Books Completed in October 2026

 The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors, Erika Howsare
Wow. I picked this up thinking this would be a good read for autumn.

It was a great read for autumn! I loved it. It was about all aspects of how human beings have interacted with deer over the epochs and eras and centuries: from the deer being food and clothing for prehistoric culture all the way down to being sustenance for Native Americans (Howsare actually takes a course from a Native American woman about preparing a deerskin for use as clothing using traditional methods), to deer being used in mythology—especially the use of deer as enchanted women being hunted down by men, and magical deer—to modern-day hunting to addressing culling the deer population due to human urban spread to deer diseases and road kills.

I was very surprised that this book even approached the concept of modern-day hunting; most nature books eschew the very idea. The author's family hunts and she takes part in a hunt. I don't believe in trophy hunting, but this family actually does use the meat and hunts as humanely as possible; they don't just go out there for a day of drinking and shooting up the forest. I especially like the idea of hunters contributing their kills to food banks.

I really, really loved this book.

 Controlled Burn, L.V. Brooks
I bought this book because it was a spicy romance.

Boy, is a spicy romance. It's pretty much...well, let's put it frankly...lots of smut.

Yes, there is plot with all the porn: Dr. Wren Harrison is a scientist studying endangered red wolves in North Carolina. A pregnant red wolf and her mate unfortunately wander into a woodland area scheduled for a controlled burn to prevent wildfires. Cyrus Langston is the guy in charge of the burn, and he's going to let nothing deter him—even the fact that he's actually a wolf shifter, and his instinct is telling him Wren is The One. His one true mate.

You want smut? You got smut. Oh, the characters are likeable, too, but mostly it's the smut.

  Re-read: Where the Truth Lies, Rupert Holmes
Simon and Schuster is re-releasing all of Holmes' books with uniform covers, and, even though I already had an autographed ARC of this book and the original hardback, I had to get the re-release since Rupert had made a very significant change from the first edition: he gave our protagonist O'Connor (we only knew her as "K. O'Connor" in the original edition) a first name: Kerry.

I have no idea why, but I re-read with just as much gusto as the first time: O'Connor, a journalist, is excited at the prospect of interviewing the former entertainment team of Vince Collins and Lanny Morris, who broke up after an appearance on a 1950s telethon and the discovery of a dead woman in their hotel suite. Collins and Morris are very loosely based on Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, but this is a totally original and twisty mystery in the best Holmes tradition with wonderful period details of both the 1950s and the 1970s.

 The Anatomy of Motive, John Douglas and Mark Olshaker
What's better Hallowe'en reading than true crime? This entry from Douglas and Olshaker chronicles motives in different types of crime, not just murders and rapes, but arson, poisoners, shooters, bombers, fugitives, and even seeming "normal" people who just snap due to life stresses. Douglas even does a profile of Othello!

 These Dreaming Spires, edited by Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane
I bought this because I enjoyed the previous volume, In These Hallowed Halls, a collection of dark academia short stories. I didn't enjoy this collection as much; some of the stories were too bizarre, like the self-love one.

 Bound and Unbound, Ali Hazelwood
These are two novellas bound (there's that word) into one volume like the old Ace doubles, both concerning human characters who become involved with vampires and taking place in the same universe. Bound involves a con artist named Vanessa who is enlisted to reproduce a rare book by the very reserved Dr. Ashworth, who she discovers is a vampire trying to stop another vampire from ravaging mankind. Unbound's Lilet (who has lived for thousands of years as a vampire) has become enamored of self-sacrificing physician Roman Martin—but first she has to solve the murder of a prominent vampire. So, paranormal love stories with murderous interruptions.

I enjoyed both books as Hallowe'en reads, but thought the endings were pretty predictable.

 A Calendar of Festivals: Traditional Celebrations, songs, Season Recipes & Things to Make, Marian Green
Found this nifty book at a book sale; it was written in Great Britain and mostly concentrates on British holidays and old British feast days, which suits this Anglophile just fine. I love learning about the old harvest and spring festivals, the ways of celebrating Midsummer and Yule, etc. Begins in February, with the first hints of spring, includes Zodiac profiles, seasonal recipes, and charming line drawings. If you like almanac and calendar-type books, this will do very well for you.

 Grim Tidings, B.K. Borison
I ugly-cried at the end of this book.

Gabriel Aetos works in a small, informal bar near the waterfront. He's immediately attracted to Darcy Moore, the beautiful woman who walks in one night. But there's a problem: Gabriel isn't a regular guy, he's a Guardian Angel, dedicated to saving the innocent, and Darcy is a Grim Reaper, the emissary of death. And once he finds out, he's determined she won't take anyone he cares about, or even someone he doesn't.

Because he doesn't trust her, he doesn't realize Darcy is a Reaper tired of death. In fact, on this "mission," she's determined to save the person she's assigned to pick up, even if it gets her punished. She has already started on the "road to ruin" by saving a German Shepherd from death and adopting it as a pet.

Borison wrote the book in tribute to the work of her husband, who works in pallative care. Yeah, it got to me. Hard. As in her previous "Spirits" book, Good Spirits (there is a cameo by one of the protagonists of that book), there are plot twists that work well in the end.

 They Were Here Before Us, Ran Barkai and Eyal Halfon
Most of the anthropology books I've read have been written by Americans/British/Europeans concentrating on those areas, but this book was written concentrating on prehistoric sites in the Middle East, where man's earliest ancestors passed on their way from Africa to Europe and to Asia. Addresses how the human mind developed—both protein and fat were necessary; I knew they killed mammoths, but apparently elephants were used as well, as they had a good deal of fat—where and how remains were found, when use of fire and tools first entered the picture, etc. Enjoyed this different POV and locale.

  Re-read: Lord Peter, Dorothy L. Sayers
I joined a Peter Wimsey Facebook group and someone was reading their way through the short stories, and I couldn't resist grabbing this volume to reread all these wonderful pieces of Lord Peter's life. There's his partnership with his young nephew in "Dragon's Head," the singular mystery of a death coach in "Bone of Contention," a grisly find in "Copper Fingers," and so many more, especially the last story, "Talboys," which shows Peter as a father of three boys, including the mischievous elder, Bredon. Better understood if you've read the novels, but still a good show all around.