Reading Update: November

Reading in Scorpio Season ✨

Hallo, its me, Laura King. This month I celebrated my birthday, and having a great month for reading, still heavily relying on nice easy romances, but branching out a bit too. It was also a great month for films - I took myself to see Bugonia in my favourite cinema on my birthday and loved it (apart from the ending?) followed up by Die My Love a few days later, which wasn't as good but the lead actors Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattison are always a good watch. I really loved Train Dreams on Netflix, and liked the vibe of Frankenstein. I unfortunately missed the new Knives Out in the cinema as I was sick last weekend, but at least I binged all four episodes of the new Stranger Things!

But, back to what I read in November!

Run Out and Read

Bread of Angels by Patti Smith was a birthday present that I abandoned everything else for and read right away. The pull to adventure and pull of home are two key forces in Smith's memoir, which I think for the first time delves into her childhood and family history, instead of touching on elements of her life as in Just Kids and M Train. It's a very fanciful and indulgent piece of writing, but it suits Smith and the story of the reflective yet righteous artist forging her path.

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood has a similar premise for Hazelwood's readers, academic rivals to lovers where the rivalry is entirely one sided (lol), in this case Bee lands her dream job working with NASA, and thinks she has made is until she realised her co-lead is Levi, who she knew from graduate school who always seemed to have a problem with her (the problem is that he obviously fancied her). I love Bee and Levi, and I felt that they fit into each other's lives most seamlessly of any of the (many) recent romances I've enjoyed. There wasn't a hint of irony in my enjoyment of this novel, I just really love it and wish it was somehow 5,000 pages long.

Highly Recommended

John Gibbons does a great job in The Lie of the Land in communicating the urgency of his message in a clear and direct way, and even better, actually gives solutions to a lot of the short term answers or scaremongering about climate change that I've heard. I was already very familiar with some of the content of this book, so I wasn't as engaged in those pieces, but I found chapters on agriculture and food security and sovereignty really interesting because it countered a lot of the myths I'd grown up in Ireland hearing. It's obviously not an exciting or entertaining read, but I think a necessary one.

How to Write a Love Story by Catherine Walsh is out in March, and it's a romantic comedy in the true sense of the phrase, in that it's actually very funny as opposed to just light hearted, and I 100% believed in the companionable relationship between the leads, Ciara and Sam - so, it's two for two on what I'm looking for in a rom com! Sam is a hot shot editor in New York, and he can't believe he is going to work on the final book in his favourite fantasy series by the late Frank Sheridan. His daughter Ciara, a crime writer, has been secretly working away to finish her father's series, but has hit a roadblock. When Sam offers an alternative way to consider the epic fantasy, as a love story rather than just political intrigue, it not only begins to unlock Ciara's block, but Ciara herself and the many walls she has built since her father's death.

Under Your Spell by Laura Wood was actually quite similar, in a way, where a musician with writer's block is inspired by his connection - and proximity - to a woman he can't get out of his head. It's one of the only times where I've wanted to hear the music a character in a book is composing, and I wanted a prequel about Clemmie’s family and upbringing, as the family bonds and childhood nostalgia are really gorgeous and made the novel more special than I expected.

Almost Life, publishing in March 2026 by Kiran Millwood Hargrave is a beautiful, messy love story about Erica and Laure, two women who meet by chance on the steps of Sacre Cour in the 1970's. The two fall into a mutual obsession, as English Erica is drawn into Laure's circle of other gay Parisians and a real bohemian life, but despite her naivete always holds a kind of power over Laure. The two come together and break apart over the years, amid the changing social and political landscape of the late 20th century, through successes, failures, illness, grief, marriage and other partners. Kiran Milwood Hargrave is a master of writing about longing, desire, and obsession, and she imbues such beauty and love into this world, especially Paris as it changes over the years.

Recommended

Loathe to Love You by Ali Hazelwood is a collection of three interconnected novellas, from the point of view of three best friends and engineers, Mara, Sadie and Hannah. These are basically the same 120 page stories and are sort of all rivals to lovers, forced proximity, but to an extent that I feel that its mostly fitting the trope rather than coincidental. However, once I realised they were interconnected it made a lot of sense and I really liked how the long distance friends come in and out of the stories.

From the back cover of Deep End by Ali Hazelwood you learn collegiate competitive diver Scarlett is thrown together with her teammate's soon to be ex boyfriend and Olympian swimmer Lukas, and soon an arrangement between them blossoms into something more. I did end up enjoying the book well enough but it has a pretty cold tone, and isn't the kind of warm rom com I'm looking for right now. Still, it would be a good one for anyone who wants to read a more serious romance in which some very troubled characters learn how to trust in others after different set backs in their lives.

Did Not Finish/Not For Me

This month I read Life's Too Short by Abby Jimenez, which is the last in a loose trilogy that began with The Friend Zone and The Happily Ever After Playlist. Obviously Abby Jimenez is a great writer, and it's cool to see her develop what will become the hallmark of her style here - but unfortunately the balance that she achieves so effortlessly in the trilogy beginning Part of Your World is just not here yet. I had to talk myself into finishing Life's Too Short so many times because it was just so depressing.

Christmas Tree Farm by Laurie Gilmore was certainly a book I read in November! That's all I'm going to say on that until I discuss over wine with the book club who made me read it.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you join me soon for another installment of LauraEatsBooks.