Top 5 books that remind you of a season

*cough* Did you REALLY think this book wouldn’t make the list?! It has been maybe 2 months since I mentioned it. Maybe you all forgot I am obsessed.

Anyway, The Scorpio Races gives me late Autumn vibes ― just before we hit proper winter weather. Like, there’s a chill in the air and you need a sweater, but not quite a coat yet.

Blurb:

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition ― the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

I really thought this book would give me gothic wintery spooky vibes, but it really doesn’t. All I can picture when I think about Lakesedge is that summery, tall yellow grass. With an almost drought-like, dry, oppressive heat. Peak summer gothic vibes!

Blurb:

There are monsters in the world.

When Violeta Graceling arrives at haunted Lakesedge estate, she expects to find a monster. She knows the terrifying rumors about Rowan Sylvanan, who drowned his entire family when he was a boy. But neither the estate nor the monster are what they seem.

There are monsters in the woods.

As Leta falls for Rowan, she discovers he is bound to the Lord Under, the sinister death god lurking in the black waters of the lake. A creature to whom Leta is inexplicably drawn…

There’s a monster in the shadows, and now it knows my name.

Now, to save Rowan ― and herself ― Leta must confront the darkness in her past, including unraveling the mystery of her connection to the Lord Under.

Is there anything more wintery than a medieval Russian house made of wood, half buried in snow? Because I can’t think of anything. And while I do like to complain about the bitter cold here (at the moment), I can also appreciate that it isn’t THAT cold. The Bear and the Nightingale is one of my favourite Slavic-inspired tales, and probably my favourite winter-themed book.

Blurb:

At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind ― she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed ― this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.

It took me a moment to find a spring book… and then I remembered that the majority of this book takes place in spring. Or, the Spring Court to be more exact. Honestly, it’s the obvious choice and I do feel a little bit like I’m cheating by using A Court of Thorns and Roses for this one. I just really wanted to have an option for each season!! (I am a game completionist, and apparently a seasonal one too…)

Blurb:

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.

At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin ― and his world ― forever.

And finally, I’m going back to summer (can you tell it’s wishful thinking at this point?). The Unexpected Everything was an unexpected fave for me at the start of this year. I forgot how much I loved my previous Morgan Matson books. And this one has ALLLLL the summer vibes.

Blurb:

Andie had it all planned out. When you are a politician’s daughter who’s pretty much raised yourself, you learn everything can be planned or spun, or both. Especially your future. Important internship? Check. Amazing friends? Check. Guys? Check (as long as we’re talking no more than three weeks).

But that was before the scandal. Before having to be in the same house with her dad. Before walking an insane number of dogs. That was before Clark and those few months that might change her whole life. Because here’s the thing ― if everything’s planned out, you can never find the unexpected. And where’s the fun in that?