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My Favourite Spooky Books

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Happy Friday bookish people! I hope you are all doing well today. As it is getting so close to Halloween and October/Autumn is when we all start reading the spooky/atmospheric books I thought I would share some of my favourites with you all.

Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Mansicalco

This novel follows Audrey Rose Wadsworth, an upper-class woman in Victorian London and her desire to train as a surgeon in a time when women were not allowed to, alongside this it features the murders of Stalking Jack the Ripper and Audrey Rose teams up with Thomas Cresswell to solve the mystery. This is one of my favourite books of all time, I love the mystery and I love the romance. The time period provides a spooky, dangerous atmosphere that keeps you reading.

Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco

This novel follows Emilia, a witch and when her Twin Sister Vittoria is murdered she summons a prince of sin to find out what happened. It is dark, brooding, enchanting, just overall incredible.

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

I have seen that a lot of people are divided on this book, some like it and some don’t. For me personally I loved the isolating feeling of the location and the mental confusion of whether there was something fantastical and at the same time sinister going on or whether Effie is imagining it. I devoured this book in one day.

Library of Shadows by Rachel Moore

I believe this book is listed as a YA read but it is still sufficiently spooky. It follows a girl who enrolls in a prestigious school to find out more about her father and she gets dragged into a mystery concerning the school library, a curse, and an annoyingly handsome ghost.

Murder by Candlelight by Faith Martin

This novel is somewhere between cosy crime and historical crime. It follows Arbie and Val as they team up to solve mysteries. I absolutely loved this series. Arbie is a writer whose books send him to locations to explore ghost hunting, even though he doesn’t believe in ghosts, and due to this keeps accidentally running into val and running into crime scenes. These two characters are the epitome of chalk and cheese and yet they work together so well. I can’t wait for the next book coming in 2026.

Murder at Highgate Cemetery by Irina Shapiro

This novel opens with the body of a young girl who has been murdered, suspended from an angel grave in the cemetery. It goes from there to be told from two perspectives, Gemma Tate a crimean war nurse who has returned to London and found herself in trouble when her brother dies, and Sebastien Bell a Police Detective who is strugglign in his own personal life. They keep running into each other and although Sebastien keeps telling Gemma to stay away from the crime for her own safety, they end up working together anyway.

The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis

This series follows the Bronte sisters as they solve various mysteries. For me this is the spookiest in the series. The sisters end up investigating a woman who it seems has vanished into thin air and there are constant references to dark, gothic manors and ghostly occurrences. Very creepy but very good. I have just read the last in this series and I loved them all.

The London Seance Society by Sarah Penner

Graveyard Shift by M L Rio

This is only a short novel but I loved how it all came together, how slowly we learnt things about the group of people who accidentally ended up together in the wrong place at the wrong time and witness something they shouldn’t have.

Phantasma by Kaylie Smith

City of Ghosts by V E Schwab

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?

What are some of your favourite spooky books?

Book Reviews

Book Review: Us In Ruins by Rachel Moore

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Happy Monday bookish people! How are you all doing today?

I am bringing you my review of Us In Ruins by Rachel Moore. Have any of you read this book? If you have, what did you think of it?

Blurb/Synopsis:

Margot is on the quest to uncover and reassemble an ancient—and cursed—vase, with the help of a boy who went missing in 1932, because it’s the only way to put back together her broken heart in this stand-alone adventure rom-com, perfect for fans of What the River Knows and The Lost City.

The mythical Vase of Venus Aurelia hasn’t been seen since 1932, but Margot Rhodes is determined to change that.

Drawn by the vase’s supposed magical properties, Margot embarks on her school’s archaeological trip to Pompeii. Sure, it’s her first time holding a shovel, but she’s got something no one else does: lost teenage explorer Van Keane’s journal.

Poring over the poetic entries that serve as a map to the vase’s missing shards, Margot finds herself falling in love with the boy who wrote it a century ago. She’s shocked when her search leads her to a statue that looks exactly like Van, and then the statue comes to life.

Catapulted into the present, Van is nothing like the wordsmith Margot imagined. He’s all sharp edges, intent on retrieving the relic for all the wrong reasons. But it takes two to survive Venus’s death-defying challenges, and, together, Margot and Van must excavate the treasure—and their buried pasts—before their story ends in ruins.

With a blend of humor, magic, and love, Rachel Moore crafts another stand-alone adventure rom-com full of double- and triple-crosses, hilarious shenanigans, and frustration-fueled banter, where the best treasure is true love.

My Review:

I went into this book after reading Rachel Moore’s other book, Library of Shadows, which I enjoyed but I didn’t love it so I was already hesitant about reading this one.
I will be honest, the first half was not my cup of tea. It took a while to get into the action and the main girl, Margot, isn’t that likeable. But, in the second half of the book Margot gets a lot of character growth, and so does Van – who I spent the whole novel, up to the last moment, questioning his motives and not fully trusting him which I think was the author’s intent. Overall, I liked the mystery of the book and I especially liked the atmosphere of being surrounded by classic architecture and the locations they visited, the mythology that everything centered on, that was all great. I did not love the ending, it was very sudden and I almost wish it had ended one or two chapters before it did, I think that would have been more poignant as an ending.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews

Library Of Shadows by Rachel Moore book review

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Happy Friday bookish people! I hope you’re having a lovely day today. Today, I am bringing you my book review for Library of Shadows by Rachel Moore.

I hadn’t heard much, or anything actually, about this book before I got it, but I had seen the cover on a couple of people’s bookshelves and well, it had the word library in the title so I was intrigued about this book.

Blurb/synopsis:

Radcliffe Prep. The third most haunted school in the country, where a student disappearance isn’t uncommon and no one dares stay in the library after dark. And Este Logano enrolls with the hopes of finding her dead father.

Not literally, of course. She doesn’t believe in ghosts. Going to her dad’s school just seems like her best hope at figuring out who he was.

But then Este meets Mateo, who is maybe—probably—definitely—a real ghost. And an annoying one at that.

When Mateo frames Este for the theft of a rare book from the library’s secret spire and then vanishes, Este will have to track him down or risk being expelled and leaving Radcliffe early just like her father did.

Except following her father’s footsteps might be more dangerous than Este ever anticipated. As she investigates the library with its secret passageways, hidden tunnels, and haunted halls, she learns that the student disappearances aren’t just myth. And if she isn’t careful, she’ll be next.

My review:

A book about a library and a ghost. What more could you want.

I will say that this book is YA and it feels geared towards the younger end of the YA spectrum, it felt a little bit too young for me while reading it however, the story itself was very interesting. There was a complex, developed plot that does keep you gripped even if the twists are a bit predictable. I enjoyed the characters, both the two main characters Mateo and Este and the secondary characters held their own against them. I think this book was a quick, enjoyable read, I’m not sure it’s a book I will read again but I am glad that I read it.

Monthly Wrap Ups

May Wrap Up!

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Happy Monday bookish people! I hope you’re all having a lovely day today. It is the end of June. I honestly don’t know where this month went. I have been so busy trying to meet my PhD deadlines that the month has flown by. How has the month been for all of you?

I did manage to read a bit this month, not as much as last month but I got through some pretty good books and I did manage to finish my TBR so I’m happy with that.

From my TBR I read:

  • The Ballad Of Never After by Stephanie Garber – I enjoyed this book a lot more than Once Upon A Broken Heart so I’m glad about that because I loved her Caraval series then when I wasn’t sure on Once Upon A Broken Heart I was worried, but unnecessarily because the second book was much better.
  • Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas – I finally got around to reading this book after far too long. I have to say the first half of the book was dragging a little bit but once the action started kicking in I was more intrigued, and I got sucked into the story and I can’t wait to keep going with the next book in the series. I will be posting a book review on the 23rd June.
  • Library Of Shadows by Rachel Moore – I wasn’t sure about this book going into it but I was pleasantly surprised. If you want to see all my thoughts about this book I will be posting a book review on the 13th June.
  • The Murder Hypothesis – again, another book that I wasn’t sure about when I picked it up but I thought it was good, for a YA mystery it was intriguing, nothing overly special or groundbreaking but an enjoyable read.
  • The Secret Service of Tea and Treason by India Holton – another book that has been on my shelf for a while that I have been meaning to get to, and of course I loved it. It was actually in line for my favourite book of the month, it just missed out on that accolade.
  • In Want of A Suspect by Tirzah Price – the continuation of Lizzie and Darcy’s story that started in Pride and Premeditation. I loved the first book, it was one of my favourite books that I read in that year, and this second book was just as good, I have to say that the romance in this novel wasn’t quite as good as in the first book in my opinion but it was still good. This was my favourite read of May.

Outside of my TBR I also read: The Mysterious Affair of Styles by Agatha Christie which I was a little bit underwhelmed with, it was okay but not the best of her novels. And I also read Murder At The Charity Ball by Helena Dixon which is maybe the tenth book in the Miss Underhay series? A solidly good book all round.

So, that means this month I read 8 books which is a pretty good effort with how my month has been going. How many books did you get through this month? Which book that you read was your favourite?

Monthly TBRs

May TBR!

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Happy Monday bookish people! How are you all doing today? It is May and that means it is time to share the books I hope to read this month. May is full of all sorts of things happening so I have chosen books that I am very excited to read and I have only chosen a few so that it doesn’t feel too overwhelming. I am hoping that six will be the perfect amount.

What are you planning on reading in May?

MAY TBR:

The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber

Crown Of Midnight by Sarah J Maas

Library Of Shadows by Rachel Moore

The Murder Hypothesis by Sarah Wishart

The Secret Service of Tea And Treason by India Holton

In Want Of A Suspect by Tirzah Price