This is my first trying a round-up post, hope I don’t get it too wrong!

November was a good month for my reading.

I reached my Goodreads reading goal on November 1st and I’ve since made it to 85 out of 75!

I’m one short story anthology short of finishing both my r/fantasy bingo cards.

I read and loved The Last Sun by KD Edwards and got involved with the #ScionsOfAtlantis promo event for The Hanged Man.

I managed to get a good few of my books to line up with #SciFiMonth.

Right, that’s probably enough faffing about with collage makers, TO THE BOOKS! 

• Escaping Exodus Nicky Drayden – Read this for the Afrofuturism bingo square and  loved it so much, living space ship + interesting matriarchal society. It’s so organic and the ship is sooo weird. This is one of the few for which I’ve managed to get the review posted in a timely manner. Going to my favorites pile

• Adventures in New America Stephen Winter and Tristan Cowen – listened to the audiodrama for the Own Voices square, I liked the story and the characters but the format was a bit difficult to follow, it was like a radio show with in-world ads that later became relevant

• The Last Sun K.D. Edwards – Loved this one too, I only regret reading it too quickly, so fast paced and action packed, funny and snarky, and I was not ready this much high magic worldbuilding in an urban fantasy. I reviewed it here and I’m so happy I’ve got The Hanged Man up next in my TBR, another one for the favorites pile

• Gideon the Ninth Tamsyn Muir – Should’ve read not audiobooked this one, it took me more than half the book to figure out who was who with all the complicated and varied names. I also didn’t like Gideon’s character at all, but I loved Harrowhawk, so looking forward to Harrow the Ninth. 
  

• Omul fluture (The Butterfly Man) Lucian Dragos Bogdan & Teodora Matei – Romanian cyberpunk. I liked how it explored the themes of identity and reality from many different angles, but all the different POVs made for a pretty confusing story, and I don’t seem to like grim ugly cyberpunk

• Mermaid Fins, Winds & Rolling Pins (Spells & Caramels, #3) Johnson, Erin – Got this series through a giveaway on r/audiobooks a cosy mystery series involving a lot of cooking, this volume took place in the mermaid kingdom, it was very sweet short and lovely

• Even Tree Nymphs Get the Blues (Mystic Bayou, #2.5) Harper, Molly – a free audible original, short (I think Paranormal Romance) novella about a tree nymph moving to a a town where humans and supernaturals live together, I really enjoyed it

• Pemberley: Mr. Darcy’s Dragon (Jane Austen’s Dragons, #1) Grace, Maria- got this through audiobook boom. It’s a Pride and Prejudice variation with dragons, so it’s the same characters and a lot of the same scenes but with added dragons, confirms my long standing theory that dragons are always a good addition. I also watched the 1995 P&P miniseries, both the book and the show go  to the favorites pile, they’ve combined to give me a hell of a fiction hangover

• The Night Masquerade (Binti, #3) Okorafor, Nnedi – the last of the Binti series, really liked it, especially how it blended earthly and alien. I’ll be reviewing the entire series in one post, but I also liked how much story there was for such short books. 

• Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu – the free audible originals dramatization – I didn’t know before my friend told me but Carmilla predates Dracula by 25 years. With it being the inspiration for many of the familiar tropes, the “twist” isn’t so much a twist as what was obvious from the very start, but I enjoyed it a lot, it was so gothic and romantic.

So that was my November, it was soo full! I also had a business trip to Austria and a weekend holiday with Dad in London, we went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour, I recommend it to fans, it’s amazing and seeing how they brought everything to life is very close to magic. Especially if you’re a costume and prop enthusiast.