Well, October flew by in a blink, didn’t it? Every time I sat down to write up a week’s worth of reading, I would get distracted and never end up writing anything, so this month is a review of faves and less than faves I read over the 31 days of October!

While I didn’t only read spooky books, it was a large portion of my month’s reading. Many of the rest were forced by library availability (Yellowface, True Gretch), a need for some smutty smut (Kings of Chaos, Holiday for Six), prep for December’s holiday reading (Snow Place Like LA) and an ARC (Christmas Criminal).

Smut Reads
Kings of Chaos was set in Detroit, which delighted me. Its representation of Detroit was…. less than favorable so it was kind of sad for me in that part. The spice was ok, lots of tension building with a loose plot line. Holiday for Six however, dropped you in at the beginning of a vacation for sex six, doing a fabulous job of weaving the relationships and histories together. Plus the spice scenes had me sweating, it was so good.

Library Reads
Yellowface was for our library book club, which unfortunately got cancelled this month due to lack of interest. So, I will leave what I would have said there, here. I absolutely despised the main character. She started out from a good intention, but R.F. Kuang did a fantastic job weaving how terribly wrong you can go when you think you’re acting with good intention. Plus, not a single person in the book was a good person. June? Terrible. Athena? Terrible person. Geoff, Candace, Brett, Daniella, all terrible people. It was a five start read though. Excellent writing, great plot.

We are also having a veteran’s book discussion later this month, which was how I ended up reading Starship Troopers. A fantastic classic. It gave me so much to think about, I am still processing it even almost a month later.

And, True Gretch FINALLY became available in Libby, was a short read, and so I ate that up in a day. It was a great read, and I learned things about my governor that I didn’t already know. I really hope she runs for president one day.

Spooky Reads
I took the October-tunity to finally catch up on all of the Beacon Bakeshop reads by Darci Hannah, just in time for another to be coming out this month. They wavered in strength of story, but the Murder at the Blueberry Festival was hands down the best of the bunch. A sweet ending, a twist I did not see coming, and I teared up at the reveal. Absolutely beautiful.

I also finished up the Graves Glen series with the Wedding Witch. Though I am not sure why it was named that, the story itself was really good, and I enjoyed the ending of the series. I re-read the first two in September for my October book club with Stephanie, and it was like sinking into a warm bath to revisit Graves Glen. Though I still hate Simon and will forever.

Miscellaneous
Katie Ledecky’s memoir was fascinating. I really could not put that one down, it was so good. I hope she does decide to try for the 2028 Olympics in LA. I would love to watch her swim again knowing all the things she’s done to prepare, how she got here, and how down to earth her parents are. I wish more sports (and stage) parents were like hers. Making sure she still had a childhood and didn’t feel pressured to win.

Samantha Bee’s memoir on the other hand was disappointing. Her upbringing was absolutely nuts, but I don’t know, it just didn’t gel for me? I do love knowing that she and Jason Jones met in a drama troupe ripping off Sailor Moon, though. I straight up cackled at that part.

What were some of your hits and misses in YOUR October reads?