Reading by moonlight while waiting for The Great Pumpkin? Face your fears this Halloween with a bestseller (and a bag of chocolate!).

If you fear… a missing child:


Fear the Worst by Linwood Barclay

Seventeen-year-old Sydney Blake’s summer is shaping up to be typical for a teenager: she’s spending it with her father, and she has landed a part-time job at a local hotel. One night, Syd fails to come home from her shift, and her father Tim is a bit alarmed. However, that alarm turns to full-on panic after he visits the Just Inn Time hotel and the manager claims that Syd has never worked there… more

If you fear… a pack of werewolves:


Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong

New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong returns with the tenth installment of the Women of the Otherworld series.

The Alaskan wilderness is a harsh landscape in the best of conditions, but with a pack of rogue werewolves on the loose, it’s downright deadly. Elena Michaels, the Pack’s chief enforcer, knows all too well the havoc “mutts” can wreak. When they hear of a series of gruesome maulings and murders outside Anchorage, she and her husband, Clay, journey to Alaska in the dead of winter in order to hunt down the dangerous werewolves… more

If you fear… a body under water:


The Taken by Inger Ash Wolfe

In the second mystery novel featuring D.I. Hazel Micallef (after The Calling) is still recovering from back surgery when a report comes in that a body has been found in a nearby lake, snagged under several feet of water. But as D.C. Wingate says, the whole thing is way too eerie. The first installment of a story has just been published in the local paper: a passage that describes in detail just such a discovery. Real life is far too close to fiction for coincidence… more

If you fear… an arranged murder:


Breathless by Dean Koontz

In the stillness of a golden September afternoon, deep in the wilderness of the Rockies, a solitary craftsman, Grady Adams, and his magnificent Irish wolfhound Merlin step from shadow into light…and into an encounter with enchantment. That night, through the trees, under the moon, a pair of singular animals will watch Grady’s isolated home, waiting to make their approach… more

If you fear… a ghost story:


Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Another brilliant, original and moving novel from the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Julia and Valentina Poole are normal American teenagers - normal, at least, for identical “mirror” twins who have no interest in college or jobs or possibly anything outside their cozy suburban home. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn’t know existed has died and left them her amazing flat in a building by Highgate Cemetery in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin… more

Discover your next great (spooky) read at BookLounge.ca.

It isn’t everyday that we crack the champagne before noon, but this morning, the Knopf Random Canada (KRC) group had two wonderful reasons to celebrate. Two books had made the Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist - that’s the Holy Grail of Canadian publishing - and both were edited by Anne Collins, doyenne of Random House Canada. So, KRC’s executive publisher Louise Dennys gave a heartfelt toast for Annabel Lyon’s wonderful novel The Golden Mean - check out that cover, kids - and the brilliant The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre.

It all started in a room at the glamourous Four Seasons, where the assembled group of nervous editors and publishers quaffed orange juice squeezed from real oranges and fair-trade coffee. Then, Jack Rabinovich took the podium to introduce the jurors.

This very generous man sponsors the award in memory of his late wife Doris. This year, the jury was comprised of the elegant Victoria Glendinning from England,

the handsome Russell Banks from the US, and Alistair Macleod, who couldn’t be there. And then Victoria started to read the nominees - this is always an interesting exercise, because the names are read alphabetically, and everybody in the room began to clock which books had been left off as the list was announced. When Kim Echlin’s wonderful novel The Disappeared (published by Penguin Books) was announced as the first nominee, people were shocked to realize that Margaret Atwood’s splendid The Year of the Flood hadn’t made the shortlist… As well as Annabel and Linden and Echlin’s books, also shortlisted were Colin McAdam’s Fall and Anne Michael’s The Winter Vault.

Well, back to work - hoping to find the Giller nominees of years to come - and then to turn our attention to the announcement of the Man Booker Prize this evening in London. KRC has two books on the shortlist….