11 new YA book releases to kick off your spooky season right this October

Hush – Dylan Farrow

The debut novel from activist Dylan Farrow, Hush is a story of silence, magic, and the power of speaking out.

In the world of Montane, words are dangerous. Thanks to an ink-borne plague known as The Blot, citizens are forbidden from learning to read and write, and those skills are reserved only for a group known as Bards. These powerful magicians are sent around the country to collect tithes from the poor villages, enforce laws, and perform special magic called Tellings, meant to reward the citizens who sacrifice for the greater good.

Shae lives in a poor village, eking out an existence with her mother and the handful of friends who will still talk to her after her brother’s death from The Blot several years prior and keeping the secrets of her strange dreams that often seem to bleed into reality. But when her ma is murdered under suspicious circumstances, Shae is determined to find the truth – and to tell it once she does.

The official synopsis describes the story as follows.

"Seventeen-year-old Shae has led a seemingly quiet life, joking with her best friend Fiona, and chatting with Mads, the neighborhood boy who always knows how to make her smile. All while secretly keeping her fears at bay… Of the disease that took her brother’s life. Of how her dreams seem to bleed into reality around her. Of a group of justice seekers called the Bards who claim to use the magic of Telling to keep her community safe. When her mother is murdered, she can no longer pretend. Not knowing who to trust, Shae journeys to unlock the truth, instead finding a new enemy keen to destroy her, a brooding boy with dark secrets, and an untold power she never thought possible."

Hush is available on October 6.