October Wrap-Up

Hey all, Sam here.

Well, I was supposed to have this up yesterday, but I didn’t get it finished in time. I’ll blame the time change messing with my sleep schedule. Once again we’ve reached the start of a new month, meaning it is time to look back at the just completed month and see what all I managed to accomplish in that time. I look at my reading, my writing, my blogging, and any trips/conventions that I’ve gone to.

October was overall a pretty decent month. While I wish there was more to say in my writing wrap-up, the rest of the categories feel fairly accomplished, so I’ll take it. And I’m already working on putting together a great November, while also starting to plan for what I need to do to set myself up for improving the blog in 2026. Thankfully we’ve also reached the time of year where everything starts feeling a little colder and so I hunker down and stay indoors a lot more. It gives me more time to work on all of my indoor hobbies (of which there are many).

Let’s go ahead and dive into today’s wrap-up post.

Reading

I had a pretty darn good reading month. I finished 15 books in October, which is honestly great compared to some of my more recent reading wrap-ups. Overall I believe most of my books were also great reads, which is always nice. And I’ve already reviewed FIVE of the books I read over the month. Of course that means I have the other ten to read, which is fun. Hopefully I can manage that soon enough.

All right, let’s go over the reads from last month.

Savage Blooms by S.T. Gibson — 3.75 stars

Recipes for an Unexpected Afterlife by Deston J Munden — 5 stars

The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong — 5 stars

Strange Beasts by Susan J Morris — 4.5 stars

Curses & Cold Brew by Ali K Mulford & K Elle Morrison — 5 stars

The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch by Melinda Taub — 3.5 stars

The Raven Boys Graphic Novel by Maggie Stiefvater, Stephanie Williams, and Sas Milledge — 4 stars

Slayers of Old by Jim C Hines — 5 stars

The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri — 4 stars

A Fae in Finance by Juliet Brooks — 3.5 stars

Zomromcom by Olivia Dade — 4 stars

The Lost Reliquary by Lyndsay Ely — 4 stars

The Fangirl Project by Beth Reekles — 4.5 stars

Heart of Iron by C.M. Alongi — 4.5 stars

The Quill and the Vial by Bree Moore — 4.5 stars

Writing

November is the start of Pathfinders Writing Collective (PaWriCo), so most of October was spent thinking about my characters and story, and hopefully setting myself up so I can actually get writing, and hopefully get a decent chunk of my novel finished over the course of the next few months. We’ll see what happens.

Blogging

While I wanted to get a few more posts up in October, I still feel like I did a pretty good job getting a decent number of posts written up. I do have a handful of other posts partly drafted, so I will hopefully have more reviews and such coming soon, and I’m already fully invested in reading more of my upcoming NetGalley releases, so I’ll definitely have more content coming.

Oh, and I should also say that October 2025 was the absolute best month of views on my blog in a decade. I have no idea what happened (although I fear maybe it was bots or something), but it wrecked my averages for every other month and year.

Anyway, I should share links to everything I posted in October, just in case you missed one of my posts and want to check it out:

September Wrap-Up

Weekend Writer: Writing Update

NetGalley Review: Savage Blooms by S.T. Gibson

NetGalley Review: The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong

NetGalley Review: Recipes for an Unexpected Afterlife by Deston J. Munden

NetGalley Review: Strange Beasts by Susan J. Morris

NetGalley Review: Slayers of Old by Jim C. Hines

Book Review: Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

My End of Year NetGalley Reads

Trips/Conventions

This month we learned that we lived pretty close to the future birthplace of Captain James T Kirk, so we visited that. We also went to a local farm for some harvest fun, bought some pumpkins, and enjoyed the corn maze and other activities. And at the end of the month we went out to celebrate our anniversary, visited an antique car museum, and had a lovely steak dinner.

I would have included our trip to the local Ren Faire, but since that was technically November 1st, that will be in next month’s wrap-up.

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Well that’s all from me for today. How was your October? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.