#5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook and you can learn more about it here or in the post announcing it. It occurs every Monday when we post about 5 books on our TBR. Thank you E. for the awesome graphic for these posts as well!

Hi everyone,

It’s officially scary month and I am so excited to read all the horror books! It was also really sunny in Melbourne this weekend, which I’ll admit is never going to not be weird because scary month should be AUTUMN. Alas. I’ll take the sun after 6 months without it. This week’s #5OnMyTBR is all about magic! My list is all YA fantasy today because I’ve been struggling with the genre all year and thus my TBR is rather overflowing with it now…

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Top of the list is one of the biggest releases of the year, Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas! I am potentially going to read this in October, it’s not on my “official” Gothtober TBR, but it is on my list of “can switch this in for several prompts depending on my mood”. It’s about a trans boy who vows to prove himself a brujo by summoning a ghost.

Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron

I’m trying to read all my 2019 book purchases before the end of the year, and this is one of those that I just never had a chance to read last year. The Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron is about a family of witchdoctors and the daughter who isn’t coming into her powers so she trades years of her life in exchange for magic.

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

Another of my 2019 purchases (my excuse is that I’m on the outs with YA fantasy so these have languished on my TBR for a while), The Candle and the Flame is set on the Silk Road, in a city whose entire population was recently slaughtered, except for three individuals. It is now protected by the Ifrit, djinn of order and reasoning, and when one of them dies, everything changes for the three humans who survived the massacre.

The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski

The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski is set in the same place as her Winner’s trilogy, which I haven’t actually read and know nothing about but I heard this had lesbians kissing so I bought it (I have no self control for sapphic books). It’s about someone from the lower castes, Nirrim, trying to seek out the magic the higher castes wield for herself.

Beyond the Ruby Veil by Mara Fitzgerald

I know I said above me and YA fantasy are on the outs so I shouldn’t be buying this book when it’s one that releases later this month. And it is true that I’ve been struggling with YA fantasy this year which is the reason the only books on my owned TBR with magic right now are YA fantasy. BUT, as with The Midnight Lie, this has girls kissing and therefore I must support. But also the author marketed this as “tiny chaos lesbian who’s going to save the world or burn it down trying” and if that isn’t genius marketing I don’t know what is.

And that’s it for another week! What book with magic are you most excited to read during the rest of 2020? Let me know in the comments!