October Recap & November Prompts

The holidays are in full swing at our house – we’re just days from Halloween, I’m planning our Thanksgiving feast (on the road…more to come on that), and I have Christmas music blasting on every speaker. I’m not normally one of those people who pulls out the Christmas tunes before Thanksgiving, but holiday movies started showing up in my For You list and I’m ready for snow, twinkle lights, and COOKIES! Don’t worry – the holiday prompts don’t start for a few more weeks…

October Review

In October, I reviewed 11 books – 6 audiobooks and 5 physical copies. Let’s take a look back the reviews of those books – click below to visit the reviews:

5 Stars

• Over Yonder, Sean Dietrich
• Somewhere Beyond the Sea, TJ Klune

4 Stars

• Clear and Present Danger, Tom Clancy
• Coraline, Neil Gaiman
• The Innocent Man, John Grisham
• Lead Boldly, Robert F Smith
• A Sea Glass Christmas, Davis Bunn
• Storm Over Texas, Joel Silbey
• The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
• Tom Clancy Executive Power, Andrews & Wilson

3 Stars

• The Professor, Charlotte Bronte

I know I say this every month, but this month I wish I could declare a tie. I love of our 5-star books and their authors. They each received perfect scores for the way they depicted marginalized groups with humanity and empathy. It was such a hard choice to make between Over Yonder and Somewhere Beyond the Sea. It ultimately came down to which do I think could make the biggest change in our world by being on shelves and in readers’ hands. With that one requirement only, the answer was clear: Somewhere Beyond the Sea. Watching the community rally around Arthur and the children while also helping them find ways to use their special interests is what I hope for my kids. It’s what I hope for all of our kids. And I think it’s what Dr. King was hoping for in his “I Have a Dream” speech.

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November Reading Plan

I’ve always thought of November as a transition month. It’s not quite Christmas, but not really fall because the leaves aren’t pretty anymore. I chose the color Brown for this month because of those leaves – my yard is already full of brown leaves covering everything!

Beyond celebrating two very important holidays – Thanksgiving and Indigenous Peoples Day, we are also exploring two of my favorite prompts this month. Growing up, I watched a lot of old Western TV shows with my grandmother in the summertime. I’ve grown into an adult who loves western novels like the Longmire series. We are also going a little Hallmark and finding books with a chef or baker as a main character. That’s because this is my time of year – I start mixing cookie dough the week before Thanksgiving and freezing it to make Christmas Cookie baking so much easier in a few weeks! I can’t wait to see what books you find for these prompts – be sure to tag #RWL2025 in your posts!

A few sponsored books I’m reading this month:

• Wildwood, Amy Pease
• The Storm, Rachel Hawkins

I can’t wait to read these great books with you – keep an eye out for the weekly previews on Sundays for what I’m reviewing each week!

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