October Book Vote - Chapters & Chai Book Club
October Book Club Options
I don’t know about you but I am so ready for spooky season! Which means we need a read to accompany us through Autumn…
Our October vote will work slightly differently this month, so below you’ll find three horror options to choose from - and if horror really isn’t your thing, you can choose one of our two non-horror options. We’ll then split the discussion at book club, and I’ll have discussion questions for both the horror option and the non-horror option.
If you want to read both, you can do so! But it's not essential, and you're only voting for one or the other, not in both categories.
I hope that makes sense! Any questions, please drop me a message.
Horror Options
So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers' Favourite Horror (2024)
Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life.
Her husband surprises her with a birthday weekend getaway—not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi.
Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings and cozy robes and strategic avoidance of issues she’d rather not confront, like her husband’s repeated infidelity. But when they arrive at their rental cottage, it becomes clear Naomi has something else in mind. She wants Sloane to stop letting things happen to her, for Sloane to really live. So Naomi orchestrates a wild night out with a group of mysterious strangers, only for it to take a horrifying turn that changes Sloane’s and Naomi’s lives literally forever.
The friends are forced to come to terms with some pretty eternal consequences in this bloody, seductive novel about how it’s never too late to find satisfaction, even though it might taste different than expected.
Pages: 290
Genre/Theme: Horror, Vampires, Romance
Rouge by Mona Awad
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers' Favorite Horror (2023)
For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.
Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.
Pages: 383
Genre/Theme: Horror, Fairytale Retelling, Beauty Cult, Gothic, Contemporary
The Lamb by Lucy Rose
A FOLK TALE. A HORROR STORY. A LOVE STORY. AN ENCHANTMENT.
Margot and Mama have lived by the forest since Margot can remember. When Margot isn't at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.
But Mama's want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, little Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires and make a bid for freedom.
With this tender coming-of-age tale, debut novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire and animal instincts - and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.
Pages: 336
Genre/Theme: Folk Horror, LGBTQ
Non-Horror Options
Rewitched by Lucy Jane Wood
Belladonna Blackthorn hasn’t lost her magical spark . . . but she hasn’t seen it in a while, either.
Balancing work at her beloved Lunar Books with protecting it from her toxic boss, who’s running it into the ground, and all the while concealing her witchcraft from the non-wicches around her – Belle is burnt out. Perfecting the potential of her magic is the last thing on her mind.
But when her 30th birthday brings a summons from her coven, and a trial that tests her worthiness as a witch, Belle risks losing her magic forever. With the month of October to fix things, and signs that dark forces may be working against her, Belle will need all the help she can get – from the women in her life, from an unlikely mentor figure, and even an (infuriatingly handsome) watchman who’s sworn to protect her . . .
With found family, slow burn romance and an uplifting message about self-love, this is the cosy, autumnal read that you've been waiting for.
Pages: 384
Genre/Theme: Cosy, Witchy, Fantasy, Romance
If We Were Villains by M L Rio
Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago.
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.
Pages: 354
Genre/Theme: Dark Academia, Thriller, Mystery, Gothic, LGBTQ
You can place your vote via our Google Form if you have not already voted at book club.
If you would like any information on content warnings or trigger warnings for any of the above books please drop me a DM!
As always, happy reading, and I hope to see you at our next chapter.
Keeley