leonine's required reading for fall

deliciously witchy and weird autumnal books to cozy up with

somewhere else, in another leonine newsletter, i believe i’ve already babbled on about being a seasonal reader. taking that into consideration, it absolutely thrills me to remind us all that autumn is a mere few weeks away.

i constantly adjust what i’m reading to suit the mood and atmosphere of each season, but fall is undoubtedly my favourite time of year to read books—and it’s my favourite season, point blank. if not observing the beauty of this season from the rain-slicked window of a quaint coffee shop or a picturesque orchard of some sort, the only other place i’d rather be on an idyllic autumn day is lost in the pages of a dark, gothic novel with witchy undertones. i may even go so far as to say that these sorts of books are the ones i enjoy reading most.

in the spirit of autumn and the academic ambiance of the back-to-school season, i present leonine’s fall 2025 reading list, which includes both books i’ve read and ones i’d like to read soon:

must be the season of the witch

double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and caldron bubble… ami mckay’s the witches of new york (tbr) series is set two hundred years after the salem witch trials, and delves into the lives of three witchy women living in new york’s gilded age. at once cozy and spellbinding, alice hoffman’s practical magic series hardly needs an introduction. if you’ve seen the 1998 film, you’ll adore getting swept up in the history of the owens’ lineage in the other books. rife with witchcraft, folklore, and dances with the dark arts, brom’s slewfoot: a tale of bewitchery (tbr) has been on my fall reading list for years, and i’d love to finally pick it up this season.

cult classics

‘tis the season to sink into a classic murder mystery novel, and no one does them like the reigning monarch of the genre, agatha christie. led by christie’s most famous character, detective hercule poirot, murder on the orient express (read) explores precisely that, and does it brilliantly. unfortunately, i’ve done that annoying thing with daphne du maurier’s rebecca (tbr) where i watched the film before getting around to reading the book. however, if a gothic romance about a young woman and her new husband— who is still haunted by the memory of his first wife—sounds intriguing to you, i still feel confident about recommending this classic. as for donna tartt’s the secret history (read), well, it’s only one of my favourite reads of all time. thee dark academia novel of all dark academia novels, this thrilling masterpiece deals with murder and morality as an intellectual bunch of outcasts at an elite new england college fall from grace.

weird little wonders

when it comes to strange books, i often find that the less i know the better—but even when i’ve been briefed on what i’m about to read, the best ones leave me wonderstruck. a.k. blakemore’s the glutton (tbr) gleans inspiration from the life of a real-life peasant child from the french revolution era, whose insatiable appetite is said to have led him to murder. as a lover of animated films like coraline, this cover of shirley jackson’s we have always lived in the castle (tbr) inspired me to add the novel to my 2025 fall reading list. promising gothic mansions, dark secrets, and a potentially murderous family—it sounds delightfully bizarre. in patrick suskind’s perfume: the story of a murder (read), follow along as one frenchman’s sense of smell drives him to murder.

new releases on my radar

much to my surprise, r.f. kuang’s katabasis (tbr) will be the first book i’ve read by this author. launching on august 26, the novel is centred around two graduate students’ journey to hell to retrieve their professor’s soul. the hounding (tbr) by xenobe purvis has been described as “the crucible meets the virgin suicides,”— and for this reason, i’m fully on board. lastly, in archer sullivan’s the witch’s orchard (tbr), a private investigator examines a decades-old case of three young girls who vanished, but only one returned.

x L