The air is growing crisp, the trees are beginning to shed their leaves and pumpkin spice is on every drink menu.

This month, Women’s Fiction Writers Association has gathered a list of novels that hold a glimmer of magic within their pages. Whether you’re looking for thrillers with a supernatural twist, romance entwined with magical realism or a high fantasy romance featuring pegasi, there’s a title here for you.

Every Fall by Angela Douglas | Rising Action Publishing Collective, January 2025 (Pre-order available)

Bree knows that life married to a beat cop will be tough, especially in a crime-infested city, but she believes they will be fine living in “Burner” even after she has their first child. Family life is manageable until crime follows them home, threatening their safety.

At a loss for how to keep his family safe and keep his job, Jake agrees to stretch their finances and move an hour away to a house in a somewhat better neighborhood. Their lives seem to improve until Bree, heavily pregnant with their second child, begins to hear voices and suffer strange dreams. And then, when tragedy strikes on the job, Jake enters a spiral of guilt and grief that degrades his grip on reality.

Bree, isolated and struggling, must protect her children from the one person she thought would always keep them safe. She and Jake are haunted in every way, and not just by whatever is lurking inside the house. A thriller that tackles toxicity in police culture and trauma, Every Fall will have you on the edge of your seat.

Mirror Me by Lisa Williamson Rosenberg | Little A, December 2024 (Pre-order available)

A psychiatric patient’s desperate search for answers reveals peculiar memories and unexpected connections in a twisty and mind-bending novel of love, family, betrayal, and secrets.

Eddie Asher arrives at Hudson Valley Psychiatric Hospital panicked that he may have murdered his brother’s fiancée, Lucy, with whom he shared a profound kinship. He can’t imagine doing such a terrible thing, but Eddie hasn’t been himself lately.

Eddie’s anxiety is nothing new to Pär, the one Eddie calls his Other, who protects Eddie from truths he’s too sensitive to face. Or so Pär says. Troubled by Pär’s increasing sway over his life, Eddie seeks out Dr. Richard Montgomery, a specialist in dissociative identities. The psychiatrist is Eddie’s best chance for piecing together the puzzle of what really happened to Lucy and to understanding his inexplicable memories of another man’s life. But Montgomery’s methods trigger a kaleidoscope of memories that Pär can’t contain, bringing Eddie closer to an unimaginable truth about his identity.

Unbecoming Emma by Kelly Byrne | Two Pens Press, August 2024

In the charmingly odd small town of Calypso Springs, Emma Rosen’s once-quiet life becomes a whirlwind of magical chaos after her father’s death. Curious letters and bouquets materialize from nowhere, but most baffling, her father has become their backyard willow tree.

When Cassie McCormack, the insufferable mother-tornado Emma never knew, unexpectedly arrives in town very much alive, and harboring an agenda, it’s not a heartfelt reunion. Emma shuts her out, but she doesn’t stay out for long. Cassie and Bob, Emma’s beloved dog, both fall ill with a mysterious sickness and Emma discovers the unexpected connection between them that’s brought pain to the McCormack women for generations.

Desperate for answers about how to save them, Emma unravels the mystery of her past, one lie at a time, and suddenly questions everything she thought she knew about her family and herself.

With their hourglass running out of sand, they learn the key to their survival lies locked in an enchanted box. Can mother and daughter forgive the sins of the past and open it before it’s too late?

Skye, Revised by Pamela Spradlin Mahajan | The Wild Rose Press, March 2024

After being humiliated on a reality singing show, PR assistant Skye Peters is merely existing. She’s beyond bored with her life, including her well-meaning but clueless boyfriend, Teddy. While hiding in a closet to avoid Teddy’s attempted marriage proposal, Skye is inexplicably shot by a masked intruder. When she awakens, she finds herself in a strange reality where she is a famous pop star with millions of fans and a sexy Scottish husband.

Life seems idyllic at first, but the cracks rapidly begin to appear. Skye seeks solace in Teddy, but he doesn’t know her in this new world. Will she get a second chance at her old life or is she destined to be stuck in a reality she doesn’t want?

Neena Lee Is Seeing Things by Sheila Athens | Quier Coast Press, Inc. November 2023

Fifty-six-year-old Neena Lee is desperate to revive her travel writing career after a series of setbacks. She’s finally sent on assignment to the remote Georgia island where John F. Kennedy, Jr. was married. She’s shocked to find JFK, Jr. himself waiting for her there … though he’s been dead for twenty-five years.

The last thing Neena needs is to start seeing things, but JFK, Jr. needs her help, and it seems Neena might need his help, too.

It Happened Tomorrow by Susan Steggall | Editions Kusatsu, May 2013

Forged signatures and fake ‘masterpieces’… fraud is no stranger to the artworld. Dissatisfied with rural life in France, arts reporter Mal returns to Australia, where she stumbles on a different kind of fraud at a major art gallery.

Something is wrong with the man presenting as French artist Denis Denarius, whom she met at the Lyon Biennale. There, Denarius was an erudite and witty speaker. Here, in Sydney, he is hesitant, talking about his art as if by rote.

Mal flies back to France where she enlists the aid of her brother Parry, her husband Ludo, and his sister Apolline to investigate Denis Denarius. They become enmeshed in a bizarre realm of surgical transformations to create simulacra of famous artists; holograms controlled by microcomputers implanted in victim’s skulls.

The stratosphere of contemporary art becomes a dangerous reality when Parry is kidnapped. The others must find him before he becomes the next guinea pig. Once today is safely in the past, Mal recognises that her tomorrows are with Ludo.

On a Wing and a Dare by Linda Ulleseit| Flying Horse Books. March 2013

In Tremeirchson, a barn leader’s children are expected to follow their parents into the sky, becoming riders of the magnificent, winged horses that are the medieval Welsh village’s legacy. Neither Emma nor Davyd, however, want to follow that tradition. Emma longs to ride a forbidden winged colt born in the barn of her father’s biggest rival. She also dreams of the rival’s sons.

Bold and exciting, Evan will someday lead his father’s barn. Davyd is quieter, more dependable. Davyd is also plagued with a secret — he is afraid of heights. Refusing to become a rider means public humiliation, his parents’ disappointment, and lifelong ridicule from his brother, Evan. As Tremeirchson’s barns prepare for the Rider Ceremony, winged horses suddenly start dying. Shocked, the adults hesitate, mired in tradition and politics. Is it a disease or poison?

Someone must discover the answer and act before all the winged horses in the world are gone forever.