The Bookies Bookstore extends spooky season with 3 titles

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from The Bookies Bookstore in Denver recommends an Indigenous sequel, digital horror and a Yale-centric battle with hell.

Off the Reservation

By Stephen Graham Jones
Simon and Schuster
$32
October 2026
Purchase

From the publisher: Five years have passed since the massacre on the Blackfeet reservation in Stephen Graham Jones’s breakout bestseller “The Only Good Indians.” Nathan Yellow Tail, one of the survivors of the revenge murders, finds himself in the hospital after a terrible accident that should’ve killed him and that nearly killed his best friend, Sebby, who is hanging on to life in a room a few doors down.

Nate’s life is out of balance, so when he is given the chance to reset his life, and maybe save Sebby in the process, he steps up, again. This time it’s into a camper van that is almost as run down as his broken body, filled with three older Blackfeet, to find the bones of the lone Blackfeet boy who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School — where many Indigenous children were abused — and repatriate this boy home. The problem is, when they get the bones, something terrible has escaped with them.

By turns terrifying and deeply moving, “Off the Reservation” is a haunting American Indian novel of survival, reckoning, and redemption, shining light on the dark corners of this country’s history while also showing the desperate choices people make when they’re put up against a wall.

From Sharon, bookseller: If you are looking for the fear factor, you won’t be disappointed. I was on the edge of my seat for this road trip, and night travel was out of the question. Fans of horror will not want to miss this entertaining sequel to “The Only Good Indians.”

Public Access Afterworld

By  Jane Schoenbrun
Random House Publishing
$33, $31 (audio from Libro.fm)
October 2026
Purchase
Audio

From the publisher: At 5:35 p.m. on September 3, 1988, Dallas weatherman Ray “Can You Say Sunshine” Davino makes passing reference to Public Access Afterworld during a rambling monologue, right before he puts a gun to his head on live television and pulls the trigger.

On June 12, 2009, David Sawyer and Erin Morrison, two lonely, TV-obsessed suburban teens who might be falling in love, gather in Erin’s basement to watch TV’s analog-to-digital transition. But in the static that follows, Erin witnesses surreal broadcasts from a pirate TV network called Public Access Afterworld, and their lives are changed forever. Seventeen years later, Bethany Peters toils through the night shift at megacorp GlobalVill’s bleak Austin campus. A trans content moderator, she spends her evenings reviewing an endless stream of horrific videos. But then a young streamer begins to crop up in her feed calling out to Public Access Afterworld.

A mesmerizing mash-up of speculative fiction, horror, and conspiracy, it marks the arrival of a major new force in contemporary fiction by a groundbreaking filmmaker who’s been compared to David Lynch and Paul Thomas Anderson.

From Krista, store manager: I listened to this book on Libro.fm and there’s nothing quite like a spooky book to make your drives and walks a little more exciting, especially in the foggy weather we’ve been having! The author, Jane, narrates the book and I loved having their voice to bring the story to life. For anyone a fan of Schoenbrun’s filmography, a fan of early internet YouTube horror, or someone who enjoys stories of a world a touch darker and creepier than our own, this book is for you!

Dead Beat

By Leigh Bardugo
Flatiron Books
$29.99
September 2026
Purchase

From the publisher: Alex Stern made it to hell and back more than once, but this time she left the door open behind her. Demons are creeping through the streets of New Haven and the Yale campus, feeding on the souls of the living, terrifying the dead. Alex and her allies can hunt them, but it’s only a matter of time before the gates to the underworld open and they face a war they cannot win. To stop it, they’ll have to reach deep into the secrets of Yale and its societies, and discover the truth hidden in Alex’s own blood.

While she struggles to hold onto the dream of a future Yale once offered, Alex must contend with the machinations of a corrupt Lethe Board and a deadly vampire with his own connection to the societies. But for the first time in her life, she won’t have to face the fight alone. Dawes, Turner, Mercy, and even Tripp will have a role to play, none more so than Alex’s mentor Darlington, the golden boy who lived so long in her head, now back in the flesh and cursed with dangerous powers of his own. Hell itself is stalking the delegates of Lethe House, and they’re all about to learn that demons don’t play by human rules.

From Krystal, event coordinator: “Dead Beat” is the third installment in the Ninth House trilogy. Our loveable group of unlikely friends are determined to not only find rogue demons and send them back to hell, but figure out a way to close the portal for good (since it was sort of their fault it exists in the first place). Expect more ghosts, vampires, and Yale lore. And will Alex and Darlington ever kiss already? I’m not telling…

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

The Bookies Bookstore
2085 S. Holly Street
Denver, CO 80222

thebookies.com

As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.