As part of our continuing week of fall and Halloween excitement, we want to know which books get your in the mood for autumn!
Sarah: A recent comment on the review I wrote for Spellbinding Love asked for more “cozy witch romances” which I realized is one of my favorite types of paranormal romances.
I’d recommend Slouch Witch by Helen Harper ( A ), and Lauren Dane’s Diablo Lake series, which is about a secret town with all kinds of paranormal creatures in it.
Elyse: I’d say The Witch of Willow Hall ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) with the warning that it contains violence to animals and suicidal ideation.
Amanda: Her Halloween Treat by Tiffany Reisz. She also has a Thanksgiving one. I like that she focused on holidays we don’t see a lot of in romance. I’m looking at you Christmas!
Two other books favorably discussed on the site are His Road Home by Anna Richland and Apples Should Be Red by Penny Watson . More Thanksgiving romances.
I’d also like to recommend Wicked Abyss by Kresley Cole ( A | BN | K | G | AB ). It’s a paranormal romance that takes place in Hell and features a magical castle and a tough heroine.
Which books help you with the changing of the seasons?
Georgette Heyer’s Venetia is set against against an unseasonal spell of hot autumn weather, an Indian summer – until the weather and the romance break!
I loved that Tiffany Reisz trilogy! It’s so sad that she only started writing for Blaze when the line was already moribund. So many Blaze books didn’t live up to what the line could have been, but that trilogy was really everything I wanted Blaze to be.
I am rereading the Wallflowers series in anticipation of Devil’s Daughter, so let us not forget It Happened One Autumn, by Lisa Kleypas.
(Which is followed by Devil in Winter, one of my favorite romances of all time, but I will not skip autumn just to get to impulse winter marriages to shameless rakes.)
Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic and the movie made from it might fit.
@Todd: Oh, yes! What a great suggestion. I think I need to rewatch the movie soon.
I want to say that a couple of Penny Reid’s Winston Brothers books are very autumny.
@Lara you just inspired me to get the whole Wallflowers series from my library. It’s been a while since I did a reread!
IIRC Olivia Miles’ Briar Creek series (contemp romance) has various seasonal settings.
There clearly aren’t enough romances set in the fall! I mean apple orchards and wagon rides and trips to see the colours – perfect setting for some meet-cutes!
Diana Gabaldon’s Drums of Autumn of course. Ready for the new season too! I didn’t know they had so much fall foliage in Scotland because it’s all over the trailer scenes. Perhaps they painted some leaves?
We don’t really have autumn in Texas but I’m open to reading about it!
I feel like the Survivors’ series by Mary Balogh has some great seasonality but I’m blanking on which books are set when. I love how good a job Balogh does of capturing shifts in lives and seasons.
A Summer Campaign by Carla Kelly covers the summer but the shift into fall and harvest season is a major part of the end and one of my personal favorites.
I know there must be others by favorite authors but this is what I can think of at the moment.
My favorite autumn-set romance is “The Perilous Gard” by Elizabeth Marie Pope. It’s a YA historical fantasy retelling of the Tam Lin legend, set in Tudor England. The story unfolds over months, but the climax takes place on Halloween. I can’t read or watch anything truly scary, so Tam Lin is my Halloween thing.
If we’re talking light and witchcraft and autumn, then I’ll recommend Lucy March’s Nordaway Falls books starting with A Little Night Magic. Iread them a few years back and found them entertaining.
Also, The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes an anthology with stories by Anne Stuart, Jennifer Crusie & Eileen Dryer. Perfect for this time of year.
I’m going to be watching this thread because I can’t think of a single autumn romance novel.
I am binging Hallmark Channel Autumn Harvest movies—Pumpkin Pie Wars is saved on my DVR to watch year round. I can’t remember the name off the top of my head, but there’s one with Len Liley from Days of Our Lives and Ryan Paevy from General Hospital, and it was so cute (also made me wonder what GH’s Maxie and Nathan would have been like had Kirsten Storms not come back as Jen Lilley played that role for nearly a year while Storms was having health issues.
All of the Good Witch movies are great too, although l’m still annoyed that they killed off the hero in order to do the tv show.
Coazy witch romance: Tanya Huff has a trilogy starting with Summon the Keeper. Set in Canada, the heroine has magical powers she has to use to close the hole to hell that has been opened in the basement of a bed and breakfast, there is home renovation, there is a grumpy magical talking cat. There is a romance, but it gets a little complicated with a sexy ghost.
Yasmine Galenorn’s Bewitching Bedlam series has a bit more violence/action than your average cost but it mostly fits the “cozy witch” category with its small town setting and witchy romance. And it has a pet who is a cat/jinn hybrid.
Yasmine Galenorn’s Bewitching Bedlam series has a bit more violence/action than your average cozy book but it mostly fits the “cozy witch” category with its small town setting and witchy romance. And it has a pet who is a cat/jinn hybrid.
I always think of Bittersweet by Sarina Bowen as an autumn romance, although it probably starts late in the summer, then stretches into fall. The setting includes the grumpy hero’s Vermont apple farm and he’s raising certain specific varietals to make award winning apple cider. Bonus – it’s free right now.
Another series with a Halloween vibe is Kristen Painter’s Nocturne Falls series. The first book is The Vampire’s Mail Order Bride (title is a bit hokey, but the book was enjoyable). The idea behind this series is that Nocturne Falls is known to tourists as being a place where Halloween is celebrated year-round. What the tourists don’t know is that this is a cover story to allow various supernaturals to live more or less out in the open. In addition to the books that Kristen wrote, this is a Kindle Worlds series and so there are also a bunch of spin-off novellas by different authors all using the same setting.
Dance Upon the Air, which is the first in Nora Roberts’ witches trilogy, starts in early summer but a lot of the action takes place in the run-up to Halloween. The book is one of my favorites despite straight-up stealing the plot of Sleeping with the Enemy and adding magic.
Janet Evanovich’s “Thanksgiving” set in Williamsburg,Va.
I read CL Polk’s Witchmark a few weeks ago and it was such a wonderful witchy story. Miles and Tristan are drawn together because of a murder and team up to solve the mystery and a lovely love story emerged as a result. It’s book one in a series and I’m really looking forward to seeing how she develops it.
The Kitchen Witch by Annette Blair is a funny Halloween romance that takes place in Salem MA. And the Donovan trilogy by La Nora is witches out of Carmel CA. The very first shapeshifter story I read was a novella connected to that trilogy, he turned into a big black dog.
Seconding Witchmark by CL Polk! There’s a chase scene on bicycle!
Cosy witches – a category I didn’t know existed, but I’m a fan of.
Seconding Kristen Painter’s Nocturne Falls series – they are just a bit crazy, but very enjoyable.
Three favorites to add:
Some Practical Magic by Laurie C. Kuna – The author of the “Kitchen Witch” who is really a witch goes on a book tour.
Witch for Hire by N.E. Connelly – A witch who consults with the police department.
Under Witch Moon by Maria Schneider – A witch in Santa Fe who gets involved with werewolves, shamans, and various other types.
@Scifigirl1986 I just watched “Pumpkin Pie Wars” earlier this week and really liked it. Much better that “Truly, Madly, Sweetly” in which the heroine teaches everyone to bake to retail standards overnight :eyeroll:. “Falling for You” is waiting on the DVR.
My mom and I call them “Smug Witch” movies and were both very annoyed they killed Jake and didn’t even bother to explain it very well!
@Leigh Kramer, Witchmark didn’t sound like my cup of tea at all but it’s in my top 5 reads of the year.
Shirley Damsgaard’s Ophelia & Abby cozy series is witchy and, well, cozy. Cherie Priest’s Maplecroft is the first in her series reimagining Lizzie Borden with Lovecraftian horror and a bit of f/f romance. The YA series Sweep is about Wiccans with real powers who must Stop Evil, and my favorite witch-themed comfort read of all time is the children’s book What the Witch Left by Ruth Chew, featuring a Thanksgiving play gone terribly wrong.
Victoria Dahl’s “Talk Dirty to Me”. Takes place in the fall in the Rockies.
Debora Geary wrote a really lovely, inclusive series of cozy witches books. (The one about a neurodivergent witch really stuck out for me.) (She writes as Audrey Faye now.)
I would describe Daisy Prescott’s Bewitched novella series as cozy. She has begun a follow-up series with the same characters called Wicked Society. I believe that the first book in that series is now available.
They are set in Salem, MA and feature college students who have magical powers and are drawn into some intrigue. The protagonist in the Bewitched series only discovers her powers as she becomes romantically involved with another student. There’s a fated mates trope at work here, if that’s your catnip.
My favourite witchcraft series is the Drake Sisters series by Christine Feehan. Seven books, seven sisters with individual powers each fall in love and work towards fighting a common evil. American Gothic house, Magical, and sexy!
I really like academic-themed books for autumn. Something about the smell of old books…! So, Deborah Harkness’ All Souls Trilogy is seasonally appropriate, as is The Lake of Dead Languages. The latter doesn’t center romance, but it does contain, inter alia, the following wonderful line: “I had a pretty good idea of the things Domina Chambers would disapprove of: sloppy Latin translations, Lipton tea, synthetic fabrics. But sex with a masked stranger in the woods? I couldn’t tell.” Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell seems to be polarizing, but I love it, and the adorable married-couple-true-love-story that runs through it like a crimson thread.
The main action of Busman’s Honeymoon, of course, begins on October 10th and is a joy and a delight and a multilingual smut-fest, but I’m sure other Sayersites on here would agree with me that you need to read at least Strong Poison and Have His Carcase first.
If you like contemporary romances with beta in the streets, alpha in the sheets, then I beg of you to please read the Men at Work trilogy by Tiffany Reisz starting with Her Halloween Treat, followed by Her Naughty Holiday which is set at Thanksgiving and the third is One Hot December covering both Hanukkah and Christmas (with a bi-sexual welder heroine). Each incorporated the holidays in a way that didn’t feel forced but just a natural part of the story.
Also the best cozy mystery I have ever read – The Big Chili by Julia Buckley – is set at Halloween. I have a very specific definition of cozy – contemporary, small-town with an amateur sleuth who has an occupation other than police or private detective. It was very well written and I felt like the MC asked a lot of questions and listened a lot without crossing over into full blown investigation or even worse tampering with evidence (I read a cozy where the MC contaminates one piece of evidence and hides an important piece of evidence – no thanks). I am looking forward to reading the second in the series Cheddar Off Dead in December as it is set at Christmas.
Finally, some of my favorite historical mystery series give me that cozy fall feeling (whether the actual book in the series is set in the fall or not): the Charles Lenox series by Charles Finch set in Victorian London, the Westerman/Crowther series set in late 18th century England by Imogen Robertson, the Flavia de Luce series set in post WW-II England by Alan Bradley.
Katie C., I’ve read the first 3 Julia Buckley mysteries, and they’re all excellent.
Seconding Sarina Bowen’s True North series centered around Vermont, cider, farming, cooking, pubs, and love. Bittersweet, Steadfast, Keepsake, Bountiful, Speakeasy, with Fireworks coming out soon.
I forgot to mention earlier my favorite witch series about the Gale women by Tanya Huff. It’s set in modern Canada and many of the pivotal moments take place on the solstice and equinox celebrations. The Gale family is unusual and rather amoral being very much in the “nature of things” sort of witchiness. I love that it is so female-centered (although the males of the family have power too), the musical elements, and the dragons. A warning might be needed for some events which could be viewed as incestuous and polyamorous (cousins get along REALLY well here). The books are The Enchantment Emporium, The Wild Ways, and The Future Falls. Urban romantic witch fantasy?? It’s hard to characterize, but really well written.
@Cassandra, thanks for mentioning the Enchantment Emporium series by Tanya Huff. I love that series so much. It never gets mentioned much in UF because it’s hard to characterize but I stumbled across it and after I was done, I just wished I could find more books like it.
@JenM, yes I was struggling on how to describe it. It’s very unique although I do see some elements of her Keeper books (which I also love). She does powerful women and the ones who love them beautifully.