Hi everybody, and welcome to my October wrap up!

It’s no secret that October is my favorite month of the year, with fall finally here, the Halloween vibe that is everywhere and my birthday! This year, I’ve been indulging the Halloween mood by reading lots of werewolf and vampire books and by watching some Halloween-ish movies. These had some mixed results, but overall I’m happy with my reading and watching this month.

So without further ado, let’s get into my October wrap up!

Midnight Kisses by Leia Stone & Raye Wagner

My quest to find urban fantasy books I can love as much as Annette Marie’s books is still going strong! Midnight Kisses was a book recommended in one of Annette Marie’s Facebook groups and since I was in the mood for werewolves/shifters I jumped right on it. This is a story about an academy for alpha wolves. Our main character receives her summons for the academy… a year early. What comes next is a whole lot of mystery and shenanigans, and it only gets worse when she meets her true mate at a masquerade party. It wasn’t a perfect read, but it had some elements I really enjoyed: strong friend groups, enemies-to-lovers and magical worldbuilding. I’m really looking forward to the sequel!

Overall rating: 4 stars

Feral Sins by Suzanne Wright

Feral Sins is another werewolf/shifter book which sounded really good to me: it’s about a latent shifter who is being forced in a union with an abusing asshole alpha. To get out of it, she strikes a deal with another notorious alpha: fake that they are mates for a while, help him with his pack politics, and walk free after a few months. I mean, it sounded really good and I was so looking forward to a sexy slow burn romance. Unfortunately, that was not what this was.

Basically, this was too much smut for me. And not even the good kind. The consent was so unclear at several occasions and it made me really uncomfortable. There is literally a scene where the heroine gets out of bed early and denies the “hero” his morning sex, and then he gets pissed off because “she’s his” and she can’t do that and he chases her through the woods while she’s screaming no (but at the same time being turned on) and they have sex while she’s struggling against him the entire time. It’s supposedly explained “because they are both alphas and struggling for dominance” but I was UNCOMFORTABLE. It was just… NO. I eventually finished the book because audiobooks are expensive and I didn’t want to DNF, but I forwarded a ton of scenes because I just couldn’t listen to them.

Rating: 2 stars

Dragon Marked by Jaymin Eve

Another book I started reading because of my urban fantasy quest, and another one featuring wolf (and dragon and more) shifters! This is a story about a supernatural community. Our main heroine, Jessa, is a wolf shifter and her four best friends are four brothers: a dragon shifter, vampire, fae and wizard. One day, her estranged mother comes back into her life and tells Jessa she is dragon-marked and as such she will be hunted down.

I am not convinced yet about this book. I was never hooked enough and never really felt the pressing urge to continue reading because I needed to know what happened next. I did like the friendship aspect a lot, and that is what convinced me to continue with book two.

Rating: 3 stars

Damned Souls & A Sangria by Annette Marie

THE FINAL BOOK IN THE GUILD CODEX: SPELLBOUND SERIES!

Though I still can’t believe we’re at the (epic) end of an era, it has been an absolutely brilliant, funny, heart wrenching and heartwarming ride from start to finish. This final installment in Tori’s story was epic, edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting brilliance and I recommend it to any fan of urban fantasy.

Rating: 5 stars | Read full review

Delivering Evil for Experts by Annette Marie

THE FINAL BOOK IN THE GUILD CODEX: DEMONIZED SERIES!

Another Annette Marie favorite series has come to an end and it’s hard to say which one I loved more. Though they were both epic, I think the Spellbound finale was more epic on a grand scale, while the Demonized finale was more epic on a smaller, emotional scale. Either way, from the magical worldbuilding to the masterfully developed characters and from the heartwrenching romance to the nail-biting action scenes, this is one series you just can’t miss!

Rating: 5 stars | Read full review

At Grave’s End by Jeaniene Frost

After reading the first two books in the Night Huntress series last month, I tried to take a small break and read some other books first… but Cat and Bones just stayed on my mind and were begging me to continue their story, so I caved and started on book 3. And I loved it just as much as the first two. Cat and Bones are such a great couple and I loved their interactions, but also all the other characters were fabulous. These books are so full of action, humor and romance and I just think they are pretty perfect!

Rating: 5 stars

Destined For An Early Grave by Jeanine Frost

Again I didn’t have the patience for a small break from the Night Huntress series to read something else and I just dived right into book 4. This was once again amazing, but for the first real time, the relationship between Cat and Bones was strained and angsty and emotional and I have to admit both characters kind of annoyed me throughout the book. But overall, I still LOVE this series and am undoubtedly continuing.

Rating: 4,5 stars

Top Ten Tuesday

Book Covers With Fall Vibes

The Longest Book Titles On My Shelves

Books I Read Because Someone Recommended Them To Me

Bookish Characters I’d Love To Cosplay For Halloween

Quote It Wednesday

Can’t Wait Wednesday

People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry

The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary

Discussion

Book Shaming… And Why It’s Never Okay

Update on my Commenting Issues

As you may know, I’ve been having some technical difficulties for the past few weeks/months, as some comments didn’t come through. I’ve been trying lots of different things over the past few weeks and I did notice that the problems seemed to stop (at least for 3 weeks straight) when I did two things: I changed my theme and I undid some updated that made my site https instead of http. Since I didn’t have any issues since then, I tried to narrow it down and switched back to my old theme. So now I’m waiting – if the issues stay away, it’s due to my https changes, if the issues come back, it’s due to my theme.

I hope to have this really sorted out in the next few weeks, but in the meantime thank you for bearing with me in the past few weeks/months and I’m sorry if I didn’t respond to your comments lately because if so, they were probably lost due to the issues.

October was a slower music month for me, but still had some great listens!

MY FAVE: SuperM – Better Days

I’ve pretty much been listening to SuperM’s first album non-stop for the past few weeks, and I’ve been really loving this slower ballad especially.

Against The Current – That Won’t Save Us

I adore this band and I’m so happy they made a comeback with a new song this month! I’m in love with the slightly heavier sound and Chrissy’s vocals are still amazing as ever.

BlackPink – Pretty Savage

Unpopular opinion, but I haven’t been the biggest fan of BlackPink’s official singles this year. I actually do really enjoy all the other songs on their full album a lot more than their singles, like for example this fun Pretty Savage.

Mamamoo – Dingga

Mamamoo is back y’all! I’m loving this fun and playful song, that seems so very timely as it talks about just wanting to have fun with friends and enjoy life after a dreary period of sitting inside alone and binging too many dramas (#relatable) (Though with the second lockdown looming over us, maybe a little too early but oh well)

I watched quite a few things in October:

Emily in Paris

I loved this Netflix series about a young American getting a job in Paris (even though she doesn’t speak French) and the shenanigans that ensue. Sure, this series has also received some criticism and I do agree with most of it, namely that it paints a stereotypical image of Paris and French people and that it’s a little unrealistic. All true and valid points, and yet I did not care because it was a highly addictive and enjoyable show and I’m already looking forward to season two!

The Babysitter

With October come Halloween movies, but I have to admit I’m not good with scary movies. Weird, because as a teen I was super into horror movies, but now I can’t handle it when it gets too scary. But horror-comedy? That I can handle.

The Babysitter was a super fun movie about a kid whose babysitter turns out to be part of a blood cult that is out to get his “innocent” blood for a ritual. I loved this movie, it was hilarious and fun and the scare-factor was mostly just over-the-top gore that was more for laughs than scares. It’s a movie that doesn’t take itself seriously at all and I loved that. Definitely recommend for other scaredy cats like me who still want to enjoy the Halloween mood!

The Babysitter Killer Queen

Of course, because I loved the first movie, I had to watch the sequel, which was just newly released on Netflix this month. And basically, this was more of the same fun, humor and gore of the first movie. It missed a little bit of the magic of the first movie, but overall I still really enjoyed this one!

BlackPink – Light Up The Sky

In October the documentary on BlackPink, currently the world’s biggest female k-pop group, hit Netflix and I enjoyed watching this for some insight into the making of the group, the four members and their struggles. It was a fun watch and I liked learning a little bit more about this group.

Well, October was pretty weird. Just like most of the world, Belgium got more strict in the prevention of the Corona virus. We now have a curfew and restaurants and bars had to close for at least a month. And a new lockdown is probably coming any day now since the hospitals just can’t keep up anymore with the rise in cases.

Of course it’s no fun, and it’s frustrating that we all have to go in lockdown again because some people just refuse to follow the rules by having parties and not wearing masks. It’s a bummer to me also because it’s my birthday month and I would have loved to go to dinner and celebrate with friends and family, but oh well. Safety first, so I stayed in and watched extra Halloween movies with popcorn.

Things that made me happy this month:

• TWO ANNETTE MARIE BOOKS!
• Halloween season!
• Autumn walks.

THINGS I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT MONTH:

• Monsta X and BTS are having a comeback!
• Book releases I’m looking forward to: A Deal With The Elf King by Elise Kova, Chasing Lucky by Jenn Bennett, Instant Karma by Marissa Meyer

How was your October? What did you read? What did you listen to and what did you watch? What did you do for Halloween?

Follow me on: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads