It's that time of year when the veil between the living and the dead feels as if it's at its thinnest. The nights stretch forth, bringing more darkness than light, becoming a haven for spirits and the like.
Reach through the border between worlds with these books:
The London Séance Society by Sarah Penner
1873. At an abandoned château on the outskirts of Paris, a dark séance is about to take place, led by acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D'Allaire. Known worldwide for her talent in conjuring the spirits of murder victims to ascertain the identities of the people who killed them, she is highly sought after by widows and investigators alike.
Lenna Wickes has come to Paris to find answers about her sister's death, but to do so, she must embrace the unknown and overcome her own logic-driven bias against the occult. When Vaudeline is beckoned to England to solve a high-profile murder, Lenna accompanies her as an understudy. With shared determination, the women find companionship that perhaps borders on something more. And as they team up with the powerful men of London's exclusive Séance Society to solve the mystery, they begin to suspect that they are not merely out to solve a crime, but perhaps entangled in one themselves...
Written with intoxicating suspense and sultry prose, The London Séance Society is an entrancing tale that blurs the lines between truth and illusion, and reveals the grave risks women will take to avenge the ones they love.
From the Library of Jurgen Leitner by Premee Mohamed & Jonathan Sims
Fear comes before the fall.
In the winding, perilous corridors of Jurgen Leitner’s private library, you never know what you’ll find. A starving cookbook. An ancient scroll that casts cool, predatory breezes. A cloth-bound hardback that
compels you to DIG, DIG, DIG, DIG.
Free, these books are more than simply unnerving—they’re deadly. But the library keeps their dangers in check and their would-be readers safe. . . .
Or so Leitner claims.
For two of his employees, the risks are worth it. Hugh Franklin, research assistant, has finally found a place he belongs, where his skill in translation is valued, even if his employer is a bit odd. Sebastian Everett, acquisition specialist, can indulge his arcane ambitions, even if it means pretending to care about Leitner’s mission.
Though their tenures at the library were years apart, Hugh and Sebastian’s stories unfold in parallel, and their footsteps echo down the same eerie aisles, caught in a web spun long before either ever heard the name “Jurgen Leitner.”
Will they find a way out before it’s too late . . . or will the library consume them?
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all.
London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old trans, autistic Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife.
After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanitorium. When the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its guts to the world—so long as the school doesn’t break him first.
Featuring an autistic trans protagonist in a historical setting, Andrew Joseph White’s much-anticipated sophomore novel does not back down from exposing the violence of the patriarchy and the harm inflicted on trans youth who are forced into conformity.
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez
A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travel to her ancestral home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed: a family called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of immortality.
For Gaspar, the son, this maniacal cult is his destiny. As the Order tries to pull him into their evil, he and his father take flight, attempting to outrun a powerful clan that will do anything to ensure its own survival. But how far will Gaspar’s father go to protect his child? And can anyone escape their fate?
Moving back and forth in time, from London in the swinging 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina’s military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family story, a ghost story, a story of the occult and the supernatural, a book about the complexities of love and longing with queer subplots and themes. This is the masterwork of one of Latin America’s most original novelists, “a mesmerizing writer,” says Dave Eggers, “who demands to be read.”
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most prestigious universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Their eight windowless “tombs” are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street’s biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living.