Ah, November! I love November. Always have. It’s not quite Christmas pressure, but it is a time for Christmas plans, leftover Halloween treats, cosy nights and my birthday! It usually means I have some nice time off during the month, too. This November, I’m also going to be heading to the SugarPages Christmas @ Cardiff event, too! I am very excited for this, because of course it means I get some new books but more importantly, I’ll get to meet some indie authors!
2026 Reading Challenges
Updates: #1 / #2 / #3 / #4 / #5 / #6 / #7 / #8 / #9
Goal: 68/70 (+7)
Musicals Reading Challenge 2026
20/24, +1 Bonus (+3) Prompts Completed
Read
1940s: On the Town – New York, New York – Set in or about a major city
Word of warning: London: The Concise Biography is not all that concise! But I did finally finish this one in October, which makes me very happy. An excellent book, too, as Ackroyd takes us back and forth through London history.
Better Man – Let Me Entertain You – Features a festival/gig/concert
Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun was a really strange, intriguing journey, one I very much appreciated. Very glad I read this one.
The Great Gatsby – Roaring On – Set in/about the 1920s
After unfortunately DNF’ing The Millionaire Waltz, I picked up Ancient Trust by Celia Lake. Not only was this a wonderful historical fantasy, it’s free via Celia’s newsletter! Not only do I recommend this book, I suggest heading over to Celia’s website to find out more and sign up for the newsletter.
Books to Read: Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night, The Convenient Marriage, Hungry Eyes
Twenty Genres in 2026
18/20, +2 Bonus (+2) Prompts Completed
Currently Reading
Supernatural, Vampire, Werewolf, Paranormal or Apocalypse (Tagged with)
I changed this one to an audiobook, and settled on My Roommate is a Vampire. Mainly because I kept seeing books from this series when out and about, and I was intrigued. I think I can safely say it was a good call on my part – I am really enjoying this one!
YA
This was a good opportunity for me to read one of my favourite authors – Kalynn Bayron’s Sleep Like Death has been sitting on my shelves for a while, and I really wanted to read it. YA seemed like a good prompt for it, so here we are. I’m only a little bit through it, but absolutely loving it so far. There’s a reason Bayron is one of my must read authors.
Cultural Awareness – Read a book about a different culture, religion, heritage etc.
This felt like a good opportunity to read Andrew Chatora’s Unstoppable March of the Human Condition: Essays on Politics and Literature. He’s not a writer I’m familiar with, but even though I’ve only recently started this one, I’m already very keen to check out his other words.
Read
Translated Book
I used Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun for this one, too. I was going to go with Witches, but unfortunately needed to take another look at the books on my challenges and swap out a physical for a digital, and it made sense to utilise Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun. I still have Witches sitting in my physical ‘challenges TBR’, and whatever books are left here at the end of the year go to the top of the list for prompts for next year.
Your Favourite Genre or Mix of Genres
At the moment, after reading so much horror this year, my favourite genres are currently romance and fantasy. So Ariana Jade’s The Coffee House Witch & The Grumpy Cat felt perfect. I love her work, and she often appears in book blasts – including Queer Your eReader over on Divination Hollow!
Books to Read: None!
Netflix Movies & TV Shows
19/24 (+1) Prompts Completed
Read
Young Royals – Book where a character has to hide something
I enjoyed Blood of the Pack more than I expected to, and it was great to finally read this book that’s been on my TBR for a long while! It was spicy, fun and definitely want to continue with the series. For now, this challenge is (once again) taking a bit of a backseat while I focus on finishing the two above.
Books to Read: So You Want to Talk About Race, A Discovery of Witches, Loved and Wanted
Romance Tropes & Microtropes
1/81 (+1) Prompts Completed
Read
best friends brother
Cross the Line was so cute! I definitely enjoyed this one and the audio version was fantastic. It was a good one to tide me over while I worked out where to fit in audiobooks for the other challenges, usually involving removing a physical book and changing it for an audio. I’m really looking forward to picking up this challenge more, likely after I finish the Netflix one!
Books to Read: Cash Target, Donut Girl and the Bosshole, Deranged
I really feel like, for once, I am on track to complete my challenges for the year! I could possibly finish both my Musicals challenge and the Twenty Genres challenge in November, which would mean I can use December to focus on the Netflix challenge, and/or get to some of the Christmas books on my TBR!
