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OCTOBER 2020 PLAYLIST + WRAP UP

October 31, 2020 / No Comments

Happy Halloween, everyone!!!

Slumpy start this October blogging-wise, but I pushed through and thankfully, the mood picked up as I was halfway through the month.

SOME SCHEDULE CHANGES

I’ll be making some changes to my blogging schedule starting November. This is my attempt to be consistent in writing blog posts in advance. Usually, I write my reviews on the day itself. The memes and other posts I try to do some days before but sometimes, I’m just couldn’t get started until the scheduled day.

This is my old schedule that you can see on my About page:

MON – Music Monday (a meme where I post a song I like)
TUE – review
WED – Past, Present and Future (posts about books published in the past, this month and next month)
THU – First Lines Friday 56 (a meme where featuring the opening line and a line from p. 56 or 56% of the book)
FRI – review
SAT – tags, misc posts
SUN – FLICKer Fade Sunday (features LGBT+ short films)

Here’s my new schedule:

MON – Music Monday
TUE – review
WED – Last Year I Was Reading…
THU – First Lines Friday 56 / tags and misc posts
FRI – review
SAT – FLICKer
SUN – chilling

I’m retaining Music Monday and my Tuesday and Friday reviews because they’re my favorite things to post.

I’m retiring Past, Present and Future because most of the time, I can’t recall the books I read more than 10 years ago. I’ll be replacing it with Last Year I Was Reading…, a meme where you talk about the book you’re currently reading and the book you read at the same time last year. I did this meme once and I enjoyed comparing the books I read. Also, it’s more feasible to talk about books finished last year than a decade ago.

Thursdays are for First Lines Friday 56 alternate with tags and other misc posts. I liked the First Lines Friday 56 meme so I’m retaining it. I’m giving myself Sundays off so I’m moving FLICKer FADE SUNDAY to Saturday. I’m giving my self more time during the weekends to write everything for the coming week.

I’m crossing my fingers these changes would work out. I appreciate you all sticking around with me so far and I hope you’d enjoy the new posts.

SONGS OF OCTOBER

This is the season for monster-themed songs and I created my own Halloween playlist for Music Mondays. Check it out here.

For the rest of the month, we have an eclectic mix of songs from classic rock band, Rush to singer-songwriter types like James Blunt, Douwe Bob and more popular American bands like Awolnation.

One thing I like about looking for story soundtracks is discovering new artists. Recent discoveries include Future Islands for their songs Moonlight, which captures Jack and Fitz’s tentative steps towards a relationship in Stacking the Deck.

Another new-to-me band is For King and Country. Their song Run Wild perfectly describes Des’s and Edge’s journey towards freedom in Bureau Volume 2. I especially liked the lyrics “You’re a lion full of power who forgot how to roar” because there was one scene where Kurt compared Des to a caged lion. Unfortunately, the song for Chained, Chains by Duran Duran is not licensed in Spotify so it’s not included in the playlist below.

I had a tough time looking for the best songs for Four Kings Security. I had to dig deep and when I discovered this unknown band, Future of Forestry and their song Protection, halle-fucking-lujah, this is it! The lyrics were like everything that happened in the books. Also, I normally try to find a unique song for each book but chose a song I had already used before in a Captive Prince short story for Diamond In The Rough because I think King and Lionheart by Of Monsters and Men is so very King and Leo.

Baxter Dury was another recent discovery for Music Mondays. He’s punk frontman, Ian Dury’s son. Boy did his dad proud because Miami is so damn catchy!

OCTOBER READS

Despite the blogging slump, I lucked out on the books this month with several fabulous reads, most of them by Charlie Cochet. I have gushed about Four Kings Security and its spinoff again and again, I’m starting to sound like a broken record.

Kim Fielding‘s Bureau Volume 2 was also a stand out. This series is an old favorite and I’m happy it continues to give us heartfelt stories about tormented creatures in need of major TLCs.

Another favorite is The Engineer. MM steampunk is sadly not so common and I totally loved C.S. Poe‘s blitzkrieg offering. Also, finally found a K.A. Merikan that agreed with me in the unlikely form of a menage romance, Their Bounty.

The nerds win this month with Jack and Leo being my favorite characters. Both of them from Four Kings Security because of course. These two characters were inspired by two beautiful people, David Giuntoli for Jack and Dylan O’brien for Leo. Jack and Leo bonded over their shared love for all things tech and they’re the only two people in their found family who spoke computerese. Their men can’t help but gawk in awe.

MANGA

I had two devastatingly bittersweet reads from Nakamura Asumiko but fluff always trumps angst with my favorites being Hige to Suzu to Shabondama, Bokura no Tsuzuki and Ki ga Au to Iu Koto de.

ON THE BLOG THIS MONTH

Short films:

Misc:

I’m happy October turned out pretty well with lots of great books and good music. Starting tomorrow it’s about things Christmas for most people. I’m excited to create another holiday playlist and maybe pick up a Christmasy book or two.

Thanks for reading!

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