It was definitely an October for the books, since I spent the final week of it exploring London in all it autumnal glory. I'll be posting a full recap later, but it was a dream trip that has been about 24 years in the making. I've wanted to visit England since I was six, and first read Harry Potter. Of course, over the years, the reasons I wanted to visit only continued to evolve and multiply, but I certainly didn't expect it to take me until age 30 to finally get across the pond.

In a way, though, I'm sort of glad I went now, when I'm financially stable enough to afford to do the things I want and stay at a beautiful hotel, as opposed to making it work with hostels and crappy Airbnbs.

We stayed at The Ned Hotel in Central London, and it was a dream. The building was a former bank, so it’s huge – I truly felt like I could have spent a full week just in this hotel. It had something like seven restaurants and bars, which we made good use of. A highlight was the traditional tea service in the hotel’s classic British restaurant.

I’ll share more in a longer post, but it was truly a lovely trip and a great first experience with international travel. But for now, here are some things I’ve loved this month.

Book Report

A review of everything I read this month.

Penance by Eliza Clark

★★★★★ 5/5

I’ll be thinking about this book for a long long time. It tells the story of a (fictional) true crime case, told through interviews of people involved in the crime. It really holds a mirror up to the “true crime as entertainment” industry that cropped up several years back.

I’m a product of the 90s, raised on 20/20, Nightline, Dateline, CSI, SVU, NCIS – you name the acronym, I’ve binged 32 seasons of it. I’m guilty of texting my friends gushing over crime cases like they were the plot points of reality shows. I still frequently fall asleep to ASMR videos of women serenely whispering horrifying crime stories from reddit threads.

In recent years, I’ve started to feel more and more uncomfortable with the notion. I used to proudly proclaim to be a Murderino – a listener of the podcast My Favorite Murder. But lately it’s started to feel really icky to listen to people make jokes and quips while reading out the details of horrific crimes. Anyways, this book really makes you think, and I’d highly recommend it if you currently are or ever have been a true crime junkie.

The Witch Elm by Tana French

★★★★☆ 4/5

I love love love Tana French, I truly think she is one of the best crime writers currently living. I’ve read her entire Dublin Murder Squad series (some of them twice), but hadn’t yet read any of her standalone novels. My coworker said that the Witch Elm was her favorite of the standalone books, so I decided to give it a go. It was honestly utterly heartbreaking, and really well told, like all of her books. I can’t say too much without giving it away, but I highly recommend this one!

The Gathering Dark Anthology

★★★☆☆ 3.5/5

A nice little anthology of modern short horror stories. I really enjoyed curling up with this book on a rainy Sunday afternoon during peak spooky season.

The September House by Carissa Orlando

★★★★☆ 4/5

I really really loved this book. Was it a literary masterpiece? Probably not. But it was so entertaining (and spooky and honestly kind of gory) and there were at least three moments where I thought “Oh, I see where this is going” and I was WRONG. It was a delightful play on a classic haunted house story. And as a religious devotee to original hardwood and fixtures, I also would probably refuse to leave a beautiful Victorian home just because it was haunted.

All Fours by Miranda July

★★★☆☆ 3/5

Everyone’s been raving about this book, so when I needed to download a new one for the plane ride to London, I decided to go for it. First off, reading this on a plane was a huge mistake. Luckily I was only sitting by my husband, but I felt like I had to hide my iPad screen so people couldn’t read over my shoulder because WOW that was extremely sexually explicit. Other than that, I really have no clue how I feel about this book. It was compelling. I read it in just a few hours, and not only because I was on an international flight with nothing else to do. It made me freak out really bad about getting older. I think I’m going to categorize this as “a good book, just not for me.” I wish it well, and we will part ways as friends, but I don’t have many other thoughts about it.

October Picks