Here’s a set of mini reviews for the titles I read in September:

The Dungeon Book: Quirky and entertaining, an epic fantasy about slaying dragons as told by Cornelius the Skull. It took me a little bit of time to get into this one but I’m glad I stuck with it. The ending is a nice twist and while everything comes out as you’d expect it to in the end, I appreciated that our heroine didn’t have to give up her personality to make things work.

Meet Me in the Garden: I got this title as the BOM shipment and honestly it was going to be sort of a throwaway “eh, whatever” kind of read – or so I thought. This wound up being one of my favorite books of 2026 so far. Historical fiction about a young creole woman who moves from Louisiana to California during The Great Migration, how she reconciles who she is with who her family wants her to be, raising her son and her childhood friend’s daughter while coming into her own as an artist. Highly recommend.

Paladin’s Grace: The next book in my backlist catalog for favorite author T. Kingfisher. Another enjoyable read for me – entertaining and fun with her usual witty characters and dry humor. I find I like her fantasy or retelling titles better than her horror ones, and this one was just the ticket for a long weekend away to enjoy.

Bookshops and Bonedust: Light and fluffy, just like the pastries at the bakery down the street from the bookshop. If you’ve read other Travis Baldree, this is more of the same. Nothing earthshattering but a quiet sweet read.

House of Purple Cedar: Another sleeper for me this month. I picked this title to fulfill a challenge prompt for a title with the color “purple” in it. Set at the turn of the century in Oklahoma, it follows the reminiscences of Rose, a young Choctaw woman, about her family and events that unfold in their small town. While some of the characters were a little stereotypical, Rose and her voice come through clear as a bell and I highly recommend this one for an indigenous peoples’ perspective trying to live safely in a White world.

Carol/The Price of Salt: I also picked this one up for a challenge prompt. I haven’t seen the recent (ish) movie of this one but despite being written in the early 1950s, this one actually read much more like a contemporary book – so perhaps that’s why they opted to make a movie out of it? The story of a young theater designer who falls in love with Carol, a well-to-do society mother and wife, and how they try to find happiness in a world where they face the struggles of mid-century gender bias and taboos.