Did you get this 2x I AM SORRY mistakes were made and it’s just me over here. Please don’t go.

Meanwhile… Playing the Witch Card is finding its place in the world (If you have not yet bought one for you and one for everyone else you know do so HERE) and thus it is time to discuss… OTHER WITCHY/FALL READS.

This week: Part one of … who knows? I have a #tbr of witchy books that’s growing daily (although the holiday books have just begun a similar pile, so I may have reached the end of witchy acquisitions). Without further ado, the books! (Vamos al grano!)

For fans of Such Sharp Teeth or Mexican Gothic: The Witches of Bone Hill, a slightly lighter-hearted but equally creepy story of making a fragile peace with magic gone terribly awry with a nice little love story tucked in there just for fun.

For Taylor Jenkins Reid fans, Acts of Violet, about a magician who disappears during her final performance and whose magic just may not be entirely staged and the sister who both hates her and has never stopped looking for her. Honest side note: for me, this tried to hard to make the magical elements of the story “possible”—an authorial urge that I totally relate to—but I wholeheartedly enjoyed the story and I think you will to. (Plus, paperback! Or very library-friendly, as it’s not new this year and there’s probably no wait.)

Want Ninth House vibes? Ink Blood Sister Scribe, I read this over the summer—cheating! Not October at all! but I loved it so much I can’t leave it off my first witchy list—although these characters don’t identify as witches, but more as librarians and creators of some extremely magic spell books. One sister has the job of tending the library that killed her father, the other has been told never to return or tell her sister of her banishment. They want to know why, and so will you.

For all out pure solid witchy fun (and all the variously gendered iterations of human and not-quite-human romantic entanglement) your first stop should be Thistle Grove. In Charm’s Way is the fourth in a series that begins with Payback’s a Witch, and I think you should grab #4 if you’ve done the first three or absolutely start at the beginning as these get witchier, more complex and more delightful with each successive book and although you don’t HAVE to start with #1 you won’t be sorry. Imagine a whole book that’s the most deliciously I-Want-to-Live-There parts of the Harry Potter series and then some.

If you loved Mistborn and haven’t read Shadow and Bone, do. Or vice-versa. And if you’re at all open to fantasy and would like to entirely forget where you are for a few hours, Shadow and Bone is for you. Got more time? Mistborn, friend.

Finally, one for my Princess Bride people out there: Assistant to the Villain. It’s an oddly modern and practical (and vicious and dangerous) fairy tale world, and villains need staff, because there is paperwork to track. Benefits, hiring and, well, not firing because the Villain doesn’t just fire you, of course. Far worse. But still there are details, and also an adorable romance, and ultimately—just like The Princess Bride—what seems like silly little dollop of whipped cream froth turns out to have much more heart. Warning: it ends on a next-book-coming cliff hanger, which made me very angry for about ten minutes and then excited for what’s to come.

WHEW! That’s a lot of witchy books. Expect a lighter haul next week but there is definitely more to come. OH and PS: I’m part of a fun giveaway on Instagram this week, so head there and enter to win Playing the Witch Card, which you obviously already have, duh) but also: The Witches of Bone Hill, In Charm’s Way, Cackle and Scenes of the Crime.