In Autumn [2017], you might remember I conceived of this idea to re-start my readings into the spooktacular worlds of chilling Thrillers, Suspense, Mysteries and the Paranormal (with just a dash of love for Cosy Horror!) – wherein I conceived of spending a fortnight reading such lovelies and enjoying a personal readathon leading into Halloween! I fell a bit short of my goals in [2017], though I took it as a success – as not only did I read some rather spookified tales but I found myself wholly intrigued by the stories I was selecting to read!
Last year [2018], I helped name our first mini-event for #WyrdAndWonder – wherein I was hoping to let this small idea I had in [2017] take flight, reach a bigger audience and find readers who might find their own definition of #SpooktasticReads befitting their own readerly life!
Some of the stories of course play the theme up quite a bit for the spookier side of the genres, some of which may or may not directly (or indirectly) relate to Fantasy per se but this is one of those readathons which is open to both interpretation and the joy of having free reign to enjoy the readathon in a way each reader wants to approach it!
A Spooktastic reading binge for Psychological Suspense & Gothic Tales!
Autumn for me is a time in the year where I simply like to read a curated collection of stories which fall under different categories of mutual interest: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Gothic or Paranormally inclined and Cosy Horror.
This year [2019] as I co-host my own mini-event celebrating the 13 days leading into Halloween with #SpooktasticReads – I am going to be focusing on two equally dynamic concentrations: #WitchyReads & Ghost Stories! I noticed I have quite a gathering of both – they both parlay into the heart of #SpooktasticReads but also, the fact that when it comes to #SpookyReads in general – these are the two concentrations I have the tendency of seeking out the most! I have the added benefit and joy of being able to focus on narrators I love listening too whilst knocking off a few of my backlogue reviews!
If other book bloggers or readers want to join us, please link to your blog, Twitter, LibraryThing List or other ‘space’ online where you are updating about what your reading – such as Instagram or Vlog (YouTube) in the Comments section below!
Use the tag: #SpooktasticReads & link back to this post – as I will happily be sharing what your doing for this lovely #WyrdAndWonder mini-event! Plus, I love hearing what others are reading in case something they discover would be a good fit for me as well!
DETAILS: Read or Listen Between Midnight 10th October and ending at 11:59 pm 15th October read or listen to thrillers, mysteries, paranormal, horror, supernatural, witchy, ghostly, fantasy, or serial killer novels and novellas. (to clarify..these can be cozies and include romance. No need to sleep with the lights on if you don’t fancy a good scare!) Share your progress on Twitter or Instagram using #FraterfestRAT
Why I decided to participate in #FraterfestRAT this year:
I love #SpookyReads alongside the next person – give me ghosts and romance OR ghosts on a mission – I’m quite the happy reader! I love Gothic settings & ambiance – whilst I happen to love reading certain kinds of Thrillers! In this particular instance, I’ve been wanting to *jump-start!* my #SpooktasticReads wherein I’ll be disclosing which kinds of fantastical reads I’ll be digging inside for @WyrdAndWonder‘s second year of hosting a mini-event the fortnight leading into Halloween! For now, I want to focus on the stories on this particular reading list which have been languishing a bit too long on my bookshelves – most of which are also on my backlogue of reviews!
If anyone has any suggestions for Paranormal Romances, Suspense & Thrillers of the paranormal variety (even without a romance element!) or other stories which are either: Southern Gothic, Victorian Gothic or might constitute being labelled “Cosy Horror” – as it owns to the origins of Psychological Suspense without being overtly graphic and horrific – kindly leave me notes on this post!
Let us take a closer look at how successful I was this #FraterfestRAT Year II:Read More
DETAILS: Read or Listen Between Midnight 10th October and ending at 11:59 pm 15th October read or listen to thrillers, mysteries, paranormal, horror, supernatural, witchy, ghostly, fantasy, or serial killer novels and novellas. (to clarify..these can be cozies and include romance. No need to sleep with the lights on if you don’t fancy a good scare!) Share your progress on Twitter or Instagram using #FraterfestRAT
Finished “An Abiding Fire” by M.J. Logue – (first)
Finished “Forget My Name” by J.S. Monore – (second)
Finished TBA
I love #SpookyReads alongside the next person – give me ghosts and romance OR ghosts on a mission – I’m quite the happy reader! I love Gothic settings & ambiance – whilst I happen to love reading certain kinds of Thrillers! In this particular instance, I’ve been wanting to *jump-start!* my #SpooktasticReads wherein I’ll be disclosing which kinds of fantastical reads I’ll be digging inside for @WyrdAndWonder‘s second year of hosting a mini-event the fortnight leading into Halloween! For now, I want to focus on the stories on this particular reading list which have been languishing a bit too long on my bookshelves – most of which are also on my backlogue of reviews!
If anyone has any suggestions for Paranormal Romances, Suspense & Thrillers of the paranormal variety (even without a romance element!) or other stories which are either: Southern Gothic, Victorian Gothic or might constitute being labelled “Cosy Horror” – as it owns to the origins of Psychological Suspense without being overtly graphic and horrific – kindly leave me notes on this post!
Let us take a closer look at why I’ve pulled these stories to be read:Read More
In JULY 2018, I decided to resume this challenge as #20BooksOfAutumn due to the insanity of electrical storms last Summer which took the JOY out of reading these lovelies. Due watch my Twitter @joriestory for updates and reading queues for which story is being read next!
I created a new badge for this redemptive attempt to read *20!* specific books for *20!* unique reasons of interest throughout one Season of the Year. The first review will be the wild card selection “Like There’s No Tomorrow” by Camille Eide (as it replaced the previously inclusive “Ignoring Gravity”) before the schedule I set forth on this challenge commences from how it was meant to begin – where the following stories will be featured back-to-back:
As Death Draws Near | Allie & Bea | Worthy
Join me on the Autumnal Equinox 2018 : 22nd of September until 21st December.
In the interest of the challenge, I should mention this is one reading challenge I have wanted to join in on the bookish fun since I first started blogging in [2013] similar to how I was most anxious to join #AustenInAugust when coincidentally, this blog went LIVE in August 2013. This year, I had projected to participate in a variety of reading challenges (see Challenge List 2017) however, I ought to have known it was going to be a ‘unique year’ once my Spring allergies took such a lockhold of me to where I was unable to read nor blog; much less tweet to my bookish heart’s desire.
I was wicked enthused finding out about the challenge (see this tweet) even if I wasn’t fully able to devout any attention to creating my own #20BooksOfSummer List until two days before the month of June concluded! Ironically or not, I might be late to the party, but I am wicked excited about my selections – which is why I am posting this List on my blog and Riffle.
DUE NOTE: all the books featured on my #20BooksOfSummer were books sent to me for review consideration at some point or another over the past few years. The exception being ‘Memory Box Secrets’ of which was a purchase of my own and ‘Allie and Bea’ which I received as a bookaway. Ergo for one reason or another all of these lovelies were TBR in the most humblest of ways: books ‘to be read’ and quite wickedly itching with curiosity by the reader whose about to broach into their folds!
I have been working earnestly towards erasing my backlogue (of reviews) for almost a full year and this challenge is helping me to become re-inspired to read after two seasons of personal angst. Let’s face it – JUNE was a wash-out. It barely blinked into view before it extinguished out of sight – and I barely posted anything during it’s duration. The one thing I did accomplish is finding a way to bring ART back into my life and to resume KNITTING giving myself a way to put some Zen into my downtime. Especially imperative as I was ill more than well this Spring. As the monsoon Summer rains start to begin now as we enter into JULY, I am most hopeful my seasonal allergies will start to relent and give me back the clarity of calm I’ve missed all SPRING.
The exact order of how I will be reading these stories is UNKNOWN except for the first three selections which will be the following: WORTHY | As Death Draws Near | Allie and Bea.
Interestingly enough, for those of you curious how we order things without thinking specifically about how we want to sort the books we’re reading, here is the organic nature of how the books were stacked as I sorted out which books would make into this challenge list:
Week of Thursday, 26st of September through 1st of October, 2015 | Hostess List
I’ve honestly wanted to start participating in this weekly meme in 2014, however, I would always seem to get distracted during the hours leading up to Thursdays OR completely forget to compose my thoughts for this meme until into the weekend; at which point, the time had come and gone. I like the fact we can exchange thoughts percolating in our minds that run the gambit of the bookish world, creative outlets, or thoughts we want to share that might show a bit more about who we are behind the bookish blog we maintain. I am going to attempt to thread the journal of my 10 Bookish / Not Bookish Thoughts by order of the entries arrival into my life rather than a preference of 1-10.
No, your eyes did not lie to you, this is No. 6, No. 2-5 will be released this Autumn.
No. 1 | Corvidae + Scarecrow | Anthologies by World Weaver Press
As you might have recalled I happily devoured the stories in Rhonda Parrish’s first anthological series debut FAE, wherein I found myself quite delighted to find stories of the fae represented in such a uniquely clever collection of inspiration and craft of story-telling. After concluding my review on behalf of FAE, I wasn’t quite sure what I should request next via World Weaver Press, when happily their publicist Ms Wagner suggested I follow FAE with the next two anthologies in sequence:
What is so wicked awesome about these two anthologies is there is a serial short between them, which outside of pulp fiction and the classical serials found in zines decades inside the early 20th Century, I haven’t come across serial shorts inside anthologies! I’m quite a newbie to anthologies of the 21st Century, and thereby, each time I make a discovery I am wicked excited by the possibilities of what I am about to read!
I am now piqued with keen interest to read Sanctuary and Judge & Jury! I had agreed knowingly with the reviewer – sometimes you come across a short so profoundly moving, if you never found another you loved dearly as much, the collection was worth it’s weight in gold! This happened to me once in another anthology where I found a writer so tapped into the human condition and the emphatic heart we all have within us, I was forever moved! Shorts despite their length are powerful in what they convey! The four I focused on myself from FAE are still with me, even now.
I must confess, this fellow book blogger out here in the book blogosphere is as keenly passionate about these anthologies as I am, as it’s his reviews on behalf of these two anthologies that encouraged me to take the plunge into reading them myself!
I must admit – reading the reviews on Tangent in combination with reading the Press Kits helped make my decision because Tangent has bloggers who knit out the heart of each story and give me ‘just enough’ to whet a thirst of interest.
Do visit his reviews, ahead of my own which will be arriving in October!
And, dear hearts guess what!? Parrish isn’t yet done with her Magical Menagerie! She’s putting together a new collection entitled: SIRENS! Eek. Can you just imagine!? Watery stories of EPIC MYTHOLOGICAL loveliness?! I’m not sure about you, but World Weaver Press has bewitched me!
No. 2 | Being a part of DAW’s blog tour for This Gulf of Time and Stars by Julie E. Czerneda
I initially thought my path had crossed with Ms Czerneda during Sci Fi November 2014, until I ran a search for our tweet convos and realised it was a bit earlier in 2014 during the Sci Fi Writer’s chat! Who knew!? I used to duck inside the #sffwrtcht on a regular basis, as I have a healthy appetite for SFF whilst getting the opportunity to talk to writers who are enveloping us in worlds that are a jolt outside our own realities to the brink of epic intraspace proportions! As we do not just jettison ourselves off of Earth or into the orbit surrounding Earth, we sometimes traverse the divides of time itself whilst visiting territorial systems beyond our line of sight. Then, there is the hidden joy of writers who write an arbitrage of stories contained on Earth herself but within the light years of time ahead of our own living futures, taking us both on land and sea to explore new frontiers and the plausiblilties of life therein. Read More