Halloween recommendations: emoji edition

🎃 Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell

“Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends. Every autumn, all through high school, they’ve worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world (not many people know that the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world is in Omaha, Nebraska, but it definitely is). They say goodbye every Halloween, and they’re reunited every September.
But this Halloween is different – Josiah and Deja are finally seniors, and this is their last season at the pumpkin patch. Their last shift together. Their last goodbye. Josiah’s ready to spend the whole night feeling melancholy about it. Deja isn’t ready to let him. She’s got a plan: what if instead of moping, they went out with a bang? They could see all the sights! Taste all the snacks! And Josiah could finally talk to that cute girl he’s been mooning over for three years…
What if their last shift was an adventure?”

🕸️ Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

“The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind’s worst nightmare.
Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?”

👻 Sixteen Souls by Rosie Talbot

“Someone is stripping Europe’s most haunted city of its spirits. When 16-year-old seer Charlie Frith realises that one of his own ghostly friends has gone missing, he must put aside his own safety – and reclusive existence – if he is to find them.
Charlie reluctantly teams up with Sam Harrow, the new seer in town, and a rag-tag group of ghosts, to save their friends from a fate literally worse than death.
But there is a dark purpose behind these disappearances–more sinister than Charlie could ever have imagined. And, as he slowly comes to terms with his romantic feelings for Sam, the stakes become even higher as time quickly runs out!”

🧛 The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

“Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave.
One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.”

🧟 Zomromcom by Olivia Dade

“When Edie Brandstrup attempts to save her sweet, seemingly harmless human neighbor from the first major zombie breach in two decades, she’s stunned to be saved by him – and his ridiculously large sword – instead. As it turns out, he’s actually a super-old, super-surly vampire. But for all her neighbor’s newly revealed cynicism and lethality, Gaston “Max” Boucher (yes, Gaston) is unexpectedly protective. He wants her to stay in his safety bunker until the breach is resolved. Edie can’t risk more innocent people getting killed, though—and Max won’t let her save them alone.
As they unravel a sinister conspiracy to set zombies loose on the world (again), the duo meets a host of lovable allies and discovers they’re not the only ones willing to fight for the future of humanity. Despite the awful timing, Edie finds herself falling for the vampire who’s helping her save the world… but all their dangerous plans could end their future before it even begins. As she and Max battle side by side, Edie must decide whether having a love worth living for also means having a love you’d die for—and, in a world that grows deadlier by the minute, whether that’s a risk she’s willing to take.”

🐺 Raised by Wolves by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“At the age of four, Bryn watched a rabid werewolf brutally murder her parents. Alone in the world, she was rescued and taken in by Callum, the alpha of his pack. Now, Bryn is a human among werewolves, adhering to their strict social hierarchy. Little fazes her.
But the pack’s been keeping a secret, and when Bryn goes exploring against Callum’s orders, she finds Chase, a newly turned teen werewolf locked in a cage. Terrifying memories of the attack on her parents come flooding back. Bryn needs answers, and only Chase can help. Suddenly, all allegiances to the pack no longer matter. It’s Bryn and Chase against the world, whatever the consequences.”

🍁 The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore

“When Jeanie’s aunt gifts her the beloved Pumpkin Spice Café in the small town of Dream Harbor, Jeanie jumps at the chance for a fresh start away from her very dull desk job.
Logan is a local farmer who avoids Dream Harbor’s gossip at all costs. But Jeanie’s arrival disrupts Logan’s routine and he wants nothing to do with the irritatingly upbeat new girl, except that he finds himself inexplicably drawn to her.
Will Jeanie’s happy-go-lucky attitude win over the grumpy-but-gorgeous Logan, or has this city girl found the one person in town who won’t fall for her charm, or her pumpkin spice lattes…”

💀 Vicious by V.E. Schwab

“Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in one another. A shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death-experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. They become EOs, ExtraOrdinaries, leaving a body in their wake and turning on each other. Ten years later Victor has escaped from prison and is determined to get his revenge on the man who put him there, aided by a young girl with the ability to raise the dead. Eli has spent the years hunting down and killing every EO he can find, convinced that they are a crime against God, all except his sidekick, a woman whose power is persuasion and whom he cannot defy. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the arch-nemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?”

🍬 Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica

“It all happened so quickly. First, animals became infected with the virus and their meat became poisonous. Then governments initiated the Transition. Now, ‘special meat’ – human meat – is legal.
Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans—only no one calls them that. He works with numbers, consignments, processing. One day, he’s given a gift to seal a deal: a specimen of the finest quality. He leaves her in his barn, tied up, a problem to be disposed of later.
But she haunts Marcos. Her trembling body, and watchful gaze, seem to understand. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.”