Hello!

It’s been a busy few weeks of driving up and down the country to see friends and family, wrestling my cat to give her the skin medication she needs and working on my dance teacher training so I’m a little creatively burnt out at the moment! I thought one of these wrap up/update/catch up posts would be a nice way to say a little bit of everything.

So let’s start with the books!

I’ve managed to be somewhat consistent in October to far, but it’s also helped that I’ve driven up to see family twice in less than a week, equating to approximately 13 hours of driving which has been fabulous for my audiobook consumption. It may have taken me eight days to finish my first book of the month, but I’ve since finished three books a week which would be great if I can maintain!

I was really hoping this would be a nice but not eye-rolling-ly cheesy contemporary romance, then I found out it was a Beauty and the Beast inspired retelling and then the prologue included a publishing house called ‘Tale As Old As Time’.

I so nearly DNF-ed this before the 100 page mark because the Beauty and the Beast aspects were just so on the nose and cringy, but I stuck it out because the male main character was really sweet and once the female main character has stopped being presumptuous and judgemental, their growing friendship was nice to read about, but the FMC was the worst part of the story.

The references of talking to furniture were just too much. I’ll definitely be donating this to a charity shop.

5 STARS. I’m Obsessed. Ali has done is again and I adored this story so much.

I didn’t go in with many expectations because I liked Bride but it wasn’t my favourite, which probably meant I enjoyed it more because I wasn’t expecting anything from it. I don’t know if it was because it was less vampire and more werewolf, I think it’s perhaps because Serena and Cohen were just gorgeous characters.

They were so sweet, it was a dual narration audiobook which just made it so much more engaging. It was smutty but not too smutty (and the smut was hot, ngl), there was plot and cute moments alongside the romance and parts with our favourite characters from the first book (namely Sparkles the cat).

I’m so pleased I’ve finally found a couple more 5 star reads this year, because I was starting to think it was never going to happen!

I’m only two books away from finishing my monthly TBR so I’m going to be able to start reading from the list of books I have for reading after my TBR (I call it my Book Queue) and I’m really excited to get a few more ticked off my TBR!

Five Survive is a book from my 25 in 2025, the final book I need to read for my October TBR and also the last book from Holly Jackson’s backlog that I need to read, so it’s very exciting!

I’ve only got about 3 hours left of the audiobook and whilst I like that it’s so suspenseful and I have no idea how it’s going to wrap up (though I have theories), there’s a secondary character who is so irritating, I’m rolling my eyes every 5 minutes and it makes the whole thing way less enjoyable to read because he’s so insufferable. I can definitely see why this book flopped a bit in comparison to A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder.

And my last book from my monthly TBR is the next book in my Maximum Ride series – I’ve loved rereading this series and this book is surprisingly short compared to the others so I was hoping to get it finished this week. But I’ve had such a busy week I’ve been way too tired by the time I get to bed so even fitting in a couple of chapters has not been happening! I’m hoping this will be a quick finish next week though.

Whilst I’m smashing my reading goals at the moment, my consistency with content is lacking but I’m also at a point where I’m questioning how much time I put into making content for what return so I’m trying to convince myself that I’m not a failure for missing a YouTube upload! But I have managed a a few bits this week!

Tuesday – Every book I read to finish my reading goal

Wednesday – Mid-month TBR check in

Thursday – Husband and Wife TBR Challenge (the long cut is on YouTube!)

And I attempt to post every day on my Instagram!

Ironically I did film and edit other videos but I decided I didn’t like them so I didn’t post them and I wasn’t home, let alone having time to edit them so it’s a bit of a fail week!

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster of a week – I came back from a night away over the weekend with a really sore throat that developed into a cold that seemed to sit on my chest, not ideal when I predominantly teach the dance style that involves people wearing metal enhanced shoes and making extra noise with their feet! But I pushed through not having my full hearing, voice or brain capacity and hopefully didn’t pass on this bug in the process.

Then I was driving back up to where I’d been at the weekend to see my sibling for their birthday! We went to an aquarium called The Deep which I haven’t been to since I was a kid and I don’t think it’s been changed since, but it was lovely! Watching all the fish was really relaxing and there were some very interesting facts!

I then drove home again, going straight to my ballet class and then home to see the cat and collapse for the night… to be back at the dance studio for several hours of competition rehearsals on a Saturday, then rushing back home to powder my nose and hop back in the car to go to the theatre with my husband! He, somewhat spontaneously, bought us tickets to see the Percy Jackson musical ‘The Lightning Thief’ as he’d got a Facebook ad for a city near us and as a combination of Greek mythology, book and musical nerds we decided to treat ourselves to a date night!

Did I have a nice restful Sunday after that? Of course not, I was up at the crack of dawn to go to the dance competition that I’d been at the rehearsals for and spend most of the day in a school hall.

I think I need a break next week!

Because of course, after all that rushing around, I need an intermission to just look at how beautiful my cat is.

When she rolls and brings her little paws up? How am I meant to cope??

She also ate a tinsel toy and threw it back up this morning so she balances it out I suppose.

I’ve been feeling rough for a couple of months now and I’m hoping that being ill is the low point I need to bounce back. I’m very aware that things in my life need to change but actually knowing what to change and actually implementing it is a skill I apparently need to develop!

But I’m reading a lot, I’m spending a lot of time with my cat and I get to spend a lot of time dancing too! So I’m trying to focus on the things I get to be grateful for.

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx