Though simultaneously dubbed recession-proof and a recession indicator, one thing’s for sure: the Romantasy genre has kick-started a renewed love for reading among the global population.
For many, reading is a muscle that – once renewed through regular exercise – becomes stronger than ever. If you’re well and truly past your Romantasy phase (are we ever?) but have nutured the reading itch, you may be in the mood for a Nordic Noir novel, a crime thriller, or perhaps a literary classic.
Whatever your literary poison may be, it’s time to stock up on steamy, intellectual or spooky winter reads with the help of Amazon’s October sale, Big Deal Days.
When does Amazon’s sale end?
The October sale, officially referred to as Amazon’s Big Deal Days, is live right now! The event kicked off at midnight on October 7 and will be running until just before midnight on October 8. That’s 48 hours of bargains across home, beauty, tech and more.
Who can participate?
This is another Prime-only sale. That means you’ll have to be an Amazon Prime member to participate in the October sale.
Is Amazon Prime worth the price?
I certainly think so, especially when it comes to getting the second book in a raging Romantasy series delivered next-day.
There are two payment plans - you can opt to pay £8.99 a month, or get everything sorted annually for a £95 fee, which works out cheaper. If you are a student or have one under your roof, get them to sign up to take advantage of the £4.49 a month or £47.49 annual cost - and that’s after a free six-month trial!
Shop the best book deals in Amazon’s October sale below
Long and short-listed for the Booker Prize
Love Forms by Caire Adam
In 1980, 16-year-old Dawn Bishop travelled from Trinidad to Venezuela, where she gave birth to a baby girl whom she left in the care of nuns. Dawn moves to England and begins a new life; one with all the tenets of traditional success – marriage, a career, two sons, a divorce – but she thinks always of the child she had in Venezuela. So, what happens when an internet forum brings forth a woman, claiming potentially be Dawn’s long-lost daughter?
Was: £16.99
Buy now £13.19, Amazon
Universality by Natasha Brown
An examination of the very concept of universal truth, Natasha Brown’s satirical and deeply political novel is an exhilarating journey through the importance of language and how we use it.
The story follows a young journalist on a mission to uncover the mystery surrounding the brutal death of a man in Yorkshire, the leader of a group of anarchists who has been bludgeoned with a solid gold bar. Though she solves the mystery involving a money-hungry landlord, a columnist, and a group of radical hippies, the resulting viral longread exposé proves far more contentious than she could’ve ever imagined.
Don’t be fooled – this isn’t a murder mystery yarn. Rather, it’s a thrilling examination of class identity, modern media and contemporary British society.
Was: £14.99
Buy now £11.85, Amazon
Flashlight by Susan Choi
Susan Choi returns with a rich, multi‑generational literary saga. When Louisa is found unconscious on a Japanese beach in 1978 and her father Serk, a Korean émigré, vanished, what seems like a tragic accident becomes a fracturing mystery.
The story spans decades and continents - from Japan to the US, Europe, and even North Korea -unspooling secrets about identity, geopolitics and grief.
Choi intertwines private trauma with broader historical legacies with laser-focused precision and emotional gravity. A novel luminous with metaphor, suspense, and the ache of inheritance.
Was: £20
Buy now £15.99, Amazon
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Kiran Desai’s long-awaited first novel in nearly twenty years follows two Indian protagonists - Sonia, an aspiring writer studying in Vermont, and Sunny, a journalist in New York - each overwhelmed by solitude abroad.
After a disastrous matchmaking attempt by their families in India, they remain apart, haunted by cultural dislocation and emotional distance. Sonia becomes entwined in a troubling affair with an older artist; Sunny grapples with unacknowledged love and racial isolation.
A sweeping, multi‑generational love story and social novel about home, class, art and the internal geography of longing.
Was: £25
Buy now £19.65, Amazon
Audition by Katie Kitamura
Set in present-day NYC, a celebrated actress rehearsing a new play accepts a lunch invitation from Xavier, a young man who claims to be her son.
Their rather ambiguous encounter sets in motion a shifting emotional terrain, where truth, projection and memory collide. It’s been described as a taut, thrilling reflection on the characters we all play from lover to parent to stranger, inviting readers to question how identity, family and performance blur the line of truth.
Was: £18.99
Buy now £14.45, Amazon
The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits
Late summer, Cape Cod and cross-country highways.
Tom Layward, a law professor in his mid-fifties, drops his daughter at college and, instead of returning home, he begins a solo drive out West, haunted by a marriage he’s long planned to leave.
As he journeys through old towns and motels, memory and regret mix with newfound clarity; years of emotional distance, domestic promise turned stale, and a man forced to confront what remains of his life now that the children have departed.
A moving road novel, gentle but unsparing. The Rest of Our Lives turns midlife doubt into a poignant, deeply observed reckoning.
Was; £16.99
Buy now £13.99, Amazon
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
December 1962, rural West Country. In Britain’s infamous Big Freeze, two neighbouring couples – Doctor Eric Parry and his wife Irene; farmer Bill Simmons and former dancer Rita – are stranded by snow as pregnancy, secrets, and simmering tensions come to the surface.
Drifting between domestic isolation and growing connection, Irene and Rita strike an unlikely bond amid claustrophobic weather and community exile.
As icy drifts deepen and memories of war linger, this novel uses winter as a metaphor, where relationships crack, hope flickers, and ordinary lives are transformed by necessity and emotional thaw.
Was: £20
Buy now £15.99, Amazon
Flesh by David Szalay
István is a socially awkward teen in Hungary, is drawn into an exploitative relationship that scars him. From juvenile detention, he moves on to serve in Iraq and later navigates adulthood as a conflicted security guard in Chelsea. His life is a slow-motion drift, punctuated by trauma, luck, and an affair that reshapes his fate.
Szalay’s captivating, often devastating bildungsroman offers a study of modern masculinity, longing, and human connection in the face of alienation. It’s a stark, haunting portrait of a man shaped by flesh and endurance.
Was: £18.99
Buy now £14.75, Amazon
Gripping Nordic Noirs and crime thrillers
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Now’s the time to finally pick up your very own copy of the international bestseller. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first of Stieg Larsson’s six-part series which follows an unlikely team of murder investigators put together by the uncle of Harriet Vanger, who disappeared from a gathering on the family’s island forty years ago. Disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and tattooed hacker Lisbeth Salander risk everything to uncover the secrets of the twisted Vanger clan and solve the mystery of Harriet’s disappearance.
Was: £9.99
Buy now £7.99, Amazon
Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Simultaneously deeply moving and incredibly horrifying, Lindqvist’s vampire tale is like no other. Set in a Swedish suburb in 1981, 12-year-old Oskar strikes up an unlikely friendship with his new next-door neighbour. Eli doesn’t go to school and never leaves the flat during the day. Oskar knows there is something off about her, but is fascinated by her nonetheless, as she offers him an escape from the daily horrors of his school bullies.
Was: £12.99
Buy now £8.99, Amazon
I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
Across the 1970s and 80s, California was stalked by a serial rapist and murderer who seemed to vanish without trace. Decades later, journalist Michelle McNamara began piecing together fragments of evidence, police reports, and survivor accounts to track the man she dubbed the “Golden State Killer.”
The book charts both the crimes themselves and the painstaking investigation that pursued him across time, highlighting the terror he inflicted on suburban neighbourhoods. Completed after McNamara’s death in 2016, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark not only recounts the crimes but also details the obsessive search for a perpetrator who eluded capture for more than forty years.
Was: £10.99
Buy now £9.00, Amazon
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt’s The Secret History isn’t your average murder mystery – for we know who is killed, and who the killers are, within the first few pages of this dark tale. The narrator of this inverted piece of crime fiction, Richard Papen, transfers to an elite liberal arts college in Vermont to escape his disinterested and abusive family in California.
Papen finds himself enamoured by a small group of seemingly perfect, erudite Greek students who are taught in secretive tutorials by an eccentric professor. Desperate to enter into the folds of the seemingly impenetrable group, Papen manages to convince the faculty to switch majors – a decision which would turn out to be both deadly and damning.
Kindle edition: £6.99
Audiobook: £0.99
Was: £9.99
Buy now £7.99, Amazon
Romantasy
One Dark Window by Rachel Gellig
Spice rating: 2/5
Elspeth Spindle is plagued by an ancient, mercurial spirit which torments her from its cage within her head. She calls him the Nightmare, and he’s the only thing that keeps her safe in the shadow-filled, misty kingdom of Blunder.
One evening, our protagonist meets a mysterious highwayman on a forest road, who enlists her in a dangerous quest to cure Blunder of the dark magic which infects it - which infects her. The highwayman just so happens to be the King’s nephew, who is guilty of high treason and in charge of some of the most dangerous men in the kingdom.
Was: £10.99
Buy now £9.37, Amazon
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Stephen King declared Bardugo’s best-seller to be “the best fantasy novel [he’s] read in years, because it’s about real people.”
We follow the life of Alex Stern, a high school dropout and the sole survivor of a horrific unsolved multiple homicide, as she enters her freshman year at Yale. A free ride at one of the world’s most prestigious institutions supported by mysterious benefactors inevitably comes with a catch, and Alex is tasked with monitoring the activities of Yale’s darkest secret societies – otherwise referred to as tombs.
Known for producing esteemed members of the global elite, Alex uncovers the occult secrets of the university’s haunted societies – but at what cost?
Was: £10.99
Buy now £6.09, Amazon
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Spice rating: 3/5 (second and third books in the series, 4/5)
Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing is the unexpected, highly addictive and fiery (quite literally, there are dragons involved) novel which follows Violet Sorrengail, a new cadet in Navarre’s brutal Basgiath War College.
Initially slated for the rather tame Scribe quadrant, where cadets are tasked with bookkeeping and writing historical records, Violet is thrust into the Rider’s Quadrant – Basgiath’s most brutal yet revered army sector which demands survival yet does everything possible to prevent it. Violet doesn’t know what’s worse – fighting for her life on a daily basis, or her undeniable attraction to the enemy.
Was: £22
Buy now £18.75, Amazon
Quicksilver by Callie Hart
Spice rating: 3.5/5
A skilled, seemingly human thief named Saeris Fane accidentally opens a gateway to the Fae realm while on the run from the Queen’s guards. Saeris belongs to the most impoverished faction of the kingdom known as “The Third”, and will do anything to keep her and her younger brother alive. So, when she finds herself at the feet of a warrior fae named Kingfisher, the personification of Death himself, she is forced to ally herself with him to fight her way back home.
Was: £22
Buy now £16.00, Amazon
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Spice rating: 5/5
A ferociously passionate fantasy tale which follows an enemies-to-lovers trope taking place within the mythical lands of Prythian, where faeries and humans live in violent opposition.
Whether you’ve come across A Court of Thorns and Roses via social media platforms such as TikTok, or are simply in the market for a new erotic fantasy series to devour, you’re in the right place. The first of Sarah J Maas’ five-book series, A Court of Thorns and Roses follows the plight of a huntress named Feyre who kills a wolf in an act of survival to feed her family. However, the wolf that Feyre killed was not what it appeared, and her violent act had untold consequences for the young huntress and her people.
For her actions, Feyre is kidnapped and taken away from her family. While held captive by the masked Tamlin, Feyre’s feelings become complex – turning from hatred to lust, as the two lovers attempt to navigate the bloody consequences of their relationship and fight to break an ancient curse.
Was: £9.99
Buy now £4.73, Amazon
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Spice rating: 1/5
If you stumbled into the world of Yarros’ Fourth Wing without first reading Bardugo’s cult-favourite Shadow and Bone, you’re in for a real treat.
A masterclass in worldbuilding filled to the brim with twists, turns, romance and marvellously addictive characters, the story begins with our orphaned protagonist Alina Starkov. She’s a mapmaker in the First Army of Ravka who knows she likely won’t survive her first trip across the fold – a shadowy expanse of darkness filled with horrifying monsters.
But when her regiment is attacked, she unleashes a dormant power that sees her swept away to the world of the Grisha – Ravka’s magical military elite led by General Kirigan, otherwise referred to as The Darkling, who believes Alina can banish the shadow fold for good and save their war-ravaged, divided country.
We follow along as Alina trains alongside the magical yet rather scientific Grisha to hone her unique powers, while she begins to unlock secrets about her past, present and future.
Was: £16.99
Buy now £11.26, Amazon
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Spice rating: 1/5
A highly unique and beloved urban fantasy, Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones is the first in a sextet known as The Mortal Instruments series. You may recall the 2013 film adaptation, which sadly didn’t get a sequel despite broad fan appreciation. Rather than watch the adapted television series which came three years later and doesn’t accurately reflect the painstaking worldbuilding and magical craftwork of Cassandra Clare, it’s time to read the books.
Fifteen-year-old Clary unintentionally witnesses a murder – a rather supernatural one. At the Pandemonium Club in New York City, three teenage boys kill someone, or something – which proceeds to vanish without so much as a drop of blood. They are Shadowhunters; warriors dedicated to ridding the Earth of demons. Warriors that regular, mundane people like Clary shouldn’t be able to see, which intrigues the Shadowhunters – namely, Jace. Within twenty-four hours, Clary’s mother disappears, she herself is attacked by a demon and she is inescapably pulled into a dark underworld that she never knew existed.
Was: £8.99
Buy now £6.45, Amazon
When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker
Spice rating: 4/5
As a valued member of the rebellion group Fíur du Ath, our protagonist Raeve is a professional killer – but when a renowned bounty hunter is employed by the Crown to capture a member of the Ath, Raeve’s world is turned upside down.
Crushed by the loss of his great love, dragon ride Kaan Vaegor is tormented by acts committed in his past, and the futility of his future – until he stumbles upon a prisoner with blood on her hands.
Was: £20
Buy now £16.00, Amazon
Classics
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
A 150-year-old fantasy adventure which continues to enchant and enthral both adults and children alike, ever-curious Alice falls down the rabbit hole to discover an entire universe lies hidden beneath it. Featuring Sir John Tenniel’s iconic illustrations depicting iconic and beloved characters, many readers are unaware of the fact that the novel also has a marvellous sequel. Follow this classic up with Through the Looking Glass.
Was: £6.99
Buy now £5.36, Amazon
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The very first of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels which features Detective Sherlock Holmes and Watson, The Hound of the Baskervilles takes place within the hills and crevices of the mist-covered moors at Baskerville Hall. Following the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, which locals are putting down to the hellish, ghostly hound which is said to have haunted his family for generations – the ever-rational Holmes sets out to disprove such irrational mysticism and solve the case once and for all.
Was: £16.99
Buy now £13.35, Amazon
Care and Feeding by Laurie Woolever
A woman who spent almost a decade working with the late, great Anthony Bourdain knows how to indulge.
Writer, editor and former cook Laurie Woolever’s new memoir, Care and Feeding, is a gastronomical yarn which traces the author’s life and work through food, romantic and professional relationships, mistakes, triumphs and more with the knowledge, sincerity and brutal honesty that only a longtime industry insider could provide.
Was: £22
Buy now £18.73, Amazon
