Hello again, dear friends! I hope all is well with you and, if it’s not, then I hope brighter days head your way soon! Well, friends, autumn has arrived in the northern hemisphere, and here the Washington, D.C. area it’s arrived with gusto! It’s been quite chilly and dreary of late around these here parts, but I’ve tried to let myself lean into using the weather as an excuse to get cozy. And you know what’s the perfect way to get cozy? That’s right, curling up with a good ol’ book (preferably a thicc fantasy novel)!

Honestly, this year I’m feeling quite excited for autumn and all of the activities that come with it! So I’ve decided to combine my autumn bucket list with book recommendations to create a book tag for y’all! Ta-da!!!

rules

• link back to the creator’s (Lila @ Hardcover Haven) original post
• answer all the questions (if you can’t answer with a book you’ve read, feel free to talk about a book on your TBR that you’re excited about which also fits the prompt!)
• tag 3+ people whose answers to this tag you want to read
• have fun!!!

the tag

your favorite book involving academia, academics/scholars, or an academic setting

My favorite read of 2025 (which also ultimately has become an all-time favorite read of mine) was Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang, and it’s an outstanding dark academia fantasy standalone! Blood Over Bright Haven stars Sciona, who is the first female mage in her society to enter their prestigious university. But Sciona finds that when she enters this university, the sexism and misogyny she faces is just as bad as what she faced in the outside world. Determined to let Sciona know that she is unwelcome, the other mages give Sciona a “lab assistant” who is a janitor from another oppressed race of people. But Sciona soon finds that this janitor may be more than he seems, and together they could unearth the darkest secrets of Sciona’s society, forcing her to ultimately decide who she is and what she stands for. Blood Over Bright Haven is a gritty and dark exploration of intersectional liberation, and Wang’s passion and anger are palpable through every word of the story. This book is truly a book for this moment in history, and I encourage everyone to read it!

your favorite book set in a time or place you’d love to visit (fantasy locations are welcome as answers too!)

This is another tough one, as there are so many fantasy worlds that I’d love to visit! Hell—there are so many places in the real world that I’d love to visit, as well!! I think at the moment, though, I’m going to go with the world of Between Earth and Sky by Rebecca Roanhoarse, which is a fantasy trilogy based on various pre-Columbus Indigenous cultures, mainly Indigenous Mesoamerican and Maori. The worldbuilding of this series is so expansive, and readers get to visit lots of different settings and meet lots of different cultural groups. Each of these places and peoples are so unique, and I think it’d be really fun to go on a tour of the world to immerse myself in all the different cultures!

a book or series where the main character goes through major changes

Honestly? This could be any number of characters just by definition of being a main character in a story 😂 Buuuut…I’m gonna go with Neema Kraa from The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson. Neema starts off in The Raven Scholar as someone who is relatively self-serving and ambitious, and who is also relatively emotionally isolated from others due to several reasons. By the end of the book, she’s begun to open up and think more collectively about how to ensure the good of people beyond herself, so I’d definitely qualify that shift as a “major change”!

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your favorite book that retells a fairytale/folktale/myth OR a fairytale/folktale/myth you want to see retold in literature

I’d love to see more stories involving folktales and mythology from the African diaspora! I think a lot of people who aren’t part of the diaspora don’t always realize that we have our own very rich folktale and mythology traditions, including everything from vodoun mythology to Gullah folktales to even historical and modern urban legends/folktales! The only work I’ve read that’s included anything even close to this is Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, which includes a type of Black American folk magic (rootwork) as a key part of the story. But I’d love to see the “gods” of African American traditions like our variations of Anansi or Yemoja or more come to life in literature, especially written by authors from the African diaspora!

your favorite atmospheric read

The November section of autumn is hurricane season in my region, so that time of the year tends to have a very gloomy atmosphere for us. A book that I love which is incredibly atmospheric and that is just as dark and dreary as November usually is for me is A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid. The book is set at the crumbling and waterlogged seaside estate of a famous author who had some dark secrets. The main character—Effy—is an architecture student who’s a fan of the author’s work and who won a contest to redesign his estate. At the same time, a literature student—Preston—is doing research at the estate, and he and Effy begin to uncover those dark secrets I mentioned previously. A Study in Drowning contains Reid’s now signature atmospheric, dark, evocative prose and is a fierce commentary on sexism and misogyny in academia. It’s worth a read at any point in time, but especially during the current moment.

a book character who you’d like to swap lives with for a day

I just finished Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett this past September, and I’d love to spend a day as Emily! This series is set in a world that’s basically almost the same as our real-life world save for the fact that faeries exist and it’s also set in the early 1900s and there are a few fictional countries thrown in the mix as well. It also involves an academic (the titular Emily Wilde) who does research for Cambridge specializing in the study of faeries! And!! According to the lore of the series, the faeries have many different species which live all over the world—how cool is that?! Faeries have always been my favorite magical creature, and I’d just love to spend a day as Emily Wilde, traveling around the world and studying the different species of faeries!!

your favorite autumnal book featuring a “hot romance” (spicy or non-spicy answers welcome!)

Last year, I read A Dark and Secret Magic by Wallis Kinney, which is a super autumnal and cozy book about a witch, and it does indeed feature a lovely romance plotline! It’s definitely not a “spicy” plotline (actually, I’m pretty certain there’s no sexual content in the book at all), but it’s very cute and romantic and has light enemies-to-lovers vibes! And!! Bonus for the autumn lovers among us: A Dark and Secret Magic definitely leans all the way into autumnal atmosphere, as it takes place leading up to Samhain and features the main characters doing lots of autumn activities!

your favorite comfort read

This is a difficult one, since I don’t tend to reread books. That said, I do have “comfort genres/subgenres” which are genres/subgenres I turn to when I need something light and fun. One of those genres is YA contemporary romance, which is a genre I rarely turn to, but almost always enjoy. So I’m going to recommend you one of my most comforting reads from that genre: You Started It by Jackie Khalilieh! This book is written by an autistic Palestinian Canadian author and features an autistic Palestinian Canadian girl and a Lebanese Canadian boy who start fake dating with the goal of the girl winning back her ex. Of course, shenanigans and romance ensue! I loved the sweet, fun storyline in this book—I find that a lot of books about Arab or Arab diaspora characters focus on the cultural difficulties we face, so it was refreshing to see an Arab diaspora girly who wasn’t dealing with something like racism or Islamophobia or sexism, who was just an average teen girl like I was in high school! I also loved the sprinkling of Shami (Levantine Arab) culture sprinkled to the book, and, as someone who is Shami diaspora, it made the book feel so warm and comforting. In addition, I loved that the main character was mixed race and how the discussion she had with her Lebanese Canadian love interest about her identity went—it really warmed my heart, especially as it was very representative of my experience as a mixed race Arab! Everything about this book was so lovely and comforting, and I implore everyone to give it a chance!

a book/book series you’re grateful exists

I’ve talked before about why His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman is so special to me, but just in case you haven’t heard the story…When I was eight and nine, my mom and I were houseless and lived in a homeless shelter. The particular shelter we were living in at the time had a collection of donated physical books, as well as audiobook cassette tapes, and one day my mom and I came across The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman on cassette tape in the collection and decided to borrow it. We took it back to our tiny room and each evening we’d listen to a bit of the audiobook together. I remember falling in love with the story, characters, and world of His Dark Materials and being totally enchanted by it from that point on!

Anyhoo, long story short: I’m so grateful for His Dark Materials, because it helped me escape into my imagination and provided just a bit of a reprieve from life at a time in my life that was extremely difficult. It gave my heart and mind and imagination a place to rest after those long, difficult days, and for that I’m forever grateful.

tag 3+ people to do this tag

• Tasya @ The Literary Huntress
• Caro @ Book Cheshire Cat
• Hannah @ Hannah, Fully
• Sumedha @ The Wordy Habitat
• 24hryabookblog

What are some of your favorite autumnal activities? What are some of your favorite autumnal reads? What’s on your autumn TBR for this year?

Learn more the author of this post:

Lila @ Hardcover Haven

Lila is a 30 year old anthropology student and lover of literature who's been book blogging for an eternity. Her hobbies include reading, singing, writing, arts and crafts, and snuggling her two cats, Snoopy and Clementine.