Happy almost-Halloween!  I think I’ll kick-off this month’s recap of reading with my one spooky book – Goosebumps: Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes by R. L. Stine.  My book club opted to go fun and nostalgic this month, and each of us picked a Goosebumps book to read.  I was actually never a fan back when I was the target age (although I later read Phantom of the Auditorium…of course) but this was a fun, silly read now.  It’s a basic enough premise of lawn gnomes who come to life, create mischief, and get the twelve-year-old boy protagonist in trouble until he figures out their secret weakness (spoiler: it’s the dog whistle).  I will say, though, I deeply, personally related to the boy’s older sister, who alphabetizes her books by author, and the main character and his best friend really were as obnoxious and annoying as the sister thought they were!  Fine to read, would drive me nuts in life I’m sure.

I finished out a trilogy with The Master Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg, trying to finish the sloooow burn romance of the previous two books.  They did ultimately get together, but there was surprisingly little pay-off for the long build-up.  The couple went from maybe to inevitable with very little fireworks about it.  The magic was good though, and the adventure was enjoyable too.

I read another T. Kingfisher book, Minor Mage – I’ve been pacing myself since my mad rush of reading Kingfisher last year. This was a good fantasy, about a boy whose only a minor mage, with a snarky armadillo familiar, who’s sent by his village to bring back water.  Terrors and adventures ensue, and this is definitely another of Kingfisher’s odd blend of humor and really dark elements.  Very well done though.

I don’t have a very long list of books this month because I spent a LOT of the month reading Noble Roots by Drew Hayes, a massive fantasy novel and book five in his Spells, Swords & Sorcery series (which is totally not D&D).  For some reason I expected this to be the finale in the series – but it definitely wasn’t!  Maybe the penultimate volume?  The series is focused on a group of NPCs who become adventurers, and they’ve been growing skills and fighting adversaries for five books now.  This one upped the stakes and introduced some new twists, while tying up a few things left dangling.  So it was a very good installment…which now leaves me waiting, still, for the finale!

I think that’s about all for me…I’ll be back with more updates soon for NaNoWriMo.  In the meantime, I hope your reading is going well, and that you have a wonderful, spooky Halloween!