The thirteen books that I read in October were all targeted at squares on my Halloween Bingo Card. I was very fortunate in my choices with four of the books being 5.star reads and three being 4-star reads.
The 5-star reads split between two authors who were new to me and two whose writing I already knew I’d enjoy. I’m looking forward to reading more books by all of them.
The first new author wasthe Swedish crime writer Åsa Larsson. ‘The Savage Altar‘ was the first in her Rebecka Martinsson series about murders in the far north of Sweden. I’ve already bought the next book. ‘The Blood Spilt’ to read this month.
The second new author was Gwendolyn Kiste. Her debut novel, ‘The Rust Maidens‘, was my 25th Halloween Bingo book and it was extraordinary. Powerful, disturbing and original. I’m put her most recent novel ‘The Haunting of Velkwood‘ (2024) on my wishlist. I may save it for next year’s Halloween Bingo.
‘All Out Of Leeds‘ was one of the best books I’ve read by Kim Watt. I loved ‘What Happened In London‘ and I was pleased to see that this DI Adams books was even better. The next book, ‘Trouble Brewing In Harrogate’ has just come out. I’m looking forward to reading it soon.
The only predicatable thing about Angela Slatter’s books is that I’m likely to enjoy them. The content is always fresh and surprising. ‘All The Murmuring Bones‘ was a deeply engaging mix of Irish folktale and supernatural thriller with a strong female lead who never does exactly what you might expect. Her latest novel ‘The Path Of Thorns‘ is already in my TBR pile.
I bought some great books this month and I’m looking forward to all of them. The ones that I’m most intrigued by are ‘W1LL1AM by Mason Coile, a horror novella with an AI in the starring role, and ‘Into The Storm‘ by Cecelia Ahern which seems to be putting pagan imagery to good use.
TBR Challenge Check
Here’s my progress against the goals that I set after my half-year review of the challenge.
- Read at least 70 books (11.7 per month) I’ve read 55 books since July so I’m about 8 books ahead of schedule.
- Read 25 books (4 per month) from my TBR pile that were added in 2023 or that were part of the 30 books selected from my 2012-2022 TBR shelf: 6 of my October books were from my TBR, bringing my total of 18 books since July which puts me 2 books ahead of target.
2024 Halloween Bingo Wrap Up
I finished my twenty-fifth Halloween Bingo book on Halloween itself, letting me claim a last minute Blackout Bingo. The quality of the reads was very high, with eight five-star reads and four four-star reads, so it’s hard to pick a favourite but the book that caught me most by surprise and brought me the most joy was ‘Bookshops & Bonedust’.
Mike Finn's Fiction 