FraterFest 2023 Tracker Post

It’s that time of year again...Kimberly over at Caffeinated Reviewer is hosting Fraterfest 2023! Cue the spooky music!

 

If you don’t know, Fraterfest Readathon is a fun spooky season readathon that runs from October 12^th—16^th. 

 

What can you read? Per Kimberly’s rules: Approved Reads/listens: Thrillers, Urban, Paranormal, Cozy, Suspense, Mystery, Historical, Zombies, Horror, Dystopian, Ghosts, Serial Killers, Fantasy, Urban, Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic and Supernatural. I don’t care if there is romance. You pick your fear level. Sparkle, bloody… all approved. Novellas and graphic novels count too!

 

To find out more about this spook-tacular time, check out the sign-up post HERE

 

I’m so excited to be joining again this year. It’s one of my favorite readathons. I feel like I’m always in my spooky reads era but now I have an excuse to read more!

So, I’m not sure what I’m going to be reading or how many books I’ll read. I do have a few Heather Graham books I’m wanting to get through as well as a few from my TBR pile. I’m very much a mood reader, so a set TBR doesn’t always go with my reading flow. I’m just going to play it by ear and see how it goes. 

Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Legend goes that long ago a Flores woman offended the old gods, and their family was cursed as a result. Now, every woman born to the family has a touch of magic.

 

Sage Flores has been running from her family—and their “gifts”—ever since her younger sister Sky died. Eight years later, Sage reluctantly returns to her hometown. Like slipping into an old, comforting sweater, Sage takes back her job at Cranberry Rose Company and uses her ability to communicate with plants to discover unusual heritage specimens in the surrounding lands.

 

What should be a simple task is complicated by her partner in botany sleuthing: Tennessee Reyes. He broke her heart in high school, and she never fully recovered. Working together is reminding her of all their past tender, genuine moments—and new feelings for this mature sexy man are starting to take root in her heart.

 

With rare plants to find, a dead sister who keeps bringing her coffee, and another sister whose anger fills the sky with lightning, Sage doesn’t have time for romance. But being with Tenn is like standing in the middle of a field on the cusp of a summer thunderstorm—supercharged and inevitable.

Publisher: Berkley |  Genre: Romance/Magical Realism  | Source: Publisher | Rating: 5 Cups

Magic, second chances, healing, and family drama interweave in this magical tale that needs to be on your TBR pile this autumn.

 

After a situation at her former job, Sage is returning home, which isn’t going to be easy considering she ran from her family after the death of her sister eight years before. While things are tricky with her aunt and sister, and the ghost of her other sister is haunting her, Sage has found it easy to return to her former job at Cranberry Rose Company and it allows her to use gifts of communicating with plants. There’s only one tricky situation to navigate, working with Tennessee Reyes, the boy that broke her in high school.

 

Witch of Wild Things was magical, sweet, funny, heartbreaking, healing, cozy and comforting. One of my favorite reads of 2023.

 

Sage has been through a lot. Her mother left when she was young and their aunt took in her and her sisters but Sage ended up being the caretaker. After the death of her youngest sister, Sky, it seemed easier to blame Sage than face the situation so there’s a lot of tension and unresolved feelings when she returned home. I loved how Sage eventually found her voice and was able to confront things.

 

The romance in this one was a bit second chance-ish. Sage and Tennessee communicated via AOL when they were in high school and while Sage knew his identity, hers was a mystery to him. The situation ended with Sage getting emotionally hurt, so when they’re back in each other’s lives, Sage kind of views him as her enemy. There’s a lot of healing that needs to take place and Tennessee has some issues of his own that he needs to face. What I’ve loved about this book was the fact it was a bit of a slow burn romance, which is what they needed. I did have an issue with the secret Sage was keeping but I could see the twisted logic she had about not wanting to get hurt.

 

While this is a romance, it’s more of a family drama, which I enjoyed. There’s a lot of healing the Flores women need that originated from their own issues and hurts but they’ve transferred those hurts onto Sage after the death of Sky. It was nice to see each of them facing things they’ve buried for so long.

 

I loved the magical aspect of this book and how it was woven into the characters realistically. Each of the Flores women has a magical gift passed down from the old gods. Sage can communicate with plants, Teal can affect the weather, and Sky could communicate with animals. Each of their aunts has gifts as well, which are revealed throughout the book.

 

There’s a lot going on in this one but I felt that the pacing was even and the romance and the family aspect of the book both received equal amounts of attention. I would have liked a bit more about the old gods that gave the family their powers but that’s just a me thing of wanting to know more and not something that would have added to the story.

 

Overall, this was a fantastic read and I want to know more about the Flores women. If you’re looking for a cozy book for the autumn then I highly recommend this book. 

Chasing Dreams by Carolyn Brown

Nita, Sharlene, and Billy Joe, all about to turn 80, are tired of waiting their turn for a funeral dinner. They each have a bucket list and are determined to tick off at least a few of the items before they go. So what’s left but to hit the road? They enlist two drivers—Billy Joe’s great-grandson, Ford, who has just gotten out of the Air Force, and Sharlene’s great niece, Joelle, a schoolteacher who has the summer free.

 

Spending the summer with three bickering old people in a tricked-out VW bus isn’t what Joelle or Ford had planned, but they aren’t about to let the trio go that far without help. Both at a crossroads in their lives, neither expect to discover an attraction simmering between them. But somewhere between horseback riding at a dude ranch and slow dancing at the Grand Ole Opry, they discover that their elderly companions aren’t the only ones who need to take some risks in life...and in love.

 Publisher: Audible | Narrator:  Bailey Carr | Length: 1 hour 58 minutes | Genre: Contemporary Romance  | Source: Publisher | Rating: 3.5 

When Nita, Sharlene, and Billy Joe decide they want to go on a road trip to tick items off their bucket list, they know that Ford and Joelle must be their designated drivers. And while they do want to see and do the things on their list, they want Ford and Joelle to use this time to consider taking over their ranches and possibly play a bit of matchmaking.

Carolyn Brown is one of my go to feel good authors and I love her novellas. They’re like little rays of sunshine and the perfect listen after reading so many thrillers.

Ford and Joelle are adorable together. They both have some things going on. Ford is dealing with PTSD from the war and Joelle’s trying to figure out if she wants to uproot her life to take over her aunt’s ranch.

Joelle had a crush on Ford when she was younger but the timing wasn’t right. Now that they’re spending so much time together, they’re developing this closeness and they have this undeniable chemistry but they need to sort out if ranching is in their futures.

While I did have fun with this one, the majority of it takes place in the confines of a van with 3 elderly chaperons so it would have been nice to see more of Ford and Joelle alone together. It also would have been nice to see them explore more of their relationship but since the audio was a little under 2 hours, we didn’t get to see a lot of development.

Overall, I had fun with this one. If you’re looking for a quick, fun little road trip romance then I highly recommend this book. 

The Last Word by Taylor Adams

Emma Carpenter lives in isolation with her golden retriever Laika, house-sitting an old beachfront home on the rainy Washington coast. Her only human contact is her enigmatic old neighbor, Deek, and (via text) the house’s owner, Jules.

One day, she reads a poorly written—but gruesome—horror novel by the author H. G. Kane, and posts a one-star review that drags her into an online argument with none other than the author himself. Soon after, disturbing incidents start to occur at night. To Emma, this can’t just be a coincidence. It was strange enough for this author to bicker with her online about a lousy review; could he be stalking her, too?

As Emma digs into Kane’s life and work, she learns he has published sixteen other novels, all similarly sadistic tales of stalking and murder. But who is he? How did he find her? And what else is he capable of?

Publisher: Harper Audio | Narrators: Carlotta Brentan, Jim Meskimen  | Length: 9 hours 57 minutes | Genre: Thriller/Suspense | Source: Audible | Rating: 3 

Wanting to escape from a personal tragedy, Emma is house sitting at a remote beach house. Spending her free time reading e-books and communicating with her nearest neighbor via a whiteboard and telescope seemed an easy way to spend a week, but when she reads a poorly written horror novel by H.G. Kane, she feels obligated to leave a review stating just how bad the book was, and she doesn’t hold back her feelings. She doesn’t think anything of it until the author reaches out and demands that she remove the review then strange things start happening leaving Emma to wonder if the author is stalking her.

As a reviewer, and a lover of thrillers, this one intrigued me and it was one of my most anticipated released on 2023. Sadly, it didn’t wow me.

While I did like it—or rather liked the concept of this one—I felt that this one rambled a lot and I do mean a lot. The events take place in one night and, my goodness, it must have been one long night as I started wondering if the book was ever going to end. There were so many twists and turns and red herrings that it started to get annoying because it was obvious from the start how everything was going to play out.

The book is told through two different perspectives. We get Emma’s point of view about what’s currently happening then we get snippets from the new book HG Kane’s currently writing. It would have been nice if we would have received more from HG Kane. And for some random reason, we also get snippets of Laika’s thoughts, just because, you know, dog’s thoughts are needed in a thriller/mystery.

I think that my problem with this book was the length. Things that should have been mentioned in passing, such as going to look for a bottle of peroxide, were written about in length. The ‘fight’ scene went on for hours. I found myself looking at the time remaining thinking it was near the end and discovering I still had hours left in the book. At times, I felt the author was trying to aggravate the reader.

While I liked the narrators, Carlotta Brentan’s accent slipped out several times and pulled me from the book, which I was already struggling to stay in the world the author created.

Overall, I feel like giving this a 3 is being generous. I think it had potential to be great had it been condensed. I do think it would have made a better movie than book.