I’m going to have to cram all the October Treasures in My Closet into one post. It’s for a good reason. I have tons of September book releases to review for you. So, this post will include a lot of titles, one way or another.
I love to kick off Treasures in My Closet with a new series. Ellie Alexander’s Death on Tap is set in a microbrewery in Leavenworth, Washington. Sloan Krause leaves the family business after catching her husband cheating. Is it worse to discover a body in the tank at the new microbrewery where she’s now working? (Release date is Oct. 3.)
In Sarah Bailey’s debut thriller, The Dark Lake, a detective with secrets of her own hunts the killer of a woman who was the glamorous star of their high school. (Release date is Oct. 3.)
Agatha Raisin is back in M.C. Beaton’s The Witches’ Tree. An Agatha Christie-inspired dinner party ends early, and it’s the rector and his wife who discover a body hanging in “the witches’ tree”. As usual, Agatha Raisin bumbles her way to the solution. (Release date is Oct. 3.)
Michelle Birkby puts a new slant on the Sherlock Holmes plots in The House at Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson, Holmes’ housekeeper, teams up with Mary Watson to help a needy woman when Holmes turns down the case. (October release.)
In Conor Brady’s latest Joe Swallow mystery, A Hunt in Winter, the newly promoted detective inspector investigates the murder of women in Dublin, the same year that Jack the Ripper terrorizes London. He juggles that investigation with political machinations that threaten his personal life. (Release date is Oct. 10.)
Wiley Cash’s The Last Ballad is set in North Carolina in 1929 and inspired by actual events. It chronicles an ordinary woman’s struggle for dignity and her rights in a textile mill, a moving tale of courage in the face of oppression and injustice. (Release date is Oct. 3.)
Steven Cooper kicks off a new series set in the desert area around Phoenix in Desert Remains. Someone is filling desert caves with bodies, and leaving behind a record etched into the stone. With no leads and no suspects, Detective Alex Mills sees a case spinning out of control, and another detective wants to push him off the case. (Release date is Oct. 10.)
Are you ready for Christmas books? Melissa De la Cruz brings us Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe, a retelling with a Christmas twist. Meet Darcy Fitzwilliam, a successful woman who returns home to Pemberley, Ohio when her mother falls ill. It’s at the family’s annual Christmas bash that she meets Luke Bennet, the slacker son of the neighbor. Do you see where this is going? (Release date is Oct. 10.)
Jessica Ellicott introduces readers to two amateur sleuths in Murder in an English Village. After the Great War, American adventuress Beryl Helliwell reunites with her old school friend, Edwina Davenport, when Edwina advertises for a roomer. After Beryl spreads the rumor that the two are special agents, Edwina is attacked, and they realize their search for answers to a wartime disappearance is stirring up trouble. (Release date is Oct. 31.)
Did you know actor Tom Hanks collects typewriters? And, typewriters appear in all of the stories in Hanks’ debut collection, Uncommon Type. (Release date is Oct. 17.)
Would you want to be quarantined with your family for seven days over the Christmas holidays? That’s the scenario in Francesca Hornak’s Seven Days of Us. It’s Christmas, and the Birch family is gathering for the first time in years. Olivia has just returned from treating an epidemic abroad and must stay in quarantine for a week…and so too will her family. A week can seem like eternity, especially when everyone has a secret. (Release date is Oct. 17.)
Vegan chef Brie Hooker moves to her aunt’s goat farm in Linda Lovely’s Bones to Pick. When the pig digs up old bones, Brie’s aunt is arrested for a murder that happened forty years earlier. Now, Brie rounds up some old and new friends to help investigate. (Release date is Oct. 24.)
Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, turns to another legendary story with Hiddensee. “In this inventive novel rooted in the rich soil of early-nineteenth-century German Romanticism,” Maguire tells an origin legend of the famous Nutcracker with the life of Drosselmeier, the toymaker who carves him. (Release date is Oct. 31.)
How about another unknown story from World War II? Liza Mundy’s Code Girls is “The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II”, women who, under strict vows of secrecy, moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of cryptanalysis. Their successes shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. (Release date is Oct. 10.)
Jaya Jones heads to Japan in Gigi Pandian’s latest Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery, The Ninja’s Illusion. Jaya’s best friend, A stage magician, is about to make his debut appearance in Japan when the star of the show is reported dead. Jaya is there to research a historical mystery, but it isn’t long before she loses track of what’s real and what’s illusion. (Release date is Oct. 3.)
In the latest Hogarth Shakespeare retelling of Shakespeare, Edward St. Aubyn takes on King Lear in Dunbar. In his dotage, Henry Dunbar, once the powerful head of a global media corporation, hands over the care of his company to his two oldest daughters, only to end up imprisoned in Meadowmeade, an upscale sanatorium. When he escapes, his family is following. Who will find him, his beloved youngest daughter, or the two women prepared to take over his estate? (Release date is Oct. 3.)
Wendall Thomas’ debut romp is Lost Luggage. Cyd Redondo who works for her family’s travel agency in Brooklyn wins a trip to Tanzania, taking a handsome, mysterious hunk with her. When they arrive in Africa, she finds two of her elderly clients in jail, and ends up caught up in the illegal smuggling of endangered species. (Release date is Oct. 4.)
In Will Thomas’ Old Scores, a Japanese diplomat is murdered in London in 1890. Cyrus Barker, private enquiry agent and occasional agent for the Foreign Service Office, is the prime suspect. He and his sidekick Llewelyn must work against the clock to find the real killer. (Release date is Oct. 3.)
I’m three quarters of the way through The Usual Santas: A Collection of Soho Crime Christmas Capers. It’s a terrific collection featuring short stories by authors such as Tim Hallinan, Helene Tursten, Stuart Neville, Sujata Massey, Cara Black. It’s definitely Christmas with a different slant. (Release date is Oct. 24.)
And, here are the other October releases that were not summarized.
The Summer that Made Us by Robyn Carr
Smile by Roddy Doyle
American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent by Tamer Elnoury
King of Spies by Blaine Harden
Sugar Pine Trail by RaeAnne Thayne
I know it’s a long blog piece with a lot of titles. Is there anything that jumps out at you?
As usual with me, it is the short story collections.
It doesn't surprise me a bit, Jeff.
I already have a Death on Tap and The Unusual Santas on my wish list
I have ordered 3 and placed 2 on reserve at the library. The Sherlock one though is a mystery. The second book in the series seems to be available, but this one is only by 3rd party sellers. I ordered it from Book Depository though. Apparently this is a British series just coming here?
Old Scores by Will thomas. I've really enjoyed the Barker/Llewelly series.
Also, Max Allan Collins's next book in the Quarry series, Quarry's Climax comes out.
I liked the first one, Sandy, & am enjoying the second.
You're right, Caryn. It's already out in the U.K., and it's going to be published in October here, but because it's already out, I couldn't even find a U.S. publication date. Good book, though.
Someday, Glen, I need to try the Quarry books.
I already had The Dark Lake on my list, and I love Gigi Pandian's series so those are must-reads. A few days ago I also put The Usual Santas on my hold list, thanks to your earlier review. Other October releases on my own TBR list include The Question of the Absentee Father by EJ Copperman, The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman, Christmas at the Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan, Weycombe by G.W. Malliet, Even If It Kills her by Kate White, The Secret Book and Scone society by Ellery Adams, Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly, and Righteous by Joe Ide. Lots to read!
Margie, I missed putting two of those books on this list I have the Alice Hoffman. And, I read, and loved, The Secret, Book and Scone Society. Your have a great list!
Murder in an English Village and Code Girls. They are not yet at the library, but I will be looking for them.
Quite a few here that are appealing and intriguing. I have read Dark Lake and enjoyed it quite a lot. I also recommend Alice Hoffman's The Rules of Magic – it's my fave of all her books.
I hope they come into your library, Gram.
Kaye! If The Rules of Magic is your favorite, I'm going to have to dig it out of my TBR pile, and move it up.