| We have a special treat for you in today's Halloween issue of Highlights. Instead of our usual Editor's Choice coverage of a single book, we're featuring an array of recommended horror and suspense titles, including haunted house stories, a historical mystery, a fictional tribute to classic horror cinema, and more.
Plus, explore all kinds of books that dabble in the supernatural and otherworldly through our Speculative, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Alt. History category, browse noteworthy November books, and check out our upcoming discussions for the end of this year and early 2025. | | With best wishes,
The BookBrowse Team
| | Enjoy our coverage of some recent hardcover and paperback books that lean towards the dark and dangerous, the scary and suspenseful. Happy Halloween! | | | Rivers Solomon's novel Model Home opens with a chilling and mesmerizing line: "Maybe my mother is God, and that's why nothing I do pleases her." The book is narrated by Ezri Maxwell, who grew up Black and nonbinary in a white gated community, and who wonders, upon reentering the area as an adult, what the point is of having a guard regulating entry: "To keep the bad people out? Every guard will fail at that because the bad people are already inside. This is their fort." Model Home is openly a horror story built on social and political realities, in which the lurking evil is understood to be racism and the horrors it enables. It is a book generously and unapologetically for the victims. ... continued | | | In this vividly rendered work, Brian is a young artist who realizes his imagination with a pencil, drawing bulbous, tentacled creatures and warped visions of himself. His art is an escape, and so too is cinema — he and his buddy Jimmy delight in their roles as horror movie auteurs. When newcomer Laurie is invited to be their next "star" in a terror-in-the-woods style film, Brian hopes to use the opportunity to get closer to her. Final Cut shows us just how powerful illusions can be, but what makes us face the truth in front of our eyes? Some of us never do, and that's the real horror show. ... continued | | | While faced with celebrating the holidays alone, Hugo receives a life-changing call from Alexi Ramirez, the predatory attorney whose firm has been attempting to collect on his debt. Like others seeking help from Hugo and his boss, Lourdes, Alexi believes that he is being haunted, and he proposes a deal: If Hugo clears his ghosts, he will clear Hugo's debt. Hugo's individual story holds sufficient depth to feel complete unto itself. It would be easy for a reader to get lost in it alone, to forget that the setup of A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens practically promises a thrilling horror adventure. Palma's novel is an incisive social critique, a devastating portrait of self-sabotage, and a wild ride into the unknown. ... continued | | | After kicking a white teenager while defending his older sister Gloria, Robert Stephens Jr., a Black 12-year-old, is sent to Gracetown, where he is thrown into a world of ghosts, brutal punishments and a superintendent with dark motives and darker secrets. Author Tananarive Due puts a supernatural twist on her brutal tale (The Reformatory) through the inclusion of haints. This setting—haunted by the spirits of those who have died there, whose ghosts are visible only to one increasingly desperate young boy—may remind readers of Stephen King's The Shining. However, in King's novel, the ghosts are the horrors, whereas in the case of Gracetown, the humans are the true monsters. ... continued | | | Lydia Weston is among the first wave of female physicians and professors in the United States. Dedicated to her work, she spends her days treating the sick and teaching the next generation of young doctors at Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. Her routine is thrown into chaos, however, when the body of her patient and would-be friend, Anna Ward, is pulled from the river. There is equal appeal here for those who love portraits of social history and those who enjoy trying to stay one step ahead of an unraveling mystery. Striking a unique balance between the grittiness and atmosphere of noir fiction and the page-turning charm of cozy crime, Murder by Degrees marks the debut of an exciting new literary voice. ... continued | | Speculative, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Alt. History | | | Several of the Halloween Editor's Choice reads featured above appear in our Speculative, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Alt. History category alongside nearly 300 other books. Click below to discover more recommended titles that contain elements of the supernatural, alternate universes, and other speculative characteristics.
This is one of 100+ themed categories you can explore on BookBrowse to find the perfect read for your book club or yourself. Members can access all categories and filters to narrow their browsing, while non-members have limited access. | | | We know it can be tough to keep up with all the new books coming out every month, so we do the hard work for you. We've carefully selected 60+ of the most noteworthy books publishing in November and are continually updating our selections — check them out and get yourself on the library wait-list ahead of the crowd!
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Non-subscribers can view books up to the current month and a limited selection of future months. If you don't already, you may also wish to subscribe to our Publishing This Week newsletter. | | | Discussions are open to all, so please join us! If you would like to receive a message when a particular discussion opens, you can sign up for a one-time notification. You can also find inspiration for your book club among our more than 200 past discussions.
In November, we feature Amanda Peters' The Berry Pickers as well as Nancy Jensen's In Our Midst, and we have more exciting discussions lined up for next year! | | With so many new books published every month, it's difficult to find the standouts, the ones that are really worth your time. This is why hundreds of thousands of readers rely on BookBrowse to do the hard work of sifting through the multitude of titles to find the most promising new books, with a focus on books that entertain, engage, and enlighten. | | BookBrowse Highlights is just one of our free newsletters. We also offer Publishing This Week every Sunday, and Book Club News and Librarian News monthly. We send out Genre Specific Emails occasionally. | | | | |
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