October Suspense

“This is a must-read thriller rooted deeply in Brooklyn and its racist past. As the neighborhood makes plans for the annual block party, Sydney ends up battling more than the microaggressions from her new white neighbors. When her best friends go missing, her mom's prized garden is threatened, and a fake meter reader breaks into her home, she will put everything on the line to get out alive. At least she's got a semi-charming, well-meaning Theo by her side.”

“Reading Tana French means disappearing into another life for a while. Her stories aren’t meant to be slick or flashy, but deliberate, intricate studies of characters and their motivations. The Witch Elm is no different, as it follows the unraveling of Toby starting the night he surprises two burglars in his apartment. As you learn the secrets and weaknesses of Toby and his family, you begin to realize that while finding out what happened is enjoyable and surprising, finding out the how and the why is even better.”

“This fraught and claustrophobic psychological thriller begins innocently enough, with a family leaving New York for a long weekend at a rented house near the beach. They enjoy the luxury and languor of their getaway, until the house's owners, an older Black couple, show up unexpectedly, late at night, fleeing from a wide-spread power outage in the city. The two families settle into a routine of forced camaraderie, unable to get news from the outside world, and relying increasingly on each other. But as the consequences of the unnamed disaster become more apparent, the veneer of civilization slides away as survival becomes less of a given. With only rare glimpses beyond the perspectives of the main characters, Leave the World Behind plunges the listener into the same tense, paranoid state that the characters experience as their fears evolve from mundane concerns to unimaginable horrors. Give yourself time to listen to the whole thing in one go, because you won't be able to stop until you reach the end.”

“Best book I have read this year. An amazing, gripping tale of a young woman in a strange old house. It's an epic ghost story mixed with some element for "Girl with all the Gifts." Compelling characters and a twist ending that will have you in the edge of your seat until the very end. 10/10 would recommend. ”

“Weiden’s book is a thriller with an important social and political message. Following a Lakota ‘enforcer’ who enacts extrajudicial punishment to fill the gaps in the legal system, Winter Counts is a twisty new addition to the growing Indigenous literature canon. While some of the action may fall into somewhat predictable territory, Weiden’s exploration of the injustices of reservation life are vital.”

“I firmly believe I will be hard-pressed to pick up a book in 2019 I love more than The Need, a genre-bending novel that explores motherhood and identity. Molly is the most authentic character I’ve had the pleasure of reading in quite some time, accompanied by baby Ben and lively Viv, the most fully realized fictional four-year-old ever. Is The Need a fever dream, a psychological thriller, a cosmic twist of fate unveiling a parallel world? The author leaves her readers to wonder while highlighting the dualities of domestic life. In gorgeous prose, Phillips shows how the mundane is often revealed to be just that, but sometimes that mundanity is sacred. A deeply immersive human story.”

“In this ghostly story of ignoring what’s right in front of you, a group of characters try to grapple with what seems like inevitable choices. Mandel’s book is like the glass in the title: her language glitters while offering clarity and reflection, and her characters are like broken shards, mesmerizing in one light and dangerously ordinary in another. Combining the humanity and structure of Station Eleven with the brutal realism of her earlier works, The Glass Hotel is an exceptional novel.”

“This standalone Denise Mina novel is one of her very best, which is saying a lot for this massively talented crime writer. Not only is it gripping and page-turning and all of the other -ings that a thriller should be, it also has drop-dead fierce sentences: she describes someone's laugh as "so dark and wild you could drown bags of kittens in it." (Now say that again in your head with a thick Scottish brogue.) The characters are gloriously flawed and sympathetic. And on top of all of that, it also manages to explore in some depth the very art and impact of storytelling: whose stories get told to whom and how, and what that means for those who are too frequently silenced.”

“This is such a fun romp! It has everything you could possibly want in a book: field hockey, witches, and ’80s bangs that have literally taken on a life of their own. Set in Salem in the 1980s, we follow a group of high school field hockey players as they struggle with their new dark powers and attempt to end their losing streak. One of the strangest, most satisfying books I have read in a long time!”