October Wrap Up | 2020

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you purchase via my link.

It’s time for my October wrap up, a month that felt suuuuper long. When I looked back to the books I read way back at the start, it feels like so long ago, and really it was only five-ish weeks!

I read fifteen books in October which I am BEYOND chuffed with. It’s one of my best reading months of the year so far! I had a spooky TBR that I 99% stuck with, plus I ended up in a new adult romance hole.

Before we move into the October wrap up, I somehow forgot to include three books in last month’s, so I’ll start with those. They were Happily Ever After, Book Love and Quiet Girl in a Noisy World, super relatable graphic novels by Debbie Tung which my parents bought me for my birthday. I loved them and would highly recommend!

Let’s get stuck into my October wrap up!

Rules for Vanishing by Katie Alice Marshall*

I’d been looking forward to reading this for the longest time! A multi-media YA horror told through interview transcripts and written accounts, Rules For Vanishing was a truly unique tale filled with body horror and seriously creepy goings on. It wasn’t exactly what I expected but it kept me hooked nonetheless.

Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis*

A YA horror/thriller/mystery-ish read, Harrow Lake was supper chilling and atmospheric. I devoured the story in less than 24 hours and it was perfect for the spooky season, with plot twists I didn’t see coming. It would make an amazing film!

These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling*

A book about sapphic elemental witches set in modern day Salem? Yes please! I raced through this story so quickly and am super eager for the sequel. The plot was somewhat predictable but it was definitely entertaining and interesting. While I can’t speak for the accuracy, I loved the LGBTQP+ rep in this book, including that our main character Hannah is a lesbian, her current love interest is bisexual, her ex is queer and one of her pals is trans!

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade*

After falling head over heels for another of Olivia books earlier in the year, 40-Love, this fast became one of my most anticipated reads. An adult romance with impeccable fat rep, dyslexia rep, nods to fandoms and fan-fiction, friends to lovers, some angst and lots of steam – I loved it!

Mating the Huntress by Talia Hibbert

Talia Hibbert is another favourite author of adult romance of mine. I came across this Halloween paranormal romance novella and just had to buy it. Featuring one of my fave tropes, enemies to lovers (seriously, one of them is a werewolf and the other is a werewolf hunter!) this was such a fun read.

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell*

A gothic horror set in three different time periods, dating back to the 1500s revolving around an old and creepy haunted house and the (not so) silent painted companions that exist there. The story kept me interested as I wanted to know how it would all end, particularly due to the unreliable narrators, but it wasn’t as scary as I wanted it to be sadly.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia*

I was so excited to finally pick this up after my friends raved about it! Another gothic horror, this time set in 1950s Mexico, which was a slow paced and atmospherical read. The plot picked up at around the 60% mark with a seriously twisted ending. A truly creepy story with untrustworthy characters, I was hooked!

When the Sun Sets by Lou Yardley

My pal Lauren recommended this horror novella to me and it was exactly what I was looking for! A story set in a world where the sun set one night and didn’t rise again, where the things that exist in the darkness aren’t the only monsters.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Ian Reid*

A book of about 200 pages, we follow a young woman who goes on a roadtrip with her new boyfriend to meet his family for the first time. For the first 50% they’re basically just talking in the car, but once they reach his family’s farm things start to get creepy, and the ending goes in another direction altogether. It’s garnered some very polarising reviews and in the end I did kind of work out the basic plot but there were a lot of elements I still don’t understand. I’m not even really sure how I feel about it!

The Forbidden Men Series by Linda Kage: 5 books

That new adult hole I fell down? Well here it is. I read the first five out of the ten books in this series, with each book focussing on a different couple in the same large friendship group. As the name suggests, all the men are “forbidden”. Whether it be a student/teacher, best friend’s sister or roommate’s boyfriend, they’re technically off limits. With this came some problematic elements for sure and basically every single trigger warning (some include sexual assault, payment for sex, death of a family member and abuse) so definitely check out more in-depth reviews if you feel you may be affected by these things.

As I said, these books use some problematic language and as a re-read, I definitely picked up on it more this time around. For me, they were books I could pick up and race through quickly, when my brain couldn’t commit to anything too long or dense, but I couldn’t sensibly recommend them as “good” books.

Playing With Fire by L. J. Shen

An author I’ve struggled with before, I picked this up on Kindle Unlimited to give them another go, and I definitely enjoyed this much more than their previous books. A “bad boy college romance”, there were a few elements that made me cringe, but it was definitely what I was looking for when I went into the story.

Phew, and that’s everything!

Congrats and thanks for reading my October wrap up if you made it this far, that was a long post. I’m so happy that I managed to read so many books, and enjoy so many of them too! I’d love to know what you read last month?

Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin | Goodreads | Facebook