It’s a bit late in November to be talking about Halloween books, but I was wondering which title to give to this month’s post and I realized that talking only about the books I read for the Latin-x-athon and Victober would be describing only half of the books I read in October since I also took part in the Theme Wars Challenge in the Hooked on Books group on Goodreads. Its October themes were Witches, Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies.
First let me wrap up my Readathon reads:
Latin-x-athon
It’s a readathon happening on Twitter from October 6 to 15.
I read two books for this. As usual I didn’t manage to read all my planned TBR but I’ll keep the other books I intended to read in my future radar.
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia,
Rating: Four Stars. Outstanding characters and writing.
***Spoiler Alert***: My only issue with it was the constant discussion if a romantic relationship with a vampire was possible or not, this got eventually repetitive.
Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
Rating: Five Stars! This true hidden gem is not talked about and not hyped enough. The story is full of edge-of-your-seat suspenseful action; with tense, ‘Hitchkockian’ imagery.
The many layered characters and the best writing ever made me not able to put this book down.
Victober 2021
This Readathon was announced by Katie from Books and Things, Kate Howe and Lucy from lucythereader.
I took part in the Victober 2021 Goodreads Group readalong of Gothic Tales, by Elizabeth Gaskell.
Rating: Four Stars. Good writing, and a ‘gothic’ pleasure to read. My favorite stories were The Old Nurse’s Story, The Grey Woman and Lois The Witch.
I also completed Kate’s Challenge: Read a Victorian sensation novel.
For this I read Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.
Rating: Three Stars. The characters and the story were interesting, but the plot advancement was really slow and the melodramatic narrative style not my cup of tea.
Now to my Halloween themed October books with:
Witches, Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies
I pledged one book per theme but ended up reading more books for the Witch and Vampire themes.
Witches
Incubus (Fairwick Chronicles #1) by Carol Goodman
Rating: Four Stars. This paranormal fantasy had really well done characters and story world, and the plot was overall above the average, a really interesting one for Paranormal. It’s adult romance too with steamy scenes. I’ll be continuing this series.
The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1) by Erin Sterling
Rating: Three stars. This is a funny ‘second chance’ romance with witches and curses. One of those where both characters think most of the time about how very much attracted they are to their ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend what can get tiring easily, but apart from that I liked the fantasy elements of the plot. As far as romances go, I’ve read much worse.
The Black Witch (The Black Witch Chronicles #1) by Laurie Forest
Rating: Three Stars
Fantasy with a very interesting world and powerful themes.
I didn’t like how slow the plot moved for the main character. The story feels stretched with so many side characters’ story lines. I care about the side characters, but each of them gets a subplot full of new questions of their own and it becomes too much altogether. Even though, I’ll probably continue this series.
Vampires
Besides Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia I also read:
Herringbones and Hexes (Vampire Knitting Club #12) by Nancy Warren
Rating: Four Stars
There was some series arc resolution here that might show that this series will be over soon? I hope not. ***Spoiler Alert***The development of the relationship arc was also too quickly done and unfortunately you don’t get all the romance dialogues and scenes you expected after eleven books.
Ribbing and Runes (Vampire Knitting Club #13) by Nancy Warren
Rating: Three Stars. It seemed to me like a half-hearted series finale with new side characters being introduced for a new spin-off series.
Fangs by Sarah Andersen
Rating: Three Stars. This comic was funny and cute but somehow short? I read it way too fast. I have the impression that the other comic books I read by the author were longer and had more content.
Empire of the Vampire (Empire of the Vampire #1) by Jay Kristoff
No Rating since I didn’t finish it. This is the second hyped book by the author that didn’t work for me for reasons I can’t really explain. I’ll keep my hands off in the future.
Werewolves
Murder of Crows (The Others #2) by Anne Bishop
Rating: Three Stars. I picked up this book in a second chance attempt to like this series, because I liked The Black Jewels series by this author so much. In the end I liked this sequel only a bit more than the first book but I’m still curious to see how the story will end. I don’t really like the main characters romance, but the story world is interesting.
Zombies
Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century #1) by Cherie Priest
Rating: Four Stars. I’m still deciding if I really like Steampunk or not. It has interesting concepts but I still wonder if it’s all only about the setting, or if there is a deeper level of meaning to this subgenre. If you know more about it please let me know. The story and world were all right, and the audiobook version from GraphicAudio made it very entertaining. If I continue to hear this series, it will be very much due to the audiobook dramatization.
Stay tuned for my next reviews posts. I returned to the Science Fiction books again this month and plan to write a wrap up of my Novellas Reading Challenge, a second wrap up of my A to Z Challenge (The first I wrote in August) and other yearly challenges too.
My Reader's Journey 