Happy Halloween...and thank you for joining me for Something Wicked Fall

I can't believe it's the last day of October...Halloween! Time sure did fly, as it does. I hope you have a safe and fun Halloween/blessed Samhain. The veil is thin!

I also want to thank everyone who participated in Something Wicked Fall this year, and the Last Days read-along, of which the final discussion post will go up before Halloween ends, though that might be Pacific time. lol

Some Halloween fun. The video is of the haunted mansion my sister and I created from a repurposed Barbie doll house. The rest are images of some of my Halloween decor...a few new additions.

Haunted village created from a repurposed toy castle, plastic Dollar Tree toy houses, and glitter pipe cleaners for trees. The scary characters I had on hand, plus skeletons, and various other items. The four larger jack-o'-lanterns were made using dried avocado pits covered with air dry clay and painted.

Gifts my sister made me for my birthday. She is so talented.

Midsommar Christmas tree topper!

My Samhain alter.

Merida. I didn't make her keep it on, though she probably would. She never seems to mind. Sweet girl.

My sister and I at the karaoke Halloween party last night. I'm the witch, of course.

Once again, Happy Halloween and thanks! See you next year for another Something Wicked Fall. In the meantime, keep reading horror! For those of you who participate in the I Read Horror Year-Round challenge, I will have the 2027 version posted soon. I hope you will join me again.

2026 I Read Horror Year-Round Challenge - Third Quarter Check-In

The year of being late. That's what I've dubbed 2026. I'm so sorry once again. Not only am I late, but my reading for this challenge has not been going great either. I hope it's going better for you. 

Let's update, shall we?

I'm doing the Chilling level which is 12 books in a year. Plus, I'm going to try to do the Complete the Word Bonus Challenge. I picked FRIGHT. Here's how it's going so far...

• Winter - set in winter or snow on the cover or winter in the title
  Freezing Point, Karen Dionne
• Epistolary horror - found footage, told in letters and/or diaries
• Cult and/or ritual
  Last Days, Adam Nevill (currently reading, will finish by end of October)
• Haunted house - No One Gets Out Alive, Adam Nevill
• Full moon and/or woods on the cover
• Indigenous, Asian, or Latino author
• Pumpkins/Jack O' Lanterns on the cover
• Black author
• Book published in the 60's, 70's, or 80's
• Social justice horror
• Yule/Christmas holiday themed
• Whatever scares you the most
  Marla, Jonathan Janz (creepy...creepy scares me the most. lol)
  
  

F - Freezing Point, Karen Dionne
R
I - Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
G
H - Hell Bent, Leigh Bardugo
T - The October Country, Ray Bradbury (currently reading, will finish before Oct 31)

I guess I'm not doing as bad as I thought, but I'm still not sure if I will meet all the prompts by the end of the year. We shall see.

I keep track of my yearly challenges over on my sister site, True Book Addict. There's a link to my 2026
challenge page in the menu above.

I hope you're enjoying your horrific reading! Share your progress in the comments (update, links to posts/reviews, etc.)...

Thanks for bearing with me! Wishing you continued terrifying reads!

Adam Nevill's Last Days Read-Along - Discussion Two

Possible spoilers ahead. Enter if you dare.

Well, well, well. Here I am on the 14th actually posting the discussion. Go me! It's late, I know, but still the 14th so... Anyway, as I mentioned in the update I posted the other day, I combined sections two and three so this discussion covers sections two and three. Just for clarification.

So, a lot to unpack here. What a terrible devastation was the last days at the Arizona mine. How utterly horrific. The murders of her closest disciples, and even her. The way they found the bodies in the "temple." And then the bodies out by the fence. Not only shot, but literally chewed on...by teeth that were not animals. That Katherine sure did have some weird shit going on. It still astounds me how people will just blindly follow something like that. Now we find out even more horrible things have happened, like rape of females and males. Also, the cases of some of these people being missing. As Martha said, probably taken out to the desert, killed and buried, or perhaps even buried alive. Yikes!

The part in Kyle's hotel room scared the crap out of me. Can you imagine waking up and hearing and then seeing something like that? And what are they? Well, not too long after this occurrence we start to find out.

I am so glad that Nevill brought this historical element to the story. I feel like it adds such depth, but also gives us a back story about what exactly Kyle is dealing with. Those terrible paintings, but even more terrible is the story behind them. It makes me wonder if something like that really happened, meaning the massacre of an entire town. I mean I know that went on in those times, but specifically, was there a sect similar to Lorche's that was burned out of existence by the Spanish Catholics? I'm definitely going to research it. 

Now that we know the back story, I'm hoping we will get more of an explanation. Maybe we will, maybe we won't, but I feel like this is another outstanding work by Nevill. 

Side note: The part in the paintings where Lorche and the Unholy Swine were "ascending" up in the air in the last painting. It reminded me of the end of the 2018 Suspiria remake. Not exactly like it, but that kind of supernatural depravity. Disturbing.

Looking forward to getting to the end and what we will find there. I think Nevill is pretty good at not leaving readers hanging. Let's hope it's the case with this book as well.

What are your thoughts? Please share in the comments.

Our final discussion will be posted on October 30. If you need to reference the reading schedule, click the link to the master post below, or in the blog menu at the top.

This post is part of Something Wicked Fall.

2026 Something Wicked Fall - Quick Update!

I just wanted to apologize for being rather ghostly of late. I will disclose now that I have a lot on my plate right now and I've been struggling with some mental health issues the past few months (incidentally, I have started therapy again). For this reason, I have decided to postpone the official launch of my YouTube channel until the new year. It's a busy season and it's only going to get busier with the holidays coming up. Probably not a good time to be a beginner and dipping my toes in when I'm dealing with overwhelm. A sneak peak into what has had my attention the past several days. Crafting with my sister last Monday through Thursday has really helped in the mental health department. Here's what we're working on...

We're almost finished. We just have to finish up the scenes in each room. As you can see, there is a skeleton yoga room on the bottom floor, left room. On the right is going to be the witch room, and the second floor, left room is the mummy/embalming room. It has been a lot of work, but we are enjoying it. Halloween is my favorite! Duh, right?!

Regarding the Last Days read-along, I got behind again. I've decided to combine discussions two and three so will plan to have that posted no later than the 14th. That's firm because the 15th is my birthday and I have a pretty busy birthday weekend planned which will include a lot of reading since Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon is on the 17th. Yay!

For those of you participating in the I Read Horror Year-Round reading challenge, I will have the third quarter update posted soon. I'm also failing miserably on that challenge this year as well. *sigh*

Now that I've shared what's going on in my life, how are things going in yours? Feel free to share. I'm always willing to listen. 

Thanks so much for being a follower of this blog, and for bearing with me. I appreciate it more than you will ever know.