I did much more reading in October than I expected, to be honest. But I can’t complain. There was fantasy, sci-fi, romance, long reads, short ones, etc. It was a great variety. Check it out below!
SPSFC
Since my main focus was on SPFBO for October, I only tried two books out of our allocations for SPSFC. November will focus a lot more on this competition so I’ll be trying a bunch more in the coming weeks! The Hand of God and Exolegacy stood out to me as soon as we got our allocations so I was excited to give them a try. I also created a team hub to introduce our team members and post all the links to.
SPFBO
I was quite busy with SPFBO books in October. Sadly, The Betrayer and The Way of Unity didn’t quite work for me. The First Rule was a cut choice for me but had some really awesome aspects as well! Petition was my favorite book out of our allocations and came in as a close second for the team. While Cold West didn’t work quite as well for me, it did end up being a big hit for the team and was chosen as our finalist. Congratulations to Clayton Snyder! I read another team’s finalist, The Fall Is All There Is, early because I took part in the tour for it and really enjoyed it.
Buddy Read
Fourth Wing was the only buddy read I managed this month. It was a ton of fun, way more than I expected, and I’m really looking forward to the sequel. Sadly the waitlist at the library is forever long.
Blog Tours
As mentioned above, I took part in the tour for The Fall Is All There Is. You can check out my review and a (very spicy) deleted scene here!
I was invited to take part in the cover reveal for Evocation, which you can see above but if you’d like more info about this book, then check out the post here.
Audiobooks
Dark Water Daughter by H.M. Long is one of my favorite books of the year. It was so atmospheric for me and I loved the characters. Every time I thought I knew what was going on, something else was introduced that made the story even more intricate and intriguing. I loved the narration for it too!
Rise of the Mages by Scott Drakeford sadly didn’t quite hit the mark for me as well as I had hoped. I never quite took a liking to the MC, which made it really hard for me to stay invested in the story. I constantly wanted to yell at him and got really frustrated sometimes. The author did create a really intricate world with lots of cultures and an interesting magic system, which I liked a lot.
I realized I was getting burned out on audiobooks a little so I tried a nonfiction book instead. My daughter is still a little young to have developed her own love language preference but this was a great way to prepare for that and to see how I could apply all love languages to our every day life already. I definite recommend this audiobook, even if you aren’t Christian like the authors, because so much can easily be applied in everyone’s lives for adults and children alike.
Spicy Books
In the last week of October, I read six spicy books. Hyperfocus hit hard and that’s what it wanted me to do. I really enjoyed the Oxford Legacy trilogy by Roxy Sloane. The story was pretty good, I liked the characters, and the spice was fun too. I showed one of the spicy scenes to my husband and now he’s reading the first book too. He’s not a reader at all so I’m excited to see how this goes.
Twisted was good but it didn’t blow me away. I prefer my villains a bit more likeable than he was in the first half. Some more charisma. But I liked the spicy scenes and I also liked some of the twists in the plot.
Sadly, the other two didn’t really work for me. I’m surprised my system still gave them 3 stars but it is what it is. The plot and characters felt way too flat with zero nuance or difficulties for anything.
Female Indie Author
I was very excited to take part in the cover reveal for Trudie Skies’ third novel in her series. It is gorgeous and looks great with the other books in The Cruel Gods. That same day, she also surprise released a short story collection that I was lucky to beta read a few months ago. You can see my mini review here.
Blog Post Round-Up
– A fantastic guest interview between Shannon Knight and the illustrator for her novel Wish Givers!
– A beautiful cover reveal for Once We Flew by Nikky Lee.
– My pub day review for Starling House by Alix E. Barrow.
– A Bibliobebe review for Holly and the Pittie Party.
– A spotlight for Fool’s Play by Tao Wong & David R. Packer.
– A spotlight for Inundation by Coral Alejandra Moore.
– A spotlight for Hekate’s Return by Mark Harris.
– My September Wrap-Up.
– My October TBR.
– My November TBR.
Mini Reviews
Dragonmeat
Dragonmeat was my first story by Angela Boord and she did not disappoint. This was really well written, has great pacing, and the world-building is very deliberate and in-depth for such a short book. While something at the end was a little too conveniently fast for me personally, other than that I really enjoyed how this story was wrapped up without a perfect bow on top. I like that better than a perfectly happy ending that solves every single problem.
Partial Function
I was really excited that JCM Berne chose me to proofread his newest book. I enjoyed the beta read of the beginning and was looking forward to its release. This was a ton of fun with a great animal companion.
The Kobolds and the Fraudulent Life Insurance Policy
Sadly, this short story didn’t quite work for me. While the team of characters seemed like a fun variety and the story does have the humor you’d expect from the title, the delivery just wasn’t really for me, especially after realizing that the prose was a deliberate decision.
A Wolf in Thief’s Clothing
This was super fun! The structure felt a little weird at first but in the end, I really ended up enjoying that. The prose was smooth and the characters were interesting. I hope there will be more stories set in this world!
The Shaggy Shepherd 