When fall rolls around most people get excited about football, pumpkin-spice goodies and turkey feasts. For me, it’s all about books, books, books! Every October I get giddy just thinking about all author meet-and-greets, book tent shopping, live music and junk food galore at the annual Texas Book Festival.

Normally I make a beeline for the big-time author signing events and panel discussions, but this year I decided to spend more time roaming the rows upon rows of book tents with my ginormous book bag in tow. There’s free candy,  magazines, cheap books and oodles of swag. It’s like trick-or-treating for grownups! You never know who you’re going to bump into in these tents. In the past, I’ve stumbled upon talented new indie writers like Sylvia Dickey Smith and Russ Hall (two of my top Texas mystery authors), and bestselling young adult paranormal romance authors like Richelle Meade and Meg Cabot.

What I love about this festival is that I don’t even have to bother reading the dustcover for a synopsis. The authors are more than happy to walk me through the book in person! How cool is that!? Of course not all of them sing to me, which can be rather awkward when the author is doing a hard sell, but there were dozens this year that really caught my eye. Here are just a few of the titles that I added to my mountainous to-be-read stack:

Éire’s Captive Moon (Éire’s Viking #1)  by Sandi Layne

Éire’s Captive Moon, the first book of Sandi Layne’s Éire’s Viking Trilogy, brings you to the unsettled era of the early Viking raids along the coast of Éire – today’s Ireland. A wounded refugee from the violent Viking raids on Éire’s coast is healed so well by Charis of Ragor that Agnarr captures the moon-pale woman for his own and takes her home to Nordweg to be his slave. Read more here…

Hunted (The Gates Legacy #1) by Lorenz Font

Deep in the heart of New York City’s netherworld, a horrible disease is ravaging the vampire community. The Vampire Council is on a crusade to obliterate those infected, and Harrow Gates is target Number One. The unwitting source of the plague, he suffers from the same nightmarish symptoms as his victims. The world he’d been thrust into was cold, cruel, and intent on eradicating him, and the legions of afflicted vampires he created with his bite. Read more here…

To Hell and Gone in Texas by Russ Hall

Retired sheriff’s detective Al Quinn hasn’t spoken to his brother, Maury, in twenty years. When Maury lands in the hospital under suspicious circumstances, though, Al reluctantly abandons his quiet country seclusion to look into the matter. A second attempt to take Maury out drives the brothers back to Al’s lakeside home, where Al knows the territory, but they’re not alone for long.

ICE agents demand that Maury rat on his silent partner, city cop Fergie Jergens comes investigating the murders of Maury’s lady friends, and someone takes a match to Al’s house. Read more here…

When You Make it Home by Claire Ashby

Meg Michaels, a bookstore owner, has already walked away from two cheating exes. She’s learned her lesson and has her mind set on success—until she gets knocked up. Embarrassed and unwilling to discuss her situation with friends and family, she wears layers to hide the pregnancy. Read more here…

(Notable Mention) Lay Death at Her Door by Elizabeth Buhmann
Twenty years ago, Kate Cranbrook’s eyewitness testimony sent the wrong man to prison for rape and murder. When new evidence exonerates him, Kate says that in the darkness and confusion, she must have mistaken her attacker’s identity. She is lying. Kate would like nothing better than to turn her back on the past, but she is trapped in a stand-off with the real killer. Read my review here…

RIP (Rest In Peace) by Bob Kat

Once again Kelly, Scott, Austin and Zoey are listening to the Spirit Radio when they hear a cry for help from a mother whose four-year-old daughter, Emma went missing in the middle of a busy lobby at the infamous Stanley Hotel. But time traveling back to 1911 is a lot more complicated than the three trips they had taken earlier in the summer. They have to find appropriate clothes and figure out a way to pay for their stay. When they hear about a tragic fire that hurt several hotel employees, the teens take advantage of the hotel’s desperation and get jobs working as lady’s maids and houseboys so they can keep an eye on Emma and her family. Read more here…