Well...  I've been severely absent from the blogosphere for at least two or three weeks now, and I think I'm feeling up to blogging again.  The past couple weeks have just been a muddle of me not wanting to do anything but be lazy, read occasionally, and mindlessly watching YouTube videos about bullet journaling and cake decorating.

Sometimes you just need a hiatus, and unfortunately my hiatus came right at the end of Halloween Bingo 2019.  I think I just kind of lost steam and gave up on trying to read Halloween Bingo books altogether, which is probably the first time this has happened since the game's conception in 2016.  Even last year when I was going through on and off reading slumps, I managed to get myself a last moment burst and finished all the books I'd chosen for Halloween Bingo 2018--though that last book I'd finished after the bingo game duration.

Ah well, the reading still goes on.  I had originally planned to finish reading all of my chosen Halloween Bingo books for 2019... but after making no more progress in the past three weeks, I think I'm ready to just move on.  Of course, I'll still be pushing out a wrap up for Halloween Bingo 2019, if only just to put a proper closing on our previous reading game... maybe.  Don't be surprised if that doesn't actually happen though.  I'm still in lazy mode.

Meanwhile, I'm just going move onto the next reading game, The 24 Tasks of the Festive Season for 2019.  Of course, at the pace that I'm going, and with my sporadic absences from the blogging world this year, I have no doubt that I'll disappear randomly throughout these next two months.  But I'd like to do my part in collecting points for 24 Festive Tasks to add to the charitable donations.

I've already started with listening to the audio book version of The Lost World by Michael Crichton to fill in the book task for the first opened door, Dia de los Muertos--rereading a favorite from a now deceased author.

I'm also seeing a couple food tasks that I'd be more than happy to complete sometime these next two months.  Yay, food!  And then there's a crane folding task that I can totally do easily.

October Reads

Books Dropped/Put On Hold

Currently Reading

October Reading Stats

Total works read: 7

• 6 print/e-book novels
• 1 audio book / short story

Average rating: 3.50 Stars

• Highest Rated:  4 books // 4.0 Stars
  • (1) Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
  • (2) The Visitor by Amanda Stevens
  • (3) A Scandal in Bohemia by Arthur Conan Doyle
  • (4) Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger
• Lowest Rated:  Brazen Virtue by Nora Roberts // 2.0 Stars

Series I started reading:

• Blackthorn & Grim by Juliet Marillier

Series I completed:

• D.C. Detectives by Nora Roberts

Series I have made progress on:

• InCryptids by Seanan McGuire
• The Graveyard Queen by Amanda Stevens
• Finishing School by Gail Carriger

Reviews & Notable Posts

Reviews Written

• Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
• Firelight by Kristen Callihan
• Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire
• Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier
• The Visitor by Amanda Stevens

Memes

• Did not meme this month.

Other Posts

• Halloween Bingo 2019 | Update #3 and Mid-game Book Rambles
• New York Weekend!

Coming Up In November

Tentative TBR

Other Stuff

So it looks like I'm going to be winding down on progress for the last two months of the year.  I've already kind of lost interest in anything blogging or reading (gasp! blasphemy!), but I'm not going to force myself to do anything I'm not interested in.

But if I DO read anything, it'll be to finish some of the series I'm interested in finishing.  I'd like to put a well-rounded close to the Finishing School series by Gail Carriger and the Blackthorn & Grim series by Juliet Marillier.  These books can all easily fit into the 24 Festive Tasks games, so I'll at least be participating, too. Meanwhile, Pamela Clare will have a third Cobra Elite book coming out in December and I've yet to read her previous one, so I'm going to try to insert that one as well.

Meanwhile, I'll work on update posts for the 24 Festive Tasks as I think of them, so random updates may happen.

Otherwise, I'm not going to stick to any other really strict schedule or anything.  We'll just see how live plays out these next two months.

2019 Wrap-Ups 

Past Monthly Reading Wrap Ups (2016 / 2017 / 2018)
See Also: 2015 Reading Wrap-Up posts (scroll to bottom of page)

(updated as year progresses by month)
January | February | March | April | May | June
July | August | September | October | November | December

The Visitor

by Amanda Stevens
Book 4 of Graveyard Queen

If I wanted to be honest, it was truly the writing and the mystery of Kroll Cemetary that drew me into this book.  Amelia's destiny and her hauntings as well as Devlin's mysterious secrets were really second string.

While I've liked Amelia in the past, I'm not entirely sure that I'm feeling a whole lot of character development in her, despite the new twists that her character is taking on in this book.  At the same time, I'm still not really all that enamored of John Devlin either.

The romance between them is even harder for me to relate with, if only because Amelia's obsession with Devlin, as well as their mutual attraction to each other seems to be the only thing linking them together.  They don't talk to each other, they keep secrets, they don't even trust each other.  Their relationship has always felt one-sided.

I enjoyed the moments that Amelia spent at Kroll cemetary with Dr. Shaw, or even discovering little clues left her by the blind ghost who looks like her.  In contrast, I didn't care much for the scenes whenever Devlin was around with her, save for a few moments when they seemed to be able to talk freely with each other.  I feel like the two of them could make a great team if they would just stop keeping secrets or learn to listen to each other.

But the writing is beautiful as usual, and the series' overall conflict continues to be intriguing, and you get drawn into Amelia's world readily.  Just for the writing style and the atmosphere of the book alone, I gave a higher rating.

Dreamer's Pool

by Juliet Marillier
Book 1 of Blackthorn & Grim

Dreamer's Pool, to be honest, while written well with Juliet Marillier's style of magic and lore, also sort of tended towards the predictable.  It's a usual plot device of Marillier's to give away the plot twist from one of the tales or stories told throughout the book.  And so it wasn't hard to figure out how everything would turn out in the end.

As has been quite typical of Marillier as well, this first book in the Blackthorn & Grim trilogy involved a lot of world building and set-up.  A lot of traveling happened, and I'm not entirely sure that things started picking up until about halfway through the book.  At least, for me, I didn't start getting really interested until halfway through the book.

So while I enjoyed the book, I still had a hard time with it, not only because of the slowness of the plotting, but also because of how hard it was to really relate with any of the characters.  Blackthorn tended towards more bitter than I felt like she needed to be, and I found I liked her more when she wasn't constantly thinking about how she could betray the new chance at life that Conmael gave her by going back to her need for revenge.  I didn't mind her being a cranky old wise woman (who was hardly old by biological age standards), and I liked her role as the local wise woman.

I'm much like Blackthorn in that I hate being crowded and I like my privacy.  But I think that, as much as Blackthorn and Grim seem to understand the way that the fey work their magic, they don't seem to understand that there might be a reason for the seven year restriction that Conmael has given her.  If Blackthorn went back for her revenge at this stage in her new chance at life, she'd probably just end up back in prison again.

Anyway, the only reason I even gave this book a higher rating anyway was because of the last half of the book.  It certainly did end up drawing me in all the way, and if only we could have stuck with Blackthorn's and Grim's POVs, I think I would have enjoyed the book in it's entirety a lot more.  I sincerely was more interested in their journey, and instead found Prince Oran kind of frustrating to follow.

I also found our "villian" more overpowered than was believable.  Lady Flidais's behavior was never acceptable nor was it normal, so I'm surprised that no one ever called her out on it, save for Oran in private.

Of course, without Oran's POV, there probably wouldn't be a whole lot of story.  Maybe if this book were written in third person, things might have been a bit different?

Nonetheless, the end of the book left me wanting more, and so I will definitely be jumping into the next book when I get the chance.

Halloween Bingo 2019

Pocket Apocalypse

by Seanan McGuire
Book 4 of InCryptid

Ah...

I surprisingly found this book more enjoyable than the previous one, and I'm not sure if it's just because I've warmed to Alex and Shelby.  For certain, it had nothing to do with the Australian cryptozoologists, the Thirty-Six Society--I didn't like them at all and felt like they all either needed a reality check or a good whack in their heads as a collective.

Neither Alex's nor Shelby's characters are any more fleshed out than they were in the previous book, but I think what really did it for me was all the lore about lycanthropy in the InCryptid world.  I liked learning about how the lyncanthropy-w virus worked, all the new twists to werewolf transformation that Alex talked about, as well as learned about as new surprises were revealed throughout the book.  What I DIDN'T like was how the Thirty-Sixers had a problem and refused to take the expert advice of someone who knew how to handle werewolves.

And even as Alex proved again and again that he was right about what he was telling them, they still continued to treat him like he was some sort of delusional crazy, disbelieving him and even being overly suspicious despite the fact that his own life had been in danger so many times, trying to save others.  I'm in agreement with Shelby--if I'd have come to Australia with an intent to help and ended up being treated like some sort of crazed criminal, unwelcome and unwanted, I would have gotten on the first plane back out of Australia, and screw the survival of a bunch of jackasses who think they know better.

Outside of all of the above, I DO wish that we could have seen more of the cryptids in Australia.  As the series suggests, Australia is an isolated ecological cesspit for all sorts of fun and new types of living creatures, both cryptid and non-cryptid.  I loved meeting the yowie, and I loved watching the Tanner girls get schooled about how they treat their local sapient cryptids.

Now if only Alex could help school the rest of the Thirty-Sixers about how to cooperate with the rest of the sapient cryptids, maybe life on Australia for the cryptozoologists will be easier.  Of course, on the other hand, I have my misgivings about the fact that an outsider had to teach the Thirty-Sixers this lesson, especially since, by all rights, I'd assumed that at least one person or another would have figured out how NOT to treat the sapient cryptids as monsters.

If a huge organization like the Covenant of St. George was able to produce a few dissenters, I'm surprised that a less restrictive organization such as the Thirty-Six Society hasn't yet.

Anyway, I know the next book goes back to following Verity, but further along the line, I wouldn't mind returning to Australia and visiting with one or another of the Tanner sisters, especially Raina, whom, while I did have issues with at first, ended up warming up to her.

Halloween Bingo 2019

Firelight

by Kristen Callihan
Book 1 of Darkest London

Hmm... so going by what I recall of the prologue novella of this series, detailing some of the scattered tangents between Miranda and Archer before Firelight's story line...  I'm not certain this book really came off the way I'd been expecting it to.  I guess I'd been expecting something maybe a bit darker, maybe a bit more paranormal... maybe some more explosive fiery goodness...

Firelight is most definitely more romance than it is anything else.  There was an appropriate look into Archer's dark thoughts and Miranda's own misgivings.  There was a murder mystery.  There was even the typical society happenings.

I guess what I'd hoped to see was more of Miranda exploring her dark secret--her ability to summon and control fire.  And maybe I would have liked for Archer's dark secret to not have been dragged out for quite so long, only to be stuffed with a lot of sweet nothings spoken between Miranda and Archer about how much they love each other despite their secrets... BEFORE they even knew each other's secrets.

So yes, as a romance, this wasn't a terrible one if you can overlook some of the insta-lust, the insta-love, the over-intense possessiveness between our main characters, as well as their inability to think past their libidos for a good percentage of the book.  Also, even for the fact that, having read Ember, you KNOW that Miranda is not a young virgin, she certainly does act like one and I found myself wondering if the story was being rewritten or something.

Meanwhile, for that entire first half of the book, I'm not entirely sure I really understood what was actually going on in the romance between Miranda and Archer.  Their relationship came off kind of standard and boring, to be honest.  And it isn't until halfway into the book, when Miranda stops being meek, that their relationship starts feeling more sure-footed.

On that note, the excitement DOES start about halfway into the book at that same time that Miranda stops being meek, with more exploration of the murder mystery, the secrets pertaining to the West Moon Club and Archer's past, and then Miranda even starts taking charge of herself by hopping into the investigation.  This then eventually leads to Miranda's powers of fire manipulation making more of a show.  Because for the first half of the book, I'd wondered if we were going to capitalize on one of the biggest plot devices of this book at all when Miranda's powers are only ever mentioned in passing by her and her sisters.

But at that point in the story line, I think everything starts getting interesting.

There's a great premise in this book, as well as in this series, and by the end of the book, we've been introduced to the next book's main hero, who is obviously a werewolf, what with his references to the moon, and emphasis on his super strength and fast healing abilities.  I'm not entirely sure that our author was all that subtle about that, and I sort of wished she had been, because those mentions all seemed kind of forced.

Anyway, despite the slowness of the book's beginning, I rather enjoyed the book.  Save a fix for the pacing of the conflict, I think this could have been a great book, and I'm curious enough about the rest of the Darkest London world to continue on.

Halloween Bingo 2019