch trials.

Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie’s grandmother’s abandoned home near Salem, she can’t refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest–to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.

As the pieces of Deliverance’s harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem’s dark past then she could have ever imagined.

Written with astonishing conviction and grace, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane travels seamlessly between the witch trials of the 1690s and a modern woman’s story of mystery, intrigue, and revelation.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

This book is just so entertaining! I originally read Seven Deaths around this time of year and as a result it always reminds me of Autumn. I like a good mystery but good ones are hard to come by. This kept me constantly on my toes and it was a lot of fun because of that. Nothing is as it seems and it is wonderfully atmospheric.

‘Somebody’s going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won’t appear to be a murder and so the murderer won’t be caught. Rectify that injustice and I’ll show you the way out.’

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.

But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.

The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath…

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Rebecca really surprised me. Sometimes the classic must reads don’t do it for me but Rebecca absolutely did. I hated the new Mrs De Winter and Maxium and I personally think they deserve all the worst things to happen to them. Is that controversial? Probably but I don’t care. I really wouldn’t like to encounter a Mrs Danvers in real life but she was loyal AF and it’s hard not to respect that. 😀

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…”

Ancient, beautiful Manderley, between the rose garden and the sea, is the county’s showpiece. Rebecca made it so – even a year after her death, Rebecca’s influence still rules there. How can Maxim de Winter’s shy new bride ever fill her place or escape her vital shadow?

A shadow that grows longer and darker as the brief summer fades, until, in a moment of climatic revelations, it threatens to eclipse Manderley and its inhabitants completely…

Rebecca

Other Words for Smoke by Sarah Maria Griffin

This book is so good and so underrated! Sarah Maria Griffin has a fabulous imagination and she is talented enough to create a captivating story for us all to read. This gives me hardcore autumn vibes. I think it’s the owl?

Other Words for Smoke was full of symbolism and some of that symbolism refers to the very sad and tragic death of Ann Lovett and her son in 1984.

When the house at the end of the lane burned down, none of the townspeople knew what happened. A tragedy, they called it. Poor Rita Frost and her ward, Bevan, lost to the flames. Only Mae and Rossa, Rita’s niece and nephew, know what happened that fateful summer.

Only they know about the owl in the wall, the uncanny cat, the dark powers that devour love and fear. Only they know about the trials of loving someone who longs for power, for freedom, for magic. Only they know what brought the house tumbling down around them. And they’ll never, ever breathe a word.

Other Words for Smoke

Dr. Greta Helsing Series by Vivian Shaw

These would probably be classed as Halloween reading but they really work for the change in seasons and are perfect for Autumn. Really fast paced. Likeable characters. Fun banter and I even had a little cry. So enjoyable!!

Greta Helsing inherited the family’s highly specialized, and highly peculiar, medical practice. In her consulting rooms, Dr. Helsing treats the undead for a host of ills – vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights, and entropy in mummies. Although barely making ends meet, this is just the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta’s been groomed for since childhood.

Until a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human and undead Londoners alike. As terror takes hold of the city, Greta must use her unusual skills to stop the cult if she hopes to save her practice, and her life.

Strange Practice