Top Ten Tuesday: Books With Fall Vibes

 

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week, we’re talking about books with fall vibes. What the heck is a “fall vibe”? Well, when I think of autumn, I picture spooky Halloween and cozy Thanksgiving. The leaves are changing color. Hockey season is starting. Kids are going back to school. The days are cool and bright, and the nights are long and freezing. Pumpkin everything is everywhere. It’s time to wrap yourself in a blanket, sit by the fireplace, and eat delicious high-calorie snacks. Here are 10 books that capture the fall feeling.

 

🍂 Books With Fall Vibes 🍁

 

1. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Adult Historical Mystery

The enigmatic Vida Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself—all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.

Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

 

Fall Vibes: You’ll need an atmospheric mystery to get you through long fall nights. This twisted story is set in an old manor house that hides generations of secrets. If you love Jane Eyre or The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, you need to pick this book up. It’s full of scandalous celebrity family drama, creepy children, and plot twists. The ending will surprise you. It sure surprised me!

 

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2. Number The Stars by Lois Lowry

Middlegrade Historical Fiction

 

Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It's now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are "relocated," Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen's life.

 

Fall Vibes: Back-to-school means it’s time for assigned reading. I was forced to read this novel for seventh grade English class, and I loved it. It’s one of the few school-assigned books that I actually appreciated. It’s a short novel with believable young characters and a well-researched plot. I will never forget this story.

 

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3. Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

Adult Comedy Horror

 

Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring bookshelves, shattered Glans water goblets, and smashed Liripip wardrobes. Sales are down, security cameras reveal nothing, and store managers are panicking.

To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination.

 

Fall Vibes: It’s a traditional haunted house story with a thoroughly modern twist. This haunted “house” is actually a haunted Ikea. The book is formatted to look like an Ikea catalogue, complete with diagrams of self-assembly furniture and torture devices. It is a horror story, so there is spookiness and gore, but it’s balanced out with humor. This is a must-read for anyone who’s ever been hopelessly lost in Ikea.

 

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4. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

Young Adult Fantasy

 

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition—the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

 

Fall Vibes: This is the ultimate fall book. It’s set in autumn and is full of celebrations, delicious food, and human-eating horses that crawl out of the ocean every October. So . . . it’s unique. It’s also creepy and unpredictable. I love the world the author creates. I feel like I understand this island’s culture and landscape. Aside from the monster horses, it could be a real place.

 

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5. Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Young Adult Fantasy

 

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere . . . else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced . . . they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost.

 

Fall Vibes: A short book with a fast-paced mystery. The story is set at Eleanor West’s Home For Wayward Children, which is a boarding school for kids who have traveled to other worlds. It’s a back-to-school story like no other. Nothing will stop these kids from getting home to the magical worlds that rejected them. They’ll even commit murder if there’s a chance it will open a portal . . . .

 

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6. The Hound Of The Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

Adult Classic Mystery

 

Generations ago, a hound of hell tore out the throat of devilish Hugo Baskerville on the moonlit moor. Poor, accursed Baskerville Hall now has another mysterious death: that of Sir Charles Baskerville. Could the culprit somehow be mixed up with secretive servant Barrymore, history-obsessed Dr. Frankland, butterfly-chasing Stapleton, or Selden, the Notting Hill murderer at large? Someone's been signaling with candles from the mansion's windows. Nor can supernatural forces be ruled out. Can Dr. Watson—left alone by Sherlock Holmes to sleuth in fear for much of the novel—save the next Baskerville, Sir Henry, from the hound's fangs?

 

Fall Vibes: Don’t let this book’s “classic” status put you off. It’s very readable. And very atmospheric. It’s set in a mansion that’s surrounded by ancient ruins, haunted moors, and mysterious locals. Like every Sherlock Holmes book, this one has plot twists that will keep you reading through long, cold nights.

 

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7. Nevermoor: The Trials Of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

Middlegrade Fantasy

Morrigan Crow is cursed. Having been born on Eventide, the unluckiest day for any child to be born, she's blamed for all local misfortunes, from hailstorms to heart attacks—and, worst of all, the curse means that Morrigan is doomed to die at midnight on her eleventh birthday.

But as Morrigan awaits her fate, a strange and remarkable man named Jupiter North appears. Chased by black-smoke hounds and shadowy hunters on horseback, he whisks her away into the safety of a secret, magical city called Nevermoor.

It's then that Morrigan discovers Jupiter has chosen her to contend for a place in the city's most prestigious organization: the Wundrous Society. In order to join, she must compete in four difficult and dangerous trials against hundreds of other children, each boasting an extraordinary talent that sets them apart—an extraordinary talent that Morrigan insists she does not have. To stay in the safety of Nevermoor for good, Morrigan will need to find a way to pass the tests—or she'll have to leave the city to confront her deadly fate.

 

Fall Vibes: Do you love Harry Potter but can’t bring yourself to reread it because the author is a Dumpster fire with a Twitter account? Please pick up Nevermoor! It’s the hilarious story of a cursed child who is competing for a spot at a prestigious magical school. It’s an adventure novel with sprinkles of darkness. I love this series because it reminds me of the joy I felt when I first read Harry Potter as a 12 year old.

 

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8. Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

Adult Nonfiction Memoir

 

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag." In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

 

Fall Vibes: Of course we need some nonfiction on the list. I chose this one because it’s perfect to read during back-to-school time. It shows that humans are resilient and adaptable. If you want to know something, go learn it. Follow your curiosity. You never know how far knowledge will take you.

 

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9. Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Young Adult Alternate History

 

Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville—derailing the War Between the States and changing America forever. In this new nation, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Reeducation Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.

But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.

 

Fall Vibes: ZOMBIES! You can’t get more Halloween than that. This is not a horror novel, though. It’s not scary or gory, so pick it up if you want zombies without the “yuck.” The main character is a complicated girl with a lively personality. When her friends start disappearing, she gets swept up in a monster-packed mystery that will keep you on the edge of your comfy couch.

 

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10. The Cresswell Plot by Eliza Wass

Young Adult Contemporary Mystery / Thriller

 

Castella Cresswell and her five siblings—Hannan, Caspar, Mortimer, Delvive, and Jerusalem—know what it’s like to be different. For years, their world has been confined to their ramshackle family home deep in the woods of upstate New York. They abide by the strict rule of God, whose messages come directly from their father.

Slowly, Castley and her siblings start to test the boundaries of the laws that bind them. But, at school, they’re still the freaks they’ve always been to the outside world. Marked by their plain clothing. Unexplained bruising. Utter isolation from their classmates. That is, until Castley is forced to partner with the totally irritating, totally normal George Gray, who offers her a glimpse of a life filled with freedom and choice.

Castley’s world rapidly expands beyond the woods she knows so well and the beliefs she once thought were the only truths. There is a future waiting for her if she can escape her father’s grasp, but Castley refuses to leave her siblings behind. Just as she begins to form a plan, her father makes a chilling announcement: the Cresswells will soon return to their home in heaven. With time running out on all of their lives, Castley must expose the depth of her father’s lies. The forest has buried the truth in darkness for far too long. Castley might be their last hope for salvation.

 

Fall Vibes: Look at the cover! All those fall leaves. This is a fantastically messed-up little book. It’s short and fast-paced, so you can fly through it while you wait for an autumn storm to die down. It’s about a tight-knit family who lives deep in the woods. The kids are forced to attend public school for the first time ever, which opens up a new world to them.

 

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Tell me about a book that has fall vibes.