15 reads and 4 recs from October 🍁

An extremely freaky reading month (and I'm not even talking about Halloween)

Happy November!! I felt like the chaos of Q4 came early this year and October’s carnage swept me away. You too?

I’m hoping to hunker down for the first half of November! Wish me luck with that…

ICYMI, this month I…

• Pulled together 22 seasonally perfect fall reads for you… (paywall removed!)

• Announced a bit of a vibe shift for First Rodeo!

• Started publishing a new weekend edition I’m calling The Weekender…

• Shared one last day-in-the-life-in-NYC

I’m trying! All ears on your feedback in the comments or the chat— I’m doing my darndest, so as always, if you have a friend you think might like this cozy corner of the internet too, I’d love for you to hit “forward” and share it with them. 🫶

• Two low-maintenance-girl beauty products stole my heart this month: The Dior Lip Glow Balm is the perfect lip balm, and it has a really sheer wash of color that makes me look less sallow now that the sun is gone from our lives for another 6 months. It is an exercise in great restraint that I do not own multiple colors of this.

• The second beauty hit of October was the new Crown Affair Overnight Repair Treatment Serum— WOWZA. This changes my hair texture pretty much instantly upon application. If you have long, color-damaged hair or any split ends, this is your hero. (If you’re curious about this or the Dior Lip Glow Balm, both are 10-20% off right now depending on your Sephora status.)

• Not a unique opinion, but I looooooved Lily Allen’s album that dropped in October. She gave me exactly what I want in a divorce album (unbridled and clever rage and snarkiness set to a fantastic beat) and felt that the highly anticipated break-up albums from Kacey Musgraves, Taylor Swift, The Chicks and others didn’t quite deliver…

• Big rec: shop vintage, and be brave enough to press the “make an offer” button on Ebay or Etsy. Good things can happen…

A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Court of Mist and Fury, and A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas // Okay, so these were a re-read! I was working on my novel more actively earlier last month and I wanted to revisit the Tamlin, Feyre and Rhysand love triangle to understand how the tension was built and tugged throughout… ultimately I couldn’t stop reading even though I’d gotten what I needed to get out of it, hah. Turns out, ACOTAR is still good a year after my first read!

Female Fantasy by Iman Hariri-Kia // This is definitely

Iman Hariri-Kia

’s best yet! The vibe is a main character who loves reading romance and is so obsessed with a very Rhysand-from-ACOTAR-coded male main character that her actual love life is totally impeded. You get chunks of the romantasy book she’s obsessed with (spoiler: I liked this even more than the modern day plot, the author could totally write nothing but that and I’d gobble it up) and a surprisingly action-packed adventure in her present day life. Both the author and main character are Iranian-American, as am I, so I recommend to anyone wanting more brown girl representation in their reads.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy // I’d heard so much hype about this lush, atmospheric novel set on a desolate island— and even up through the first few chapters, I didn’t think it’d be for me. Wow, I was wrong. Really great book and it will stick with me. Definitely a lot of climate dystopia.

Clear by Carys Davies // I promise I don’t only read books set on remote islands away from civilization— I actually read this before Wild Dark Shore! This book has gotten less love, but it’s more beautifully written and much shorter. It’s a sparse, powerful story of a Scottish minister sent to evict the last inhabitant of a remote island during the Highland Clearances… only to question what it means to truly belong. One of the most well written books of 2025 for me, I’ll recommend to anyone who listens.

The Stranger I Wed, Eliza and the Duke, and The Heiress Gets a Duke by Harper St. George // Vibe shift: this author writes fluffy novels about strategic marriages for Gilded Age heiresses and England’s peerage. Are they incredibly well-written? No. Do I still enjoy them as palate cleansers? Yes.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe // I took way too long to read this fan-favorite because sometimes I get turned off by things that everyone likes or pushes me to try— that was a dumb mistake. This book is funny and great.

Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe // A wildly entertaining collection of true-crime profiles that dives into the lives of arms dealers, drug lords, and grifters with journalistic brilliance. I adore Patrick Radden Keefe’s work and he hasn’t written a book I don’t love— but I do recommend the audiobooks for all of them, because they sure are loooooong.

The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis // In the fictional village of Little Nettlebed live the five Mansfield sisters, the town pariahs who have always seemed just a little bit… different. When the villagers believe they start to see the girls transforming into hounds, chaos ensues. This book was weird. I liked it… but it was light on plot for a book where little girls are supposed to turn into dogs. I do recommend it for spooky or Middle Ages vibes.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon // I also can’t believe it took me so long to get to reading this book, but the truth is that it took me forever to get through it. I had to do the audiobook, and I could only listen to it in small increments because I find it so painful. (I have the same experience with the show— I don’t think I’ll ever finish it.) This tale about a time-traveling WWII nurse who lands in 18th-century Scotland and meets her Highland warrior soul-mate is actually so much more freaky than I could have possibly realized. There were so many points in the book where I actually said “what the fuck?” out loud. It surprises me that the book and show are considered mainstream! It felt like unhinged fanfic at times.

The Queen’s Rival by Raymond Wemmlinger // A historical portrait of Lady Margaret Clifford, whose bloodline places her perilously close to the Tudor throne. This was a Kindle Unlimited read that was sort of meh— I am interested in the subject matter for sure, and I might try another of the author’s books— I just didn’t think Lady Margaret was very likeable.

Next to Heaven by James Frey // What the hell did I just read? Talk about freaky… this book is basically a thinly veiled tale of life in New Canaan, Connecticut amongst the stupid-rich. Very few of them are likeable. They also are an incestuous bunch of swingers and murderers. Read this if that sounds exciting to you, but know that there is a crazy amount of sexual violence and assault— which I could sure have done without!— and the author never once uses a quotation mark.

Read anything good lately, or have thoughts on any of these? Drop me a line in the comments!