My autumn TBR list

Yes, this one was technically a Top Ten Tuesday post, but I hadn’t quite finished it and didn’t have time to do it last night as I went out with my dad and then needed to pack for my long weekend away in Budapest!

So I’ve decided to do the blog post now instead, as I loved the topic of it so much! This is my Autumn TBR list.

Synopsis: Sam James has spent years carefully crafting her reputation as the best psychologist at Typhlos, Manhattan’s most challenging psychiatric institution. She boasts the highest success rates with the most disturbed patients, believing if she can’t save herself, she’ll save someone else. It’s this savior complex that serves her well in helping patients battle their inner demons, though it leads Sam down some dark paths and opens her eyes to her own mental turmoil.

When Richard, a mysterious patient no other therapist wants to treat, is admitted to Typhlos, Sam is determined to unlock his secrets and his psyche. What she can’t figure out is why does Richard appear to be so completely normal in a hospital filled with madness? And what, really, is he doing at the institution? As Sam gets pulled into Richard’s twisted past, she can’t help but analyze her own life, and what she discovers terrifies her. And so the mind games begin. But who is the savior and who is the saved?

I’ve seen a mixed bag of reviews for this one, but I’m personally very excited about it. I like mind game kinda books and this sounds like just that.

I am a little worried as some people have said the writing is very simplistic and I normally hate that, but we’ll see! It’s a thick ‘ol book so I hope I can get through it.

Synopsis: One balmy June evening in 1881, Phoebe Stanbury stands before the guests at her engagement party: this is her moment, when she will join the renowned Raycraft family and ascend to polite society.

As she takes her fiancé’s hand, a stranger holding a knife steps forward and ends the poor girl’s life. Amid the chaos, he turns to her aristocratic groom and mouths: ‘I promised I would save you.’

The following morning, just a few miles away, timid young legal clerk William Lamb meets a reclusive client. He finds the old man terrified and in desperate need of aid: William must keep safe a small casket of yellowing papers, and deliver an enigmatic message: The Finder knows.

I’ve been anticipating this book for a while and when Nick sent me a link to get a physical arc, I was super excited. It arrived not to long ago and it’s soooo pretty. I hope the inside is just as nice as the outside… and if not, at least it will look pretty on my shelf!

Synopsis: Oliver Ryan, handsome, charismatic, and successful, has long been married to his devoted wife, Alice. Together they write and illustrate award-winning children’s books; their life together one of enviable privilege and ease—until, one evening after a delightful dinner, Oliver delivers a blow to Alice that renders her unconscious, and subsequently beats her into a coma.

In the aftermath of such an unthinkable event, as Alice hovers between life and death, the couple’s friends, neighbors, and acquaintances try to understand what could have driven Oliver to commit such a horrific act. As his story unfolds, layers are peeled away to reveal a life of shame, envy, deception, and masterful manipulation.

Ali @The Sunday Feeling was such a doll and sent me this novel after knowing how much I wanted to read it! I’m really looking forward to this one, after seeing it on Netgalley a few months ago for the US publication. I’m not usually into domestic thrillers but this sounds so mysterious and dark.

I’m going for a long weekend in Budapest from tomorrow and I’ve decided to bring this one as my book for the plane!

Synopsis: Matrona lives in an isolated village, where her life is centered on pleasing her parents. She’s diligent in her chores and has agreed to marry a man of their choosing. But a visit to Slava, the local tradesman, threatens to upend her entire life.

Entering his empty house, Matrona discovers a strange collection of painted nesting dolls—one for every villager. Fascinated, she can’t resist the urge to open the doll with her father’s face. But when her father begins acting strangely, she realizes Slava’s dolls are much more than they seem.

When he learns what she’s done, Slava seizes the opportunity to give Matrona stewardship over the dolls—whether she wants it or not. Forced to open one of her own dolls every three days, she falls deeper into the grim power of Slava’s creations. But nothing can prepare her for the profound secret hiding inside the fifth doll.

I was lucky enough to receive this novel straight from the publishers and I haven’t read it yet! I’m not huge on sci-fi, but this sounds like a thriller-horror-sci-fi… I’m excited to read it, I hope it’s just as good as I’ve bigged it up to be in my head lol.

I’m also going to take this one away with me, as Unravelling Oliver is short little book and I might finish it on the way there, or during any time time while I’m out there, so I want a book to read on the way back!

Synopsis: When a battered suitcase containing the dismembered body of a young man washes up on the shore of the river Thames, Detective Erika Foster is shocked. She’s worked on some terrifying cases but never seen anything like this before.

As Erika and her team set to work, she makes the link with another victim – the body of a young woman dumped in an identical suitcase two weeks ago.

Erika quickly realises she’s on the trail of a serial killer who’s already made their next move. Yet just as Erika starts to make headway with the investigation, she is the victim of a brutal attack.

But nothing will stop Erika. As the body count rises, the twin daughters of her colleague Commander Marsh are abducted, and the stakes are higher than ever before. Can Erika save the lives of two innocent children before it’s too late? She’s running out of time and about to make a disturbing discovery…there’s more than one killer.

Although I was disappointed by the last addition to the Erika Foster series I still want to carry on with it. I’m hoping this one will relight my love for the series…

Synopsis: Newly married, newly widowed Elsie is sent to see out her pregnancy at her late husband’s crumbling country estate, The Bridge.

With her new servants resentful and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie only has her husband’s awkward cousin for company. Or so she thinks. But inside her new home lies a locked room, and beyond that door lies a two-hundred-year-old diary and a deeply unsettling painted wooden figure – a Silent Companion – that bears a striking resemblance to Elsie herself…

This is one of those books that I’ve been wanting to read for such a long time, that I’d actually forgotten what it’s about… Now I know, and I’m still just as excited to read it! Plus, let’s just take a minute to admire the cover art…

Synopsis: In the wake of World War I in the small, Southern town of Bellhaven, South Carolina, the town folk believe they’ve found a little slice of heaven in a mysterious chapel in the woods. But they soon realize that evil can come in the most beautiful of forms.

The people of Bellhaven have always looked to Ellsworth Newberry for guidance, but after losing his wife and his future as a professional pitcher, he is moments away from testing his mortality once and for all. Until he finally takes notice of the changes in his town . . . and the cardinals that have returned.

Upon the discovery of a small chapel deep in the Bellhaven woods, healing seems to fall upon the townspeople, bringing peace after several years of mourning. But as they visit the “healing floor” more frequently, the people begin to turn on one another, and the unusually tolerant town becomes anything but.

The cracks between the natural and supernatural begin to widen, and tensions rise. Before the town crumbles, Ellsworth must pull himself from the brink of suicide, overcome his demons, and face the truth of who he was born to be by leading the town into the woods to face the evil threatening Bellhaven.

I love historical fiction!! This one sounds so intense and I LOVE the cover. I have this on Kindle but I’ve also preorderd this one because I love the cover so much. I might just wait until Feb next year to read this one becuse I think I’ll enjoy it more in physical format.

Synopsis: The Breakstone family arrange themselves around their daughter Heather, and the world seems to follow: beautiful, compassionate, entrancing, she is the greatest blessing in their lives of Manhattan luxury. But as Heather grows – and her empathy sharpens to a point, and her radiance attracts more and more dark interest – their perfect existence starts to fracture. Meanwhile a very different life, one raised in poverty and in violence, is beginning its own malign orbit around Heather. 

So this one is getting awful reviews. I was so looking forward to it so it’s bummer to see everyone saying it’s generic, boring and flat. I still need to read it though, we’ll see how it goes.

Synopsis: What if a tiny, shadow elite rule the world from a secret room? In Them Jon Ronson sets out to find this room, with the help of the extremists – Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen – that believe in it. Along the way, he is chased by men in dark glasses, unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp, and witnesses international CEOs and politicians participate in a bizarre pagan ritual in the forests of northern California.

My mum recently purchased this book and after reading the synopsis I knew I wanted to read it. I love Jon Ronson’s writing style and the way he presents the topics he’s talking about so I think this one will go down a treat! I also need to consume a non-fic again soon, I feel a bit empty when I don’t read one for a while.

Synopsis: Amid the worst drought to ravage Australia in a century, it hasn’t rained in small country town Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the community become unbearable when three members of the Hadler family are brutally murdered. Everyone thinks Luke Hadler, who committed suicide after slaughtering his wife and six-year-old son, is guilty.

Policeman Aaron Falk returns to the town of his youth for the funeral of his childhood best friend, and is unwillingly drawn into the investigation. As questions mount and suspicion spreads through the town, Falk is forced to confront the community that rejected him twenty years earlier. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret, one which Luke’s death threatens to unearth. And as Falk probes deeper into the killings, secrets from his past and why he left home bubble to the surface as he questions the truth of his friend’s crime.

After receiving a duplicate copy of this book in my Book and Brew box it sparked my want to read this book. I’ve had it sat on the shelf for such a long time that I basically forgot about it, but it’s at the centre of my attention again now, so I wwant to try and read it soon!

There we have it! Those are my top books for this Autumn’s TBR… not that I ever follow my TBR list, it’s just a rough guideline… a very rough guideline!

What books are you planning on reading in the coming months?