Hello and a warm, squishy welcome to my October #CaseClosed post where I look back on the month just gone and wonder why I didn’t read more books!  I know, I’m letting the side down.  Who needs sleep anyway….? Heh heh!

October was a rather exciting month for me.  Y’all be sick to the back teeth of this soon (maybe you are already!) but I decided to have a bit of a new books and blog tour ban to enable me to make a more substantial dent in the terrifying TBR.  To keep my FOMO at bay I have a list of 20 authors whose books and tours I am allowed to partake in.  So, how did I do in my first month?

In October I was part of FOUR blog tours (compared to my twelve tours in September I think I’ve done alright!):

All four were review posts:

Her Last Secret by Barbara Copperthwaite | Fox Hunter by Zoe Sharp | Anything You Do Say by Gillian McAllister | Murder Game by Caroline Mitchell |

But the blog wasn’t empty, oh no!  I featured these publication day reviews (or as near as dammit to publication day!):

The Visitors by Catherine Burns | Sleep No More by P.D. James | The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell | Two Dark Tales: Jack Squat and The Niche by Charles Lambert |

And I also got to read these beauties, all of which have been sitting on my terrifying TBR for some time encouraging me to cheat on my scheduled reads with their come-hither looks:

The Corruption of Chastity by Frank Westworth | Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart | Final Girls by Riley Sager | The Honeymoon by Tina Seskis | The Dry by Jane Harper | Follow You by Richard Parker |

And last but by no means least, I shared a cover reveal post for the latest book in the Kay Hunter series titled Hell To Pay.  Isn’t it a stunner? Keep an eye out for my stop on the tour in mid-November.  Really looking forward to reading this one!

All in all, I have rather enjoyed my first month of being able to choose what I read and when I read it.  I think it’s given me a much-needed boost to my confidence and has reminded me exactly why I love (LOVE!) reading so much.

Saying that there has been one rather negative knock to the damppebbles armour which has caused me a lot of upset.  Two words; Twitter Jail!  Ugh.  Twitter jail, for those that haven’t heard of such a thing before, is more commonly known as Shadow Banning or Ghost Banning.  During the month of October, I have been in Twitter Jail at least once a week and nearly every weekend.  I laughed it off to start with but it got to the point where it became no longer funny.  I could tweet to the masses but I couldn’t speak to an individual or a group of people.  As soon as I added someone’s Twitter tag to my tweet I was silenced.  After a little bit of detective work, I discovered that I share, on average, 102 tweets containing a URL to Twitter on a daily basis, 102 TWEETS!  I thought I could beat the system.  I can’t.  I thought I could find a clever way to get around the problem.  I couldn’t.  So I have come to realise that I can’t share posts like I have been doing which is quite upsetting for me.  I’ve been told to share no more than 20 posts a day.  But how do I go from 102 to 20…..?!  All ideas welcome, I’m reaching out to you dear damppebbles visitor so please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.  At the moment I am considering a spreadsheet which randomly generates 20 blogs a day.  I may be thinking about this waaaaaaaaaay too much……!

If you’re a regular visitor to the blog or you follow me on Twitter I don’t think my Book Of The Month is going to come as a massive surprise.  I have found a book which may well become my book of the year and it rightly deserves a place on my favourite books EVER list.  That book is…..

 

Taddah!

There we go, no big surprise really.  I fell head over heels in love with this gorgeously creepy mix of crime and horror.  It was absolutely everything I’ve ever wanted in a book and felt almost like it was written especially for me.  I adore it and if you haven’t read Final Girls yet then you MUST!

“I’m so excited that this book exists – it’s perfect and I want everyone to read it so you can all see how awesome it is as well.  Brilliantly addictive, deliciously dark and everything I want in a book! Superb.”

So there we have it, my bookish October in a mere 900 words (or so!).  I may be a little quiet as we start November; I have a number of blog tour reads all bunched together halfway through the month so will be concentrating on getting them all read and reviewed in time.  After that, and I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, I have NO blog tours scheduled – no tours in December, no tours in the New Year.  I know it won’t stay that way (especially as Steph Broadribb and Orenda Books are releasing the new Lori Anderson book in the coming months and that’s one book/tour I ain’t missing!) but it’s quite an exhilarating feeling.

Have a warm and cosy November filled with the very best books.  Tarrah for now!