Happy Pumpkin Spice Season Dahlings. I feel good, the air is crisper, my days seem to be lasting longer and life is exactly as it should be. But how about a bit of Autumn adventure? A book will take you on the perfect adventure—so today I am sharing cozy books to get wrapped up in this Autumn.
It has been a while since I have shared a reading list but we are in Autumn and Autumn demands being wrapped in a cozy knitted blanket, with a stack of exciting books.
So grab yourself a pumpkin spice latte [or tea, or wine], curl up on your sofa and get cozy with one of these perfect Autumn reads.
Here are twenty-eight Cozy Books to get wrapped up in this Autumn.
WITCHFUL THINKING
Celestine Martin: Witchful Thinking
This is a fabulous cozy book that you will not want to put down. Set in a small town, Witchful Thinking is about Lucinda Caraway who loves living in Freya Grove, the mystic seaside town where charms, hexes, and magical beings of all kinds are the norm. She has a good life . . . but she can not stop wishing for more. Until one night, that wish turns into a spell, and suddenly Lucy can not say no.
A GHOST IN SHINING ARMOR
Therese Beharrie: A Ghost in Shining Armor
A cozy Autumn romance at its best. I am excited to read this one—it is going with me when I travel at the end of the month. I read And They Lived Happily Ever After, but A Ghost in Shining Armor is a new release and expands her magical universe. A woman with a supernatural talent is haunted by one persistent spirit—and a seductive, impossible love.
FLOWERHEART
Catherine Bakewell: Flowerheart
This is on my list and should be on yours as well. The novel is about Cara, a girl whose magical powers have always been wild but never dangerous. Then with a simple touch, she causes poisonous flowers to bloom from her father’s chest, the only way to heal him is to learn how to control her magic.
THE CHARMED LIST: A NOVEL
Julie Abe: The Charmed List: A Novel
Falling in Love is magical but sometimes we need a little magic to get there. Shy girl, Ellie Kobata is determined to have a life-changing summer and there are thirteen things she wants to check off on her list. But her former best friend Jack Yasuda tags along on a road trip to a magical convention and everything goes wrong.
THAT TIME I GOT DRUNK AND YEETED A LOVE POTION AT A WEREWOLF
Kimberly Lemming: That Time I Got Drunk And Yeeted A Love Potion At A Werewolf: Mead Mishaps Book Two
Has anyone else ever thrown a drink at someone’s head, only to miss entirely and hit a stranger behind them? Then have that stranger fall madly in love with you because it turned out that drink you threw was a love potion? No, just me? Well damn. This cozy fantasy genre provides laughter and a deep magical connection.
THE VERY SECRET SOCIETY OF IRREGULAR WITCHES
Sangu Mandanna: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
Laughter, tears, magic and wonder all wrapped up in the perfect Autumn bow. Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she is used to being alone and she follows the rules…with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos “pretending” to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously. But someone does.
THE UNDERTAKING OF HART AND MERCY
Megan Bannen: The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy
This quirky, unique fantasy is set in a world full of magic and demigods, donuts and small-town drama. Hart is a marshal, tasked with patrolling the strange and magical wilds of Tanria. It is an unforgiving job, and Hart’s got nothing but time to ponder his loneliness.
Mercy never has a moment to herself. She has been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest. Hart finds himself penning a letter addressed simply to “A Friend”. Much to his surprise, an anonymous letter comes back in return, and a tentative friendship is born.
But Hart is baring his soul to the person who infuriates him most—Mercy.
THE EX HEX: A NOVEL
Erin Sterling: The Ex Hex: A Novel
Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows she should not use her magic this way, but with only an “orchard hayride” scented candle on hand, she is not worried it will cause him anything more than a bad hair day or two.
What harm could it do? As it turns out, quite a bit. When Rhys returns to Graves Glen for what should be a quick trip, everything goes horribly wrong.
NORA GOES OFF SCRIPT
Annabel Monaghan: Nora Goes Off Script
When romance screenwriter Nora’s husband leaves her and their two children, the heartbreak turns into the best script of Nora’s life. No one is more surprised than her when it is picked up for the big screen and set to film on location at her 100-year-old-home. When former Sexiest Man Alive, Leo Vance, is cast as her ne’er do well husband Nora’s life will never be the same.
HALF A SOUL
Olivia Atwater: Half a Soul
It is difficult to find a husband in Regency England when you are a young lady with only half a soul. Theodora Ettings has been cursed by a faerie, making her immune to feeling fear or embarrassment—an unfortunate condition that leaves her prone to accidental scandal. Dora hopes to be a quiet, sensible wallflower during the London Season—but when Elias Wilder, the strange, handsome, and utterly ill-mannered Lord Sorcier, discovers her condition, she is instead drawn into peculiar and dangerous faerie affairs.
THE BOOKSHOP ON THE CORNER: A NOVEL
Jenny Colgan: The Bookshop on the Corner: A Novel
Until yesterday, Nina was a literary matchmaker, pairing readers with their perfect book. When she loses the job she loves, she becomes determined to make a new life for herself—Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile—a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling.
BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD: A NOVEL
Toshikazu Kawaguchi: Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Novel
This mysterious yet heartwarming read gives a glimpse toward the chance of time travel to explore the possibility of revisiting the past. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel is not so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most importantly, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.
THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE
V. E. Schwab: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
A young woman named Addie LaRue makes a bargain to gain immortality, which is met with a curse to be forgotten by those she meets—that is, until a young man remembers her name. But everything changes when, after nearly three hundred years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
PRACTICAL MAGIC
Alice Hoffman: Practical Magic
This book is part of a four part series—I am currently reading book four but I almost always reread the book Practical Magic every year.
Who does not like Spooky surprises, cozy romance and the unbreakable bond of sisterhood. For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at.
But Gillian and Sally wanted to escape. One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic.
THE HERO OF THIS BOOK: A NOVEL
Elizabeth McCracken: The Hero of This Book: A Novel
What reads like a memoir of a woman’s beloved mother is a novel and a well anticipated one. Ten months after her mother’s death, the narrator of The Hero of This Book takes a trip to London. The city was a favorite of her mother’s, and as the narrator wanders the streets, she finds herself reflecting on her mother’s life and their relationship.
Thoughts of the past meld with questions of the future: Back in New England, the family home is now up for sale, its considerable contents already winnowed. She recalls all that made her complicated mother extraordinary—her brilliant wit, her generosity, her unbelievable obstinacy, her sheer will in seizing life despite physical difficulties—and finds herself wondering how her mother had endured.
CAT BRUSHING
Jane Campbell: Cat Brushing
A provocative debut by Jane Campbell, vigorously explores the sensual worlds of thirteen older women, unearthing their passions, libidinal appetites, integrity, and sense of self as they fight against prevalent misconceptions and stereotypes of aging.
If you were expecting an 80-year-old collection of stories to be mild, think again this book is spicy and fabulous in a good way.
SWEET, SOFT, PLENTY RHYTHM: A NOVEL
Laura Warrell: Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm: A Novel
It is 2013, and Circus Palmer is a forty-year-old Boston-based trumpet player and old-school ladies’ man. Palmer lives for his music and refuses to be tied down. Before a gig in Miami, he learns that the woman who is secretly closest to his heart, the free-spirited drummer Maggie, is pregnant by him. Instead of facing the necessary conversation. Circus flees, setting off a chain of interlocking revelations from the various women in his life.
Most notable among them is his teenage daughter, Koko. Who idolizes him and is awakening to her own sexuality even as her mentally fragile mother struggles to overcome her long-failed marriage and rejection by Circus.
AUTUMN: A NOVEL
Ali Smith: Autumn: A Novel
Autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Two old friends—Daniel, a centenarian, and Elisabeth, born in 1984—look to both the future and the past as the United Kingdom stands divided by a historic, once-in-a-generation summer. Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand-in-hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever.
MIDNIGHT AT THE BLACKBIRD CAFE: A NOVEL
Heather Webber: Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe: A Novel
Cozy and fantasy just seem to go together especially when there are elements of magical realism. Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café.
It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate. But despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago. And the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t stop talking about.
WHAT’S LEFT UNSAID: A NOVEL
Emily Bleeker: What’s Left Unsaid: A Novel
The story follows Hannah Williamson who just left her job as a journalist in Chicago. And moved to a sleepy village in Mississippi to look after her grandmother. As she endured a job at a small newspaper Hannah discovers a compelling distraction from her life. A series of rejected articles from the 1930s that illuminate a long-hidden mystery.
BEAUTIFUL WORLD, WHERE ARE YOU: A NOVEL
Sally Rooney: Beautiful World, Where Are You: A Novel
Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse. And asks him if he would like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up. And slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.
THE BAKESHOP AT PUMPKIN AND SPICE
Donna Kauffman, Kate Angell, Allyson Charles: The Bakeshop at Pumpkin and Spice
A collection of three short stories, each one centered around a charming little bakery in Maine. Bellaluna’s Bakeshop, a family business steeped in traditional recipes, welcoming warmth—and, legend has it, truly spellbinding, heart-melting treats.
Between good-natured Halloween tricks, frothy pumpkin lattes, and some very special baked goods for three Moonbright residents looking for love. Whether they know it or not—the spookiest thing will be how magical romance can suddenly be.
EIGHT PERFECT HOURS: A NOVEL
Lia Louis: Eight Perfect Hours: A Novel
On a snowy evening in March, thirty-something Noelle Butterby is on her way back from an event at her old college. When disaster strikes. With a blizzard closing off roads, she finds herself stranded. She is alone in her car, without food, drink, or a working charger for her phone.
All seems lost until Sam Attwood, a handsome American stranger also trapped in a nearby car, knocks on her window and offers assistance. What follows is eight perfect hours together, until morning arrives and the roads finally clear. The two strangers part, positive they’ll never see each other again but fate, it seems, has a different plan. As the two keep serendipitously bumping into one another. They begin to realize that perhaps there truly is no such thing as coincidence.
When it comes to reading I am a creature of habit—I stick to the genres I enjoy. They may be a bit boring to others but they feed my soul. But in 2021 I decided to add a lighter side to my reading choices. But only for the last six months of the year. As a way to get past the overwhelming stress and sadness I felt. And so I added a few easy, feel good romances, Fantasy, cozy middle grades and mystery to my To Be Read [TBR] to my list. And I did it again this year. Most of this article features the mysterious, and feel-good kind of reads. Which has served as the perfect way to lighten my soul. But we have got to get a bit deep Dahlings. And that is what this part of the reading list is about. Depth.
THE CIDER HOUSE RULES
John Irving: The Cider House Rules
It was nice to re-read this American classic first published in 1985 by William Morrow and adapted into an Academy Award-winning film, The Cider House Rules is among John Irving’s most beloved novels.
Set in rural Maine in the first half of the twentieth century, it tells the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch—saint and obstetrician, founder and director of the orphanage in the town of St. Cloud’s, ether addict and abortionist. It is also the story of Dr. Larch’s favorite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted.
THE ORIGIN OF OTHERS
Toni Morrison: The Origin of Others
Incredible work by beloved Toni Morrison. What is race and why does it matter? Why does the presence of Others make us so afraid? America’s foremost novelist reflects on themes that preoccupy her work and dominate politics: race, fear, borders, mass movement of peoples, desire for belonging.
HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES
Carmen Maria Machado: Her Body and Other Parties
Narratives of Her Body and Other Parties hover between the realms of horror, science fiction, psychological realism, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism.
Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.
A SPARK OF LIGHT: A NOVEL
Jodi Picoult: A Spark of Light: A Novel
Picoult’s newest book unfolds on a seemingly ordinary day at a women’s reproductive and health services clinic, when without warning, a gunman violently enters the building, taking all within its confines hostages.
After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.
THE PAST LIFE PERSPECTIVE
Ann Barham: The Past Life Perspective
A unique, insightful, and practical look into the enormous power of past life regression therapy to unlock a healing pathway that can help you resolve enduring personal issues, enrich your life, and answer burning spiritual questions about your purpose on this earth.
In this rare and fascinating intimate glimpse at past life regression therapy, licensed therapist Ann Barham invites us into her office as she helps her clients mine their unconscious memories for the key past life experiences that can provide specific guidance for their current situations. No longer simply the stuff of new age practitioners, past life regression therapy is a powerful tool that can improve your understanding of your personal challenges and deepen your connection with the world around you. Barham demystifies this intriguing phenomenon, sharing her client’s astounding stories, each a clue to the profound influence the personalities of the past have on our thoughts and actions today.
I have not read everything on this list but I have purchased most of them and they are my TBR list—I am slowly working my way through them. If you have read any of these books I would like to hear about your experience.
Happy reading Dahlings
