October Reading Wrap-up

It is the second of November, and I should be writing words that actually count towards the 50k I need to write in order to hit my National Novel Writing Month goal, but I’m here, procrastinating, instead. That, plus the fact that I only wrote 1150 words yesterday doesn’t bode well for me “winning” NaNoWriMo this year. But there’s still plenty of time to make up for a slow start.

This week has been kind of a mess for multiple life reasons. Sometimes you just have to do all the adulting stuff. But I did manage to finish seven books in October AND complete my revised draft of Heir of Gods! Plus, my October reading journal spread is possibly my favorite of the year…

Here’s what I read in October:

• Boss Witch by Ann Aguirre — This book kicked off my small town witchy romance reading binge. It’s an enemies to lovers trope (witch and witch-hunter), except only one half of the couple is aware of the fact that the other person is an enemy. She (the witch) starts a “no-strings-attached” hook-up with him (the witch-hunter who doesn’t know she’s a witch) in order to distract him from finding her coven and eliminating them. Since the timeline of this book overlaps a good deal with the timeline of the first book in the series, I’d recommend reading both pretty close together. That is NOT what I did, and I kept feeling like I was missing something because I couldn’t remember how some of the things happening in this book fit with the first book.
• Midwinter Magic & Mayhem — This is an anthology of winter-themed fantasy stories. I have a Modern Fae story in there along with eight others that are all excellent little tales that will put you in a wintery mood, especially if you enjoy them by the fire with a warm beverage.
• Witchful Thinking by Celestine Martin — This is a really cute and cozy small town witchy romance that is really not for folks who like magic systems to be well defined and plots to be complicated. This is sort of like the Halloween equivalent of a Hallmark Christmas movie, except the hook-ups don’t fade-to-black. In other words, an excellent addition to this sub-genre.
• The Ex-Hex by Erin Sterling — This was the last of the small town witchy romance books I read in October. I loved the magic and the small town and the characters. The plot was good, too. My only (teeny tiny) gripe was that it was a second chance romance, which is a REALLY difficult trope to write (in my opinion), and I just didn’t feel like there was enough reason for them to not be together. That said, I still really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading more in this series.
• Dare to Be a Duchess by Sapna Bhog — I don’t read much historical romance because I’m not really into the whole “must find a husband before the season ends” thing. This one didn’t have that trope as a driver for the romance. The primary trope was more of a best-friend’s brother thing, which I enjoyed. There’s a lot of pining, which I also liked. But, it was sort of lacking a B-plot, so the pining got a little too drawn out and repetitive in places. Still, the characters were so vivid and well crafted that they stuck with me for days afterward and made me want to read the next book in this series.
• A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby by Vanessa Riley — This was a fun, fast-paced historical romance about a recently widowed Lady from a British colony (Demerara) who has to pretend to be a nanny in order to be close to her infant son after his wounded war veteran uncle comes to take over as guardian of the estate. And of course, the Lady and the Duke fall in love. I really liked the particular lens this story was told through. I especially enjoyed the hero and his band of wounded vets that take over the estate to protect it from someone who is trying to get their hands on all of it (including the baby).

I also updated my bookshelf spread. I think it’s looking pretty cute. Lots of sci-fi and fantasy (the purple/blue spines) this year. And a whole lot more writing craft and publishing business (yellow spines) books than I’d planned on reading this year. Hard to believe that we only have two months to go!

And, because it’s NaNoWriMo, I’m keeping things simple for November. I did a set-up flip through video, but I’m not sure when/if I’ll get around to posting it because it’s mostly focused on the bullet journal trackers I made for NaNoWriMo. There’s only this one cover page that I made in my reading journal where I used up a bunch of stickers instead of drawing something. I didn’t even do a TBR for this month!

I have been noodling on an end of the year TBR, though. I keep adding books to the list and then taking others off. There are so many books I want to read before the end of December. I’ll probably make it official at some point in the next couple of weeks and do a post. In the meantime, if you want to spy on what’s there, have a peek at this shelf of mine on Goodreads. And feel free to make suggestions in the comments if there’s something you see on there that I DEFINITELY need to read, or if the thing you think I definitely need to read is NOT on that shelf.

Okay. I really better get some official NaNoWriMo writing done. Happy reading!