Ocean County Library Great Reads October 2025 - Spooky Grave Yard - Oranges and Blacks

October's Recommended Reads

All books mentioned in this edition of the Great Reads Newsletter are available in the Ocean County Library's Libby by OverDrive Collection and/or in our catalog
 
On mobile devices you can download the Libby App from the device's app store to browse the OverDrive Collection.
 
For help and support visit the library's help page and click on the Libby by OverDrive tab.

Adult Fiction

Their Monstrous Hearts
by Yigit Turhan
A mysterious stranger shows up at Riccardo's apartment with some news: his grandmother Perihan has died, and Riccardo has inherited her villa in Milan along with her famed butterfly collection. The struggling writer is out of options. He's hoping the change of scenery in Milan will inspire him, and maybe there will be some money to keep him afloat. But Perihan's house isn't as opulent as he remembers. Perihan's group of mysterious old friends is constantly lurking. As Riccardo explores the decrepit estate, he stumbles upon Perihan's diary, which might hold the key to her mysterious death. Or at least give him the inspiration he needs to finish his manuscript.

Home is Where the Bodies Are
by Jeneva Rose
After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm's length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest, lives out of state and hasn't been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them seven years before. While going through their parents' belongings, the siblings stumble upon a collection of home videos and decide to revisit those happier memories. However, the nostalgia is cut short when one of the VHS tapes reveals a night back in 1999 that none of them have any recollection of. On screen, their father appears covered in blood. What follows is a dead body and a pact between their parents to get rid of it, before the video abruptly ends. Beth, Nicole, and Michael must now decide whether to leave the past in the past or uncover the dark secret their mother took to her grave.

Young Adult Fiction

Ruin Road
by Lamar Giles
Cade Webster lives between worlds. He's a standout football star at the right school but lives in the wrong neighborhood—if you let his classmates tell it. Everywhere but home, people are afraid of him for one reason or another. Afraid he's too big, too fast, too ambitious, too Black. Then one fateful night, to avoid a dangerous encounter with the police, he ducks into a pawn shop. An impulse purchase and misspoken desire change everything when Cade tells the shopkeeper he wishes people would stop acting so scared around him, and the wish is granted. At first, it feels like things have taken a turn for the better. But it's not just Cade that people no longer fear—it's everything. With Cade spreading this newfound "courage" wherever he goes, anything can happen. With the right moves, and brave friends, Cade might have one — and only one — chance to save all he loves. But at what cost?

Dead Girls Walking
by Sami Ellis
Temple Baker knows that evil runs in her blood. Her father is the North Point Killer, an infamous serial killer known for how he marked each of his victims with a brand. He was convicted for murdering 20 people and was the talk of countless true crime blogs for years. Some say he was possessed by a demon. Some say that they never found all his victims. Some say that even though he's now behind bars, people are still dying in the woods. Despite everything, Temple never believed that her dad killed her mom. But when he confesses to that crime while on death row, she has no choice but to return to his old hunting grounds to try see if she can find a body and prove it. Turns out, the farm that was once her father's hunting grounds and her home has been turned into an overnight camp for queer, horror-obsessed girls. So Temple poses as a camp counselor to go digging in the woods. While she's not used to hanging out with girls her own age and feels ambivalent at best about these true crime enthusiasts, she tries her best to fit in and keep her true identity hidden.

Middle Grade Fiction

Grin
by D.W. Gillespie
Danny is spending a week with his Uncle Bill who runs a massive retro arcade called PixelWorks. His only plan is to play as many games as possible from open to close, but he wasn’t expecting to find the Holy Grail of arcade collectors, a gruesome looking game titled Grin. Anyone who plays the game becomes surprisingly violent, and soon with the help of his friend Jodi and a knowledgeable videogame streamer, Danny realizes that Grin holds the soul of a dead serial killer. Soon, the killer makes the jump into Bill’s body, and it’s up to Danny to figure out a way to stop him for good.

Deepwater Creek
by Michael Regina
There’s nothing that Wade and his younger brother, Andrew, love more than fishing together. As summer draws to a close, they’re excited for one last hoorah before classes begin and they end up at different schools for the first time. But a typical fishing trip with their best friends, Camilla and Tommy, quickly takes a darker turn. As heavy fog creeps over the creek, Andrew hooks something big—too big. In a moment of chaos, the brothers end up overboard. There, in the murky depths, they get a glimpse of what waits at the end of the line. And it seems far more monster than fish. Wade and the others wonder if the recent hurricane that hit the area may have stirred up more than just water, unleashing something horrible from below. Their parents don’t believe they saw anything at all. But if there really is something out there, the kids know someone needs to stop it. 

Picture Books

Hap-Pea Halloween
by Keith Baker
A group of happy peas think and scheme, deciding what they should be for Halloween.

Bob the Vampire Snail
by Andrea Zuill
Did you know all snails are named Bob? It's a fact! And this is the story of one of those Bobs and the night his life changed forever. First, he heard a SCREAM... then a C-R-A-C-K... and then he felt a drip, drip, drip... and then, poof! He was a vampire snail. Fangs? Check. No reflection? Check. Wings? You bet. And so Bob, now very different from all the other Bobs, sets out to live life as a vampire snail, discovering his knack for sleeping upside down and his taste for tomatoes. He's alone in his vampire-ness, until one day Bob meets someone very similar....

Check This Out

October Online Author Talks: The Next Conversation, Accomplice to the Villian, Enough is Enuf

One Book OCL: Cave of Bones

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