Mel's Random October

Happy Halloween!

I hope you've wrapped up warm, pulled those curtains tights and have plenty of books to keep you going through the long nights...unless you're in the southern hemisphere - in which case enjoy the long days and the sunshine! :-)

October has been a busy month for me personally so I haven't got around visiting other blogs as often as I'd like, but I have tried my best! I ended up travelling for work a lot - even getting to spend a few days in Paris... I just wished I'd had the opportunity to see more than La Defense (the business area) and the hotel! I wish I could say November will be better but it looks to be even busier - and I'm off to Dublin as well. Again for work so it's not as fun as it sounds. Still it's been an amazingly mild October and the trees still have plenty of leaves. Have a look at this picture taken this weekend at Greenwich Park

So how did this impact the reading situation?

Books
The Last Vampire: Red Dice - Christopher Pike (BV's YA of 80s and 90s Challenge)

The Last Vampire: Phantom - Christopher Pike (BV's YA of 80s and 90s Challenge)

Iron Crowned - Richelle Mead

The Last Seal - Richard Denning

Succubus Revealed - Richelle Mead

At The Sign Of The Sugared Plum - Mary Hooper

Undead and Unworthy - Mary Janice Davidson

Shift - Jeri Smith-Ready
 
EBooks 

A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber, L.J. Mc Donald, Helen Scott Taylor
Karma Girl - Jennifer Estep

The Revisionists - Thomas Mullen
Necropolis - Michael Dempsey

Counterfeit Magic - Kelley Armstrong

Sarah's Reviews
Sarah's been a reading reviewing machine this month having reviewed Big Machine - Victor LaVille as well as Black Swan Rising - Lee Carroll  and Teacher, Teacher! by Jack Reacher  as part of the Transworld Book Group.

Other Posts
Same Book/Different Cover looked at The Devil You Know by Mike Carey this month.

Having been a proud Kindle owner for over a year now, I looked back at how the positives and negatives of e-reading.

In addition there were the usual wishlist posts, in my mailbox and Throwback Thursdays.

Winners!
Last month I had a giveaway for the Eli Monpress series and I forgot to annouce the winner. Luckily I didn't forget to contact the winner and send out the books, so slightly late but not forgotten, the winner of The Spirit Thief, The Spirit Rebellion and The Spirit Eater is...

Sullivan McPig from Pearls Cast Before A McPig

I also hit 600 followers so I had giveaway for two followers to win a book of their choice and the winners are...

Melissa from Book and Things

and

Glad from A Love Of Books 

And this is the last day to enter my Spooktacular Giveaway! Chance to win a book of your choice - good luck!

So with all that in mind my reading challenges status looks like this:
BCC's Mystery & Suspense Challenge - 11 Read, 1 Left to read. I know I can finish this soon!
FTC Speculative Fiction Challenge - 20 Read - officially I've completed this! Yay! However, I'll continue to post reviews and see how I can do in the second half of the year.
BV's YA of 80s and 90s Challenge - 14 Read, Although officially finished I'm still going with this challenge!   

Personal Classic Challenge -  6 Read

Highlight of the month: Succubus Revealed - a great end to a fun series! I really enjoyed following Georgina's adventures and this was the perfect ending!

Honorable Mentions: I enjoyed discovering Jennifer Estep with Karma Girl and Mary Hooper with At The Sign Of The Sugared Plum. Both are new authors to me - I now have a lot of back catalogue reading for both authors to catch up on!

So what was your month like?