This weekend, I changed things up a bit as I was going to talk about Jules Wake’s debut ChocLit novel “Talk to Me” – however, noticing how close Saturday hugged itself to Halloween, I decided to take a spooky route instead! I wasn’t sure if it was the holiday – as the UK is starting to whoop up Halloween on a larger scale than in previous years, a nod to their American cousins who have loved the holiday for centuries (or so it would seem!), but this particular Saturday was a bit low in attendance! I knew our numbers would start to fall off a bit towards early to mid November, as that is the time of year where we take a bit of a ‘holiday hiatus’ til after the New Year rings in!
Happily one of the ChocLit authors came round and we had a lovely time chatting about our shared joys of Halloween and why this season of Autumn is such a wicked joy to embrace! Towards the end of the chat, Ms Cornwall dropped in on the festivities and shared in the convo before it was time to close and say ‘good-bye’! Or in this particular case, a spookily ghoulish hope of having a wicked blast over the holiday weekend!
To read our convo in full, you’ll be delight to find the archives are right here for your spooky pleasure! We kicked off the chat talking about the fey (a more proper way of saying ‘fairy’), whilst encompassing why Halloween is such a fun holiday to celebrate & what we love about it the most – of course, this deviated into talking about candy and bakery delights – you know it would happen, it’s the holiday of spooky treats! Laughs. If you find a tweet you love, RT it or respond! Never too late to join in on the fun of #ChocLitSaturday!
Ahead of hosting #ChocLitSaturday, I had the pleasure of reading “A Hallowe’en Faerie Tale” Round Robin Short Story written by five ChocLit authors! If you are new to hearing about ChocLitUK – one of the best ‘treats’ they give you are their super short stories! You can sign-up by email to receive their ChocLit Treats – where you get a happy little story arriving in your Inbox throughout the year! During the seasonal holidays, they always have something cooking up their sleeves – as I’ve delighted in the Christmas shorts as much as I have this Halloween Round Robin!
I first started getting interested in reading stories of the fey when I read about the Seelie Court (see Review) and the depth of where a fey anthology could go in FAE (see Review). Between the two anthologies, I started to notice how the fey interact with humans and how they truly are not entirely able to be trusted as part of being fey is being deceptively devious! Not all fey are tricksters but some simply delight in pulling a fast one past you and therefore you must take heed to be mindful of your interactions with them! However, some of the writers who wrote in these anthologies took a different course of action – they showed a deeper layer of who the fey are and how interacting with the fey can have a lasting effect on a person.
The first person who cheekily made me laugh-out-loud whilst reading a story of the fey due to her curiously addictive ‘twisted’ spin on fairy-tales was Ms Chris! You only have to visit my reviews of Blue Spirit (see Review) or Restless Spirit (see Review) to see what gave me such a happy joy in reading those stories! It was the first time I stepped outside the anthologies to read a longer story fully capturing what I love about the fey with a heap of wickedly cheeky humour!! Don’t let the Zombies fool you into think you wouldn’t love Restless Spirit – as I disclosed the ‘type’ of Zombies that are inclusive to the story, as I’m sure more than one reader of my blog questioned my sanity on why I suddenly changed my opinion on that subject! Laughs quite heartily!
When it came time to soak inside this clever round robin, one of the things I was curious about was how it was written – which Ms Courtenay graciously explained during #ChocLitSaturday – it was a spontaneous short – each writer in turn simply took up the lead from the last entry and wrote ‘freely’ what came to mind! I found that most exciting – as too often as writers, we get stranded in the research or we start to overthink ourselves to where nothing makes any sense anymore! To just abandon our rote routines and just ‘write’ to leave behind a spontaneously driven story is wicked brilliant!
I liked how your never quite sure who your speaking with in this short – as there was a question mark about which Kalen was good-hearted and which one was merely the trickster of lore! Not until you reached the conclusion posted today on #Halloween writ by Ms Lovering do you find how it all concludes!
If you’d like to read each story in turn of sequence here are the links to read!
Day One: Berni Stevens starts the Round Robin! | @Berni_Stevens1
Day Two: Rhoda Baxter introduced the second Kalen! | @RhodaBaxter
Day Three: Christina Courtenay mentioned a fairy ball! | @PiaCCourtenay
Day Four: Kirsty Ferry made us question a happy outcome! | @kirsty_ferry
Day Five: Jane Lovering knits up the round robin! | @janelovering
There is a SPECIAL SURPRISE awaiting you if you read the Round Robin!!
ChocLit is quite infamous for their TREATS & SURPRISES for readers!!
Of the five authors, I’ve not yet had the pleasure of reading a full novel by both Ms Baxter and Ms Lovering – even though both are on my ChocLit Next Reads List! Ms Courtenay won me over with her PNR time slips which are wicked brilliant ghost stories at the same time! And, Ms Stevens is the ONLY author who ever convinced me there was a vampire out there who I could not only love reading about but could handle reading! Whereas Ms Ferry kept me on my toes with her Rom Suspense! Whichever genre of Romance gives you the most pleasure, the beauty of ChocLit is being able to find it readily available by authors who fully embrace relationship-based fiction with compelling characters, unique locales and a breadth of narrative you don’t want to put down!
I bet your curious!? What did I think about how this Round Robin ends!? Let me just say this:
First off, I had a huge smirk on my face when the ball was interrupted by a kind suggestion of caution by someone who didn’t quite fit in with the ball but who had a strong manner about her to disrupt any doubt towards her keen advice! The cheeky bit is that you don’t need to waltz off to the land of the fey to find your unsuspecting hero is quite literally so close you could pinch yourself for overlooking the obvious! I loved the ending because it rang so true to life! The harder you look to find something (or someone!) the longer your going to take to find what your seeking! Best to seek out what is right in front of you or even overlooked before you believe all is quite lost! Champion!
If your hankering more spooky reads, I’m showcasing a few on my blog throughout Halloween! I started off by sharing my reactions to reading an anthology about SCARECROWS, followed by celebrating the joy of ChocLit’s Halloween Round Robin! Throughout the afternoon I’ll be tweeting about HAUNTED by Lynn Carthage & Paranormal Texas by Tui Snider! Thanks for visiting me on Halloween and I hope you enjoy your spooky reads!
The Halloween Round Robin short story is courtesy of: ChocLitUK
Published by: ChocLitUK (@ChocLitUK)
Converse via: #ChocLit & #Halloween #RoundRobin
My current ChocLit readings this Autumn:
Search for the Truth| by Kathryn Freeman (review)
Turning the Tide | No. 1 of Little Spitmarsh | by Christine Stovell (review)
Talk to Me | by Jules Wake (next Saturday!)
And, visit my ChocLit Next Reads List on Riffle
{SOURCES: The Choc Lit Reviewer Badge was provided by ChocLitUK and used with permission. Post dividers and My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. Coffee bean dividers are from the Coffee and Tea Clip Art Set purchased on Etsy; made by rachelwhitetoo. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: ChocLitSaturday Chat Banner (using Coffee and Tea Clip Art Set purchased on Etsy; made by rachelwhitetoo) and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2016.
Comments via Twitter:
🎃 Happy #Halloween! 🎃 More SPOOKTACULAR delights arriving on #JLASblog throughout the 31st! Drop by & find a ghoulishly wicked read! 💀
— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) October 31, 2016
🎃 Jorie gets her SPOOK on this #Halloween! 🎃 Sharing why she loved @ChocLituk #RoundRobin #ShortStory of the fey! 💖 https://t.co/8V2WugQHdL
— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) October 31, 2016
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