5 Books To Cozy Up With In The Autumn

Autumn is the coziest season. Just cold enough to justify wearing boots and cardigans, drown ourselves in hot chocolate and burrow into a nest of blankies, but not too cold to be uncomfortable and make us hate leaving the house.

I love the changing colours, the golden sunsets, the fog and the crisp air in the morning, pumpkin spice latte, cinnamon tea, candles and cozying up with a book. Cat on the lap is optional.

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Shanah @Bionic Bookworm, and thisweek’s topic was 5 cozy fall books.

I’m not exactly sure what cozy books are. I’m thinking about those fluffy books with a feel-good, heartwarming story. Cozy mysteries maybe? I’d bet none of you thought I will list anything like that here though, and you are right.  My picks are a bit darker, but are nevertheless perfect for cozy autumn nights.

The Retreat by Mark Edwards

Spooky setting, allegedly haunted house, and a great mystery surrounding a tiny town in Wales.

Two years ago, Julia lost her family in a tragic accident. Her husband drowned trying to save their daughter, Lily, in the river near their rural home. But the little girl’s body was never found—and Julia believes Lily is somehow still alive.
Alone and broke, Julia opens her house as a writers’ retreat. One of the first guests is Lucas, a horror novelist, who becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Lily. But within days of his arrival, the peace of the retreat is shattered by a series of eerie events.
When Lucas’s investigation leads him and Julia into the woods, they discover a dark secret—a secret that someone will do anything to protect…
What really happened that day by the river? Why was Lily never found? And who, or what, is haunting the retreat?

The Silent Girls by Eric Rickstad

Steeped in atmosphere, this mystery has one of the most beuatiful autumn description I came across in a long time.

With the dead of a bitter Vermont winter closing in, evil is alive and well …
Frank Rath thought he was done with murder when he turned in his detective’s badge to become a private investigator and raise a daughter alone. Then the police in his remote rural community of Canaan find an ’89 Monte Carlo abandoned by the side of the road, and the beautiful teenage girl who owned the car seems to have disappeared without a trace.
Soon Rath’s investigation brings him face-to-face with the darkest abominations of the human soul.
With the consequences of his violent and painful past plaguing him, and young women with secrets vanishing one by one, he discovers once again that even in the smallest towns on the map, evil lurks everywhere-and no one is safe.

Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski

Another trip into the woods, and a 20 year old murder mystery. Written like a podcast, this immersive story is perfect to curl up with on cold evenings.

1997. Scarclaw Fell. The body of teenager Tom Jeffries is found at an Outward Bound center. Verdict? Misadventure. But not everyone is convinced. And the truth of what happened in the beautiful but eerie fell is locked in the memories of the tight-knit group of friends who embarked on that fateful trip, and the flimsy testimony of those living nearby.
2017. Enter elusive investigative journalist Scott King, whose podcast examinations of complicated cases have rivaled the success of Serial, with his concealed identity making him a cult internet figure. In a series of six interviews, King attempts to work out how the dynamics of a group of idle teenagers conspired with the sinister legends surrounding the fell to result in Jeffries’ mysterious death. As every interview unveils a new revelation, you’ll be forced to work out for yourself how Tom Jeffries died, and who is telling the truth.

All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth

Secret societies, decade old mysteries and an amateur teenage detective on a mission to find out what happened on the night her mother’s gone missing.

In the last day of summer, Grace Fairchild, the beautiful young wife of real estate mogul Allister Calloway, vanished from the family’s lake house without a trace, leaving behind her seven-year old daughter, Charlie, and a slew of unanswered questions.
Years later, seventeen-year-old Charlie still struggles with the dark legacy of her family name and the mystery surrounding her mother. Determined to finally let go of the past, she throws herself into life at Knollwood, the prestigious New Englandschool she attends. Charlie quickly becomes friends with Knollwood’s “it” crowd.
Charlie has also been tapped by the A’s—the school’s elite secret society well known for terrorizing the faculty, administration, and their enemies. To become a member of the A’s, Charlie must play The Game, a semester-long, diabolical high-stakes scavenger hunt that will jeopardize her friendships, her reputation, even her place at Knollwood.
As the dark events of past and present converge, Charlie begins to fear that she may not survive the terrible truth about her family, her school, and her own life.

The Glass Forest by Cynthia Swanson

Secrets, betrayal and family drama, set in the 60’s.

In the autumn of 1960, Angie Glass is living an idyllic life in her Wisconsin hometown. At twenty-one, she’s married to charming, handsome Paul, and has just given birth to a baby boy. But one phone call changes her life forever.
When Paul’s niece, Ruby, reports that her father, Henry, has committed suicide, and that her mother, Silja, is missing, Angie and Paul drop everything and fly to the small upstate town of Stonekill, New York to be by Ruby’s side.
Angie thinks they’re coming to the rescue of Paul’s grief-stricken young niece, but Ruby is a composed and enigmatic seventeen-year-old who resists Angie’s attempts to nurture her. As Angie learns more about the complicated Glass family, staying in Henry and Silja’s eerie and ultra-modern house on the edge of the woods, she begins to question the very fabric of her own marriage.
Through Silja’s flashbacks, Angie’s discovery of astonishing truths, and Ruby’s strategic dissection of her parents’ state of affairs, a story of love, secrets, and ultimate betrayal is revealed.

 

What are your favourite books for autumn? Do you read more books of a certain genre during this season?