My Bookish Month of October 2021

Hi and welcome to another monthly overview!

I’m not sad to see October go, even though it means the end of the year is drawing nearer. It started out pretty good but midway it turned so stressful (work, again) that I ended up positively drained.

October is my annual Orenda Books celebration but because of all the stress and anxiety, I was unable to enjoy it as much as the previous years, and it’s a very good thing I had prepped as much as I had because I had absolutely no energy left to create any new content during the latter part of the month.

I had trouble focusing on reading as well, my thoughts kept slipping away and I kept turning pages on autopilot until I realised I hadn’t taken in anything for quite a while and I had to start over. And even my audiobooks, which usually prevent me from worrying, couldn’t quite cut it last month, and I had to rewind parts cos I had no clue what was going on.

Nevertheless, I did have a pretty good bookish month. I picked up some books I had been meaning to read for a while and I’m really happy my most anticipated reads turned out to be just as fantastic as I’d hoped they’d be.

These were my favourite reads of the month:

In figures October looks like this:

October
Novels: 6697 pages across 20 books
Audiobooks: 64 hours across 10 audiobooks

And here’s what I did in October, and some of what I’ll be posting in November:

What I read:

Fallen Angels, Gunnar Staalesen
Gaston Hall, L.B. Stimson
The Year of the Witching, Alexis Henderson
Beyond the Veil
The Shadowing, Rhiannon Ward
Gods & Monsters, Shelby Mahurin
The Restoration, J.H. Moncrieff
7 Days in Hell, Iseult Murphy
The Diabolical Bones, Bella Ellis
Faithless, Hunter Shea
Afraid of the Shadows
A Distant Voice, Matthew Costello & Neil Richards
Trick or Treat, Katerina Diamond
The Lighthouse Witches, C.J. Cooke
Dead Mercy, Noelle Holten (review to follow)
Betibú, Claudia Piñeiro
Belle Vue, C.S. Alleyne
The Whistling, Rebecca Netley
Hell’s Angels, Hunter S. Thompson
Edge of the Grave, Robbie Morrison

What I listened to:

Death on a Summer Night, Matthew Costello & Neil Richards
Deity, Matt Wesolowski
Wolves at the Door, Gunnar Staalesen
Sleeping Dogs Lie, Samantha Downing
It, Stephen King
A Lesson in Murder, Matthew Costello & Neil Richards
Date Night, Jeffery Deaver
Coraline, Neil Gaiman
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
The Good Neighbours, Nina Allan

What I read earlier but reviewed in October:

The Rabbit Factor, Antti Tuomainen
The Quiet People, Paul Cleave
Cold as Hell, Lilja Sigurðardóttir
Black Reed Bay, Rod Reynolds
Fallen Angels, Gunnar Staalesen

I also kicked off #Orentober, introduced #ScandiSaturday, launched an Orentober bingo, shared an Orentober word search puzzle, did a cover reveal and talked about the Dark Iceland series by Ragnar Jónasson. There were also First Lines Fridays (1 – 2 – 3 – 4) and Tagline Tuesdays (1 – 2 – 3)

Let’s have a look at the books that landed on my lap in October:

Ahem 😳 Two FairyLoot books, two cosy novellas, a book about Frida Kahlo for my Spanish challenge and a historical non-fiction about the Hell’s Angels in the sixties, three Flame Tree Press proofs in preparation of the blog tours, two spooky reads and a crime novella.

A pre-order, a horror novel for my Spanish challenge, a new instalment in a favourite series and one Lynne at Fictionophile (ICYMI) talked me into:

Two audiobooks:

I hope you had a good month and that you are safe and well! Thanks for joining me today and happy reading xxx