 Hello my friends, so a couple of you have been asking me over the last couple of weeks to do a full recommendations video and I am nothing if not a blighter. I love the fall, it's my favourite time of year. Today, or the past couple of days, are the first days where it really feels like autumn in the UK and I'm just like, I'm starting to get into the vibe, I'm ready for the candles, I'm ready for the pumpkins, I'm ready for the hot chocolate, I'm ready to strictly come dancing. I'm gonna start off with stand-alone and then I've got a few broader series recommendations but we're gonna have witches, we're gonna have spooky stuff, we're gonna have vamps, we're gonna have monstrous girls. Now I don't have any dark academia in this because I wanna do a separate dark academia recommendations video because I feel like I've gotten to the point now where I can do that. Well actually, you know a few of those are dark academia. Okay, there's one series I'm not gonna recommend in this video that I was but one that I am going to because I think it's more witchy vibes than it is dark academia vibes. I also haven't got any murder mysteries in this because I think murder mysteries are like November, I'm more thinking September, October with these recommendations. Murder mysteries is a whole separate thing but this isn't a murder mystery recommendation because otherwise it would take over it so this is other stuff that I recommend. So first, I think my number one witchy full recommendation is The Once and Future Witches by Alexi Harrow. I love this book, it is impeccable. I need to reread it one day because it's a book I had to read kind of quickly and I feel like I didn't appreciate it properly but it's set in the late 1800s. We've got three sisters who are witches and that's basically all you need to know. It's this very, oh it's gorgeous. It's so dramatic. No, I don't think you understand. I'm obsessed. The sister relationships, the magic, it's set also they're getting to know some suffragists and it's set at this time with them fighting for women's rights and it's slow and you get to know their backstory and the end is like one of the most emotional endings ever. Alexi Harrow, this just feels so luscious. It's set in New Salem and just like the witchyness, you can imagine the leaves falling. It's just got that image, it's got that image of autumn to it and I just, I can't even remember how much you need to read. It's just one of the best I think witch. I love witches. It's one of the best witch representation I've ever read. I think it has a modern view of witches but also a lot of the classical view of what we want from witches and I just love them. I love these girls. I love their relationships. I love the writing. Alexi Harrow, I need to read all of your stuff because this writing is impeccable. So this is my number one witchy recommendation. Then this point doesn't count as witches but it is still magic and that is A Skin Full of Shadows by Francis Harding. This is a book. Have you heard me speak about it before that I picked up on a whim? I'd never heard of this author. I'd never heard of this book. Oh it's good. So this is about a young girl who can like consume spirits basically and early in the book she consumes the spirit of a bear. So there's like a bear living inside her at the same time and she has to go live with her dead dad's family. Her mother dies, both her parents are dead. She goes to live with her dad's family who she's never met and they're a little bit strange. Yeah, there's some shady stuff going on there. They're a little bit bad vibes and it's her kind of figuring that out and growing up there with them. And oh it's so good. It's so good. Again, the writing, this is impeccable. It's very different. I haven't read anything. It's set like the 1600s I think this one I want to say. I think the Stuart's period in the UK, but it's got this aura about it. There's so unlike anything I've ever read. It perfectly bends historical, fantastical and mystery. It perfectly bends all three of those. And just the setting lends itself to a different kind of atmosphere. I think we read a lot of like Victorian inspired stuff. Like that's very, Victorians are very autumnal. I feel like it was permanently autumn in Victorian times. And I love Victorian settings. Victorian settings is personally one of my favorite to read. But there's something about a little bit older. There will be an older setting where the magic feels older and more in touch with nature and surroundings. And the character herself is very interesting. And I just, I mean, I've since bought like 10 Francis Harding books. That's an exaggeration. There's like three, but I did tell a bit of a lie there. But I haven't read any more of them, but I really want to because I think she's very unique. They are YA, but they feel like nostalgic YA. Like YA that as a kid, you feel clever reading. It's just such a wonderful amalgamation of a book. Then one that I read recently last month and like would have been perfect for autumn and you guys, they told it is a Southern Book Clubs guide to saying vampires. Yeah. This was so good. We're following these older mums, right? In suburbia, living their like carpool lives. I think this is set in the nineties, I want to say mostly when a man moves in into the neighborhood and maybe he's a vampire and maybe we need to get him. And I loved this. I loved the humor in this. Great Hendrix horror is my kind of horror. Like I'm not, I'm not into the scary, scary. Okay. I'm not a scary, scary girl. Not a scary, scary girl. I like camp. I like ridiculous. And like guys, I think some of you would love this. What it also says about motherhood and the pressure of being a mother and like what being a mother entails. And particularly at this time, I think it's very interesting seeing, you know, this is like an older generation. They're in their like forties in the nineties, right? And seeing the kind of gender expectations I think is a very interesting element of this book. I will tell you, though I'm saying it's camp, it's fun, it's silly. Oh, guess what just fell out of this book? It's my favorite seal bookmark, which I've had for years. Don't tell me, I don't ask me why I love it so much but I just love it. It had been in here, I thought I'd lost it. I'm so happy. It's my favorite. I just love it. I need to buy, they have, they have these in waterstones. They're by Mark Butavon. And I got another one of his when I lost it but this seal one I've had since like 2019 and I just love it. It's like my favorite book. It's like my comfort bookmark and I thought I'd lost it and I just come to terms with it and I was like, I'm gonna have to buy a new one. It was in here. We've been blessed by the autumnal gods. What was I saying? Even though I'm saying it's camp, it's fun, it's silly. It's gory guys. This is a very gory book. There'll be moments. Oh, I was like, I was reading this when I was camping in mostly and I remember sitting by the campsite and I was like, you know, and you're like, at least I get like this with horror like squinting and like half looking away because you don't want to read it. This is my favorite great Hendrix I've read so far and I think it's fun but it also says a lot and it's horror and I just think it's a great book. I think some of you will enjoy this. Then I want to give a quick mention to one of my favorite ghost stories I've ever read and that is Horrid by Katrina Leno. This is a difficult one to pitch. How do I want to pitch this? Following her father's death, our girlie and her mom are moving into, is it their old, their grandma's old home? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like they're in a place where her mom grew up. It says, as the cold new England autumn arrives and Jane settles into her new home, she finds solace in the old books. But maybe there's ghosts. And Katrina Leno's writing has been some of my favorite writing I discovered in the past couple of years because it's very, it's just a little bit weird. It's just a little bit off kilter which I enjoy. I like full out bullseye or weird but I also like just, you know, a little bit of weirdness. I don't know. I think this does, I, this, how do I say it's not spoiling it? Some ghost story books pussy for out. Am I allowed to say that on YouTube? I think so. No, I don't, I don't, I don't, no. I'm not allowed. I know I'm not allowed. They wimp out, right? They say they're going to give me ghosts and then they don't give me ghosts. Same with witches. If you're going to give me witches, give me witches. This is what I always say. Don't, I don't like if you're going to give me a supernatural element and you chicken out of it, you know? This doesn't chicken out of anything in my opinion and it goes there and it's so, this is so autumnal guys. Like imagine all the roads and the trees and like the little bookshop that she works and it's got like a cafe in there and it's such a good vibe. It's a very interesting little book and I think it does is a great YA ghost story. I then, I wanted to give a graphic novel recommendation and I think the only kind of autumnal graphic novel I've read was fangs. I read this for summer ween over in the summer and it's basically just a love story between a vampire and a werewolf and it's cute and it's nice. It's like little vignettes of their life. So it hasn't really got a narrative. It's more their meeting and little vignettes of their relationship but it's a little cute fun read. I love, it's like a cloth bound cover and I always, I love to touch it but I really enjoyed it and it really, there was one moment where it made me laugh out loud and it's cute, you know? It's not, nothing incredibly special. It's not one of my favorite graphic novels I've ever read but I think most graphic novels I read kind of have like summer or winter vibes. I was looking at them, not a lot of them have like autumnal vibes and I just think this is a cute little autumn read if you're looking for a graphic novel. And then the last of my sound loans that I want to recommend, I don't know if this is set during autumn but it has that kind of vibe is Mexican Gothic by Sabrina Garcia. Also, I could recommend Asienda by Zbukonyas. These are like similar, you know, they're very similar books. They're both kind of inspired by Rebecca. They've both got women at a house that seems to be kind of working against them. I enjoyed both of these. I think I gave the Asienda 4.5 and I think I gave Mexican Gothic, did I give them both 4.5 or did I give this four or this a 4.5? Or did I give this a five? I can't remember. They were both up there for me but I think Mexican Gothic is the slightly better option. It's spooky, both of these are eerie. I think they both do horror very well. I think they both have a hint of romance that feels Gothic and it feels forbidden and it feels doomed from the very start. That's quite dramatic. I really enjoyed both of these. I think if you haven't read either of these autumn would be or fall, I should say. I've been trying to make myself say fall to bow to like my predominantly American audience and to Canadians say fall as I think you guys do because a lot of you are Canadian as well. Like only like 15% max probably of my audience are from the UK, probably even less than that. So I've been trying to say fall but listen, it's autumn anyway. If you haven't read either of these I think this would be the perfect time to pick them up because I think they're both very, very solid in what they do and it'd be a great autumn pick. And then series, I've only got two now that I'm going to recommend. First, listen, Strange, Crazy, I Can Miss Daughter, the Athena Club Mysteries. If you haven't read them yet, do it. Get the audiobook, get into the vibe and love these monstrous girlies. If you're new here, this is one of my favorite series of all time. We follow monstrous girlies who are daughters or female versions of men from classic Victorian literature. The second one has no business thing as long as it is. It's like 800 pages. Don't let it scare you off. I read it, it's not 800, 700, 700. I read it in two days. So like, but I haven't ever reread the second and third and I'm going to reread them. Hopefully at the end of the year if I get like a head on my other videos enough. But I mean, what can I say about these that I haven't already? They're set in Victorian London. Well, in those other books, they do veer off further into other parts of the world. In the second one, we go London to Vienna and Vienna to Budapest. And oh, it's just so good, so good. It is brilliant American literature and I don't care what anybody, it is, it's lit. It should be taught in schools. And I think these books pay reverence to the classic stories that they come from. Sherlock, Joachim and Mr. Hyde, all these books, right? But they adapt them in such a fun way and I love these girls more than I love any other characters in the world. And I think the atmosphere is amazing. I think they've got a lovely mystery running through them. I love the way they're written. But what is, I mean, what is there to say? But the autumn is the perfect time to pick these up. So do it, just do it. And then finally, this is the book I said I would still recommend in this video because I think it's more witchy than it is Dark Academia. And that is The Ravens. They should be this way round. What way round are they for you? That way? I don't know. The Ravens and the Monarchs by Cas Morgan and Danielle Page. I think these are severely underrated YA witchy books. They are set at university, but it's more witchy. It's about sisterhoods. We're following two characters, one who's an older, she's a bit older in the university, one who's a newbie. And it's just about their sisterhood and the hijinks and the witchy hijinks. They weren't five stars. They were kind of like solid four stars for me. But I was surprised by how much I enjoyed these. And I think if you're looking for a YA witchy vibe, this really is witches. It really is witches. You get what I mean, don't you? We all get what I mean, that some witches aren't witches. Some witches promised me witches, like I read wayward recently, wasn't, didn't give me the vibe. A lot of deceiving going on. A lot of deceiving. These go with the vibe. Full sisterhood, coven, magic. And I also think witches set at university, like witches X, dark academia is a great combo. Like they both kind of vibe off the same thing. So I think if you've ever thought about picking these up, you should pick them up this autumn because they are pretty good full picks. So there we have it, everyone. That is my full recommendations. I hope you pick some of these books up and enjoy them because I think they are all top tier full recommended. I really think I've like, I fucking knocked out the park, guys, honestly. I've done very well with this recommendation list. So I would love to know if you pick up any of these. I think they are all just, oh, I wish I could read these all for the first time like this week. Like I generally, that would be a vibe, wouldn't it? That would be a vibe. Gosh. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you got them to the end of the video, comment a full emoji down below, maybe a pump can, who knows? Anything that's full vibes for you. Comment that emoji down below and I will see you very soon in another video. Bye.