October Reading Favourites

I'm a big fan of T. Kingfisher, and I stayed up late to finish her most recent release. More inspired by Snow White than a retelling, this is about the poison expert who's asked to help the poisoned Snow, but what's really going on is nothing anyone could have expected. This has all the hallmarks of Kingfisher's writing - an oddball FMC in her 30s, a unique premise, some horror elements, and a compelling romance subplot. And This might be my favourite combination yet! 

YA horror that blew me away. It has dual timelines ten years apart, about Daisy facing an evil house, and Brittany investigating what happened to her. I loved how the haunted house story intertwined with complex mother-daughter relationships, forgotten Black girls, and friendships.

And as a side note, it was so nice to have a book set in Canada and dropping so many Canadian references!

This is a memoir written in the form of letters from the author to her son, from whom she's been separated. Homeira is an Afghan woman who tells her story of growing up during the rise of the Taliban.  Her story is wild, especially because you can see how she thought everything she experienced was so normal since that's how she grew up. This book shows how growing up in that kind of environment and hearing those messages about women can influence someone's mind, but also how some people have been fighting against it their whole lives. She's an inspiring woman, and I wish the book had gone more into her activism work!

This is a historical-mystery-romance, about a police detective who meets a one-handed graphologist, someone who reads handwriting and is able to glean a lot about the writer's character. Although he's initially skeptical, they get to know each other until they're pulled together in a case that involves police corruption. I was equally invested in the mystery and Aaron's reckoning with his career as I was in the romance between two men when you could get arrested if caught. This is just so fun, but also contains sharp commentary. Each man feels fully-realized, and I love that they have long conversations about ideas and their work as their feelings build, which is what I find truly romantic. And the mystery was genuinely compelling with high stakes, so felt on even ground with the romance.

Another dual timeline book, about two children locked in the same attic decades apart. Dikembe is taken from his home in the Congo to be the companion of a British man, but soon is forced to become an unpaid servant. Lowra suffers under the neglect of her stepmother, and as an adult decides to uncover the truth behind the house she grew up in and the items she found in the attic.

This book tells a powerful story of colonialism, racism, and trauma, and so there is a lot of heaviness in this book. But it's also about deciding how you want to live your life despite what others have decided for you, and taught me lessons I won't forget.