10 Stories To Read In October
- Lisa Humphrey
- Oct 11, 2020
- 9 min read
October is many people’s favorite month. Even though Halloween is on the very last day of the month, people celebrate it from the first day. Ghosts, witches, werewolves, and all sorts of creatures come alive in the nights. What better to put you in the Halloween mood than some immersive spooky stories?
Here are ten stories to read during October:
1. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The only ghost story on the list is The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. It is a brilliant piece of literature that subverts many expectations. When I finished the story, I wanted to turn to the first page again and reread it. It captured my attention.
Margaret Lea, a bookstore owner’s daughter, is asked to write the biography of the elusive and mysterious Vida Winters. Winters is a famous author who lies about every aspect of her life, but she is dying and wishes to reveal her truth. The novel works through the present while Margaret listens, asks questions, and gets to know the dying author. It also works through the past through said author.
The dichotomy between Lea and Winters keeps the novel balanced. The voice of Winters grips and keeps the reader locked onto the unpredictable story. It’s thrilling. The dark, meandering atmosphere and shocking circumstances make this a perfect story to curl up with in a candlelit room at twilight.
2. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches is getting some attention now due to the BBC television series of it. I haven’t taken the time to watch it yet. The book series, though, hooked me. It follows Diana Bishop, history of science professor at Yale and reluctant witch. After she calls up a book that hasn't been seen for centuries, she must learn about her powers and why the book came to her.
The series has three supernatural humanoid creatures: witch, demon, and vampire. I tend to stray away from any vampire stories in the same way I avoid zombie stories. They are used as creatures with no character development and are often dumb stereotypes. But the vampires of this series are historic relics, still holding on to old ideals or mannerisms. It makes them feel real in ways many vampire stories do not.
This was a love story I didn’t think I wanted. Regardless, I fell in love with the characters and their relationship. The vampires and other creatures are treated like actual humans who have been living for centuries. There are relationship and character development. There's also loads of historic knowledge that, as an academic, I appreciate. The second book in the series, Shadow of Night, is my favorite of the books because it’s set in Shakespearean England. I squealed constantly at the literary and occult knowledge wedged in there.
A Discovery of Witches is a wonderful start to the series. It's full of danger, romance, and well-written creatures of the night. It’s everything Twilight aimed for, but A Discovery of Witches achieved the goal with creativity, knowledge, and page-turning suspense. Plus some bonafide Fleetwood Mac witches. And what screams Halloween more than witches?
3. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
Stories about witches are always my favorite. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane resembles A Discovery of Witches in many ways. Connie is a Harvard graduate reading and working on a doctoral dissertation. Like Diana, Connie is sent on a compelling quest due to the discovery of a book. In this case, it’s more because of the key found inside the book, but I digress.
Anything set in the town of Salem is a Halloween story. The novel balances the narration between Salem in 1991 and 1692 while Connie tries to clean up and sell her grandmother’s abandoned cottage. The story is well-paced, and the images of the setting have stayed with me longer than most of the events. I’m not mad about it either.
For someone who has never been to Salem, I had a lot of fun exploring it, both past and present-day, through the novel. I am a little upset that Howe’s following work, The House of Velvet & Glass, was a plotless disappointment, but her debut novel still stands. It’s fun and quirky and has a lot of cute moments, but there’s a witchy-academic vibe going on that works with nights of October.
4. Sweep series by Cate Tiernan
Out of all the stories on this list, this was the one I read earliest. I started the series in tenth grade and finished the fifteenth and final book right before I graduated high school. I would love to sit down and read the series again now because I was not a practicing witch before. I had a wonderful time reading this as a Christian. I can only assume from my memories that it would be a great experience as a Pagan.
The series follows teenager Morgan Rowlands while she breaks from her Catholic religion and starts practicing Wicca. I thought that Wicca was either made-up or something followed by a minute amount of people, like sanguinarians, people who believe they need to drink blood like a vampire to survive, which has about five thousand followers. The truth is that Wicca is a religion followed by over a million people and continues to grow.
I will not say that the series is a good introduction to the religion because that is not what it is meant to be. There are some elements of the series that carry over lessons from the craft. There may be some proper spell usage, and the coven meetings showcase a lot of what modern witches do during rituals, such as dancing, chanting, and using the movement of the moment to connect with the people around you in new ways.
But the Sweep series is not about becoming Wiccan or even about Morgan’s religion. It’s about power, it’s ability to corrupt, and discovering who you are and where you came from. The series is a powerful narrative that sweeps the reader from one story to the next with continuous heart-pumping fear, surprise, and awe. It’s a YA read that left me inspired. It also defines what a witchy atmosphere in a story feels like to me, which makes the series perfect to start (and binge-read) during October.
5. Blood & Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause
Moving on from witches! Blood & Chocolate is a YA story from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old female werewolf. Our narrator Vivian struggles with falling in love with a human boy poet named Aiden. This leads to the story being full of that wonderful cringe YA books are notorious for.
Not only is this story a love story where gender roles are reversed, but it’s a beautiful narrative on the girl’s struggles with her identity, her family, and her society. She is one of my favorite badass protagonists who stays independent and herself even while she grapples to find out who she is.
Her struggles and attitude are what keep the story going. But her love for her wolf form, her pack, and for the wolf experience treat an over-stereotyped Halloween creature as something revered. In some countries, werewolves were idolized, so in a way, reading such treatment of them is cathartic. A beautiful sort of admiration and freedom is exerted by the transformation, but the description is still gruesome. What’s great is that this is one of the short reads on the list and can be devoured within one moon-filled night.
6. Serafina & The Black Cloak by Robert Beatty
Serafina is not a werewolf, but she might be something close to one. Her story is filled with wonder, enchantment, and mystery, plus it’s just plain out fun.
The Serafina books are directed at children, but I really enjoyed getting to know Serafina, the feisty twelve-year-old girl who lives in secret in the mansion her Pa works for. She is such a joy to follow. She sneaks in the darkness of the Ashville mansion in the late 1800s with her bright amber-colored eyes and graceful stealth.
Serafina is one of my favorite protagonists too. She’s smart, creative, and incredibly curious. She is independent and loving, and she could carry the whole series by herself.
But the mansion and the surrounding forests, every landscape, is beautifully set before us and explored, and the plotline must be followed. It’s a light, fun, and mysterious read that can be shared with adults and children alike during this time.
7. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Coraline might be the most well-known story on my list because of the success of the animated movie adaption, which I also highly recommend watching. It is one of the better book-to-movie adaptations I have seen, but the movie holds back on many of the more grotesque and creepy details of the story. Neil Gaiman is a top tier author in my books, and Coraline showcases his skills with the weird and wondrous.
Coraline moves into a new home where she finds a small door that leads to another realm. It is a world that looks almost exactly like her own, except her mother and father dote on her, and have buttons for eyes. What at first appears to be paradise is soon revealed to be everything but, and it’s up to Coraline to save not only her soul but the lives of those she loves.
The tale is filled with eyeless ghost children, talking black cats, dancing circus mice, and a fearless protagonist with a strong personality. The movie has been a go-to Halloween movie for years now, and the love for it is all because of the book.
8. The Wind & The Keyhole by Stephen King
Stephen King makes many Halloween book lists, and it’s because he is a man who writes them well. My experience with his writing is pretty limited to his memoir and the Dark Tower series.
While the Dark Tower series is creepy and twisted in many ways, it is not something to start lightly. It took me years to read the series. It is a series that gets better with each book, and I didn’t feel like I was truly enjoying myself (though obviously enough to continue) until the third book. It has since become one of my all-time favorite series.
The Wind & The Keyhole is a Dark Tower book that is listed between the fourth and the fifth novels of the series. It's part of the story and the lore of the universe, but it is not necessary to read the Dark Tower series to understand and enjoy. Roland, the post-apocalyptic gunslinger, and his friends are trapped during a dangerous storm. Roland tells the story of his attempt to catch a Skin-Walker while in his youth. During this story, young Roland tells another character his childhood story of “The Wind & the Keyhole.” So the original narrator is telling a story within a story, and each of the stories is more intriguing than the last.
The novel is filled with intrigue, violence, magic, and many outside references, and King is a master at suspense. What can I say? He good, and that’s why he’s made it onto another October reads list.
9. Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen
Edgar Allan Poe was brilliant at gore, terror, and mystery and his stories and poems are a staple of Halloween literature. Everyone already knows about “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a classic pick for Halloween. That would be my recommendation from him, with the next of his being “The Masque of the Red Death.” But those who enjoy Poe are already reading him, so I want to recommend a story about him instead.
Mrs. Poe is from the perspective of Poe’s literary lover, Frances Osgood. The two shared flirtatious public poems to each other in real life, and this novel takes that relationship to an intimate level. Frances also develops a very strange friendship with Poe’s young wife, and it is that relationship that develops the creepiness and suspense of the novel.
It is interesting to read about Poe surrounded by these lively women, and it is a nice change from the continuously dead women of his tales. Still, you can’t go wrong with either Poe or Cullen during the Halloween season.
10. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is the oldest story on this list by far, and it might be a surprise on a Halloween list because the twist is so well-known. I recently had to read the story for the first time for one of my college classes, and I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it. The class was British
Literature from the 1700-1940s, and a lot of the writing from that time frame is tedious for modern readers. But this 1886 story was by far my favorite that came out of the class.
The way the story is delivered is enticing even when you know what the truth is. The perspective is not from that of Jekyll but from an old friend of Jekyll’s, Mr. Utterson. He investigates the changes he sees in his friend and the character and relationships of Hyde.
The story divides itself into different parts of third-person prose and then by letters, the last one written by Jekyll himself. It is cathartic at that point in the story to have Jekyll deliver the truth of the relationship with Hyde.
The story leading up to the reveal is well balanced between mysterious and creepy. I recommend listening to an audio version of this story, particularly if you find older literature tedious, but also because it is so much fun to listen to. It’s only three hours long and is a perfect story to wrap up the month and this list.
Any of these stories are great reads any time of the year, but the best time to read these is right now. So cuddle up, lock the door, and enjoy the spooky season!
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