As the days get shorter and winds get chillier, autumn is just around the corner. Whether you welcome it as a time when the leaves turn technicolor or dread it as back-to-school season, autumn turns up a lot in fiction as a setting for both fantasy and horror. When it’s no longer time for midsummer fairies and not yet time for Halloween monsters, this brisk, darkening season is perfect to read about those liminal creatures, witches, who straddle that line.

The witches in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series are among the most beloved characters in the books, and Witches Abroad shows them in great form. Magrat (the maiden), Nanny Ogg (the mother) and Granny Weatherwax (the crone- I mean, the “other one”) are loving but quarrelsome trio who, in this story, travel to a far-off country ruled by a “Fairy Godmother” who is turning the land into a picturesque storybook- whether the inhabitants want it or not. From a heartbreaking depiction of Red Riding Hood’s Big Bad Wolf to buried family history about who got to be the good sister or the bad sister, the book rocks back from hilarious to thought provoking and back again. And if you like it, there’s quite a few more Discworld books to discover next!

One of the most famous witches in all folklore is Baba Yaga, the man-eating hag of Russian fairy tales who lives in a house that walks on chicken legs, and who provides help or harm to heroes as she sees fit. But, asks the brilliant magical realist novel Thistlefoot, what made her that way, and what kind of legacy would that leave for her descendants? An American Jewish brother and sister with powers that lend themselves to the uncanny and unlawful inherit that classic house on chicken legs, and it takes them on a journey through history, family psychology, and the legacy of violence that followed their ancestors from the old world to the new. We even get to hear what the house itself thinks of all this!

Practical Magic is one of the best-loved witch movies of all time, but the books have carried on the story past what was shown on the screen. The saga of the Owens family of loving but cursed witches reaches its climax in The Book of Magic. When aunt and matriarch Jet Owens realizes her life is coming to an end, it kicks off a family-wide quest to put the doom that haunts them to rest once and for all. Three generations of witches, male and female, bring together all their powers and discover new ones in the conclusion to the sprawling magical series.

T. Kingfisher is one of the best contemporary authors of weird fiction, and Nettle & Bone shows her turning classic fantasy tropes on their heads, and fairytale setups into horror. A heroic youngest daughter sets out to save her sisters from a prince with the help of a witch- but this isn’t a simple tale that just reverses expected good and evil. The magical tasks set before our protagonists aren’t just impossible, they’re terrifying! But magic, even benevolent magic, isn’t all sunshine and roses. Sometimes it’s the titular nettle and bone instead.

Have a magical autumn, be it metaphorical or literal! Pandemonium hopes to help you along the way.