Taylor Fenner's Blog, page 33

Taylor Fenner’s Spooky Season 2023 Week 1-2 Check-In

Hey my spooky season fiends! How has August been treating you? You getting into the spooky mood? I’ve been binging all the horror and paranormal things and reading some great seasonal books. Here’s what I’ve been up to!

Reading:

The Getaway was a quick listen that kept me on the edge of my seat until the unbelievable end!

This book gave me summer vibes instead of fall but it is an addictive cozy mystery set in Wisconsin that I absolutely fell in love with and I can’t wait for book 2!

Talk about cozy fall vibes! This book is part cozy Hallmark movie feels complete with a small town and a he’s-trying-to-buy-the-hotel-out-from-under-her plot, part second chance romance, with a dash of spice thrown in.

Fans of Stranger Things look no further than Dead Eleven. There’s a creepy island that no one will talk about where the people all seem to be stuck in 1994, a mysterious disappearance, some unknown evil that holds all the locals by the throat keeping them in line with a strict set of rules, and an ending that will have your head spinning.

Watching:

My first binge of the month was both seasons of Light as a Feather. It was easy to get hooked on and kept my attention but I liked season 1 more than season 2. I do think it ended okay though.

Next I started rewatching First Kill, which bonus – is set in Savannah, GA, my next vacation spot. I’m not as into it the second time but I have to finish it up.

I just started Season 5 of True Blood, it’s honestly my binge every time I have a couple hours to watch tv lately.

I’ve also been binging horror movies. So far I’ve watched: Prom Night, The Fog (1980), The Nun, Terror Train 2, House on Haunted Hill (Vincent Price version), I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, The Haunting, House of Wax (2005), Clue, and Halloween Ends among others.

Decorating:

I have about 2/3 of my outdoor decorations up. I have a few things to bring up from the basement and I want to pick up some mums and pumpkins next month and into October.

Creating:

I started sketching out some character timelines for my WIP, It Rose From the Ashes so I can get back to writing next month and while going through the notes on my phone came across a fun idea for a short story I might work on for my Halloween newsletter.

Bingo:

Tell me all about how you’ve been celebrating Taylor Fenner’s Spooky Season 2023 and remember to tag me on socials so I can see your posts and use hashtag: #taylorfennersspookyseason2023

The Friday 56: Happily Haunted Afters

The Friday 56 is a weekly blog meme hosted by Freda’s Voice. How to participate: Grab a book, any book. Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay. Find a snippet, short and sweet. Post it, and link up on Freda’s Voice so everyone knows to visit.

This Week I’m Participating With: Happily Haunted Afters by Brittany Kelley

Nothing is spookier than a second chance at love.

I’m done juggling dead-end jobs and deadbeat boyfriends. It’s time to nail down my goal of owning a hotel — and fix my friendship with my ex-best friend, Jack Colson. He’s a big shot investor, and I’m going to need one. Nailing him barely crosses my mind.

I might actually get my life in order, especially if I snag the deep (and deeply weird) discount for staying an entire weekend at my dream property. It’s hard not to fall in love with the place. Though I could do without the creepy doll that lives there, the noises Jack insists are raccoons, and the eerie AF abandoned hotel I’d need an even spookier amount of money to renovate.

The worst part is, I’m falling for Jack… again. He’ll never invest if he finds out I have feelings for him. But as we work through the phantoms of problems past, we’ll have to figure out if the property is infested with rodents — or something else that goes bump in the night.Happily Haunted Afters is a spooky, spicy standalone small-town romantic comedy with a happily ever after guaranteed.

The Friday 56 Excerpt:

The light caught another reflective surface, and I choked on a scream.

The fucking demon doll.

“Is that—” Jack started to ask, and I pressed into him, hiding behind his back, as though shielding my eyes would make this mad shit stop.

A slamming noise echoed from behind us.

And that’s when I lost my shit completely, jumping on Jack’s back like a monkey and burying my face in the back of his neck.

The fireplace door was shut.

What do you think? Would you read this one? I just finished it and it gave me all the cozy spooky season vibes!

Can’t Wait Wednesday: Hopeless

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released.

Hopeless (Chestnut Springs #5) by Elsie Silver

Chestnut Springs Series #5, Contemporary Romance

eBook, Paperback, 500 Pages

October 13, 2023 by Elsie Silver Literary Ltd

Blurb:

Beau Eaton is the town prince, a handsome military hero with a tortured past.

I’m the outcast bartender, a shy girl from the wrong side of the tracks.

He’s thirty-five and all man, and I’m twenty-two and all… virgin.

He’s also my fiancé. Correction: my fake fiancé.

We start out as a bet. He doesn’t believe that anyone holds my last name against me. So he offers me his to prove a point.

It’s win-win. He gets a break from his concerned family’s prying, and I get a chance to shed my family’s reputation while I save up to ditch this small town.

He says all I have to do is wear his ring, follow his lead, and pretend I can’t keep my hands off of him in public.

But it’s what happens between us in private that blurs all those carefully drawn lines.

It’s what transpires behind closed doors that doesn’t feel like pretending at all.

This engagement was supposed to be for show. This agreement? It has an end date.

He once told me he’d never fall in love.

And yet here I am, head over heels for my fake fiancé.

Why I Want to Read This Book:

I binged the rest of this series earlier this summer and while I didn’t like Beau’s attitude in Reckless, obviously he’s beven through a trauma, I loved him in earlier books and can’t wait to see him get his happy ending.

Will you be checking this one out? What upcoming releases are you looking forward to?

The Sunday Post: Saying Goodbye, Volunteering, and Rest

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme.

Saying Goodbye, Volunteering, and Rest

Hey Bookdragons! Happy Sunday. It’s been… a long week.

My mom passed away early Wednesday morning. We expected it to happen after how quickly she was declining last Sunday. I don’t know if it hasn’t sunk in yet or I’m in shock or what but everyone keeps asking how I’m doing expecting me to break down and I just sort of feel… nothing. Numb maybe?

Thursday I took my mom’s volunteer hours at the Symco Weekender Hot Rods and Customs weekend that my family volunteers at every year. It was a good distraction.

Otherwise I’ve spent most of my funeral leave time resting. I caught up on laundry, binged season 2 of True Blood, started putting out my Halloween decorations outside, and snacked. It’s back to work tonight.

I missed the first week check-in for Taylor Fenner’s Spooky Season 2023 on Thursday due to all that happened this week, but I will catch up this week.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – 7 August 2023

First Chapter, First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros: Dead Eleven

Can’t Wait Wednesday: Black Sheep

The Friday 56: Heartless

I didn’t finish any of the books I’m reading in the past week so I will be skipping It’s Monday, What Are You Reading, and First Chapter, First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros this week.

Can’t Wait Wednesday: Hopeless

Taylor Fenner’s Spooky Season Weeks 1-2 Check-In

The Friday 56: Happily Haunted Afters

Kindle Unlimited:

Wikipedia: The Mary Celeste (after reading a review of The Last One by Will Dean)

The Friday 56: Heartless

The Friday 56 is a weekly blog meme hosted by Freda’s Voice. How to participate: Grab a book, any book. Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay. Find a snippet, short and sweet. Post it, and link up on Freda’s Voice so everyone knows to visit.

This week I’m participating with: Heartless by Elsie Silver

Working as a nanny for the world’s grumpiest single dad should have been simple. Except I can’t keep my eyes off him. And he can’t keep his hands off of me.

Cade Eaton is thirteen years older than I am and barely looks my way. Until I get him into the hot tub one night for a game of truth or dare. Then all bets are off—and so are our clothes.

He’s gruff, a little rough around the edges. But broad-shouldered ranchers with calloused hands and filthy mouths are this city girl’s kryptonite. So who am I to resist?

But it’s in our quiet moments together that he softens. It’s when he takes care of me that I realize his hardened exterior is just a façade. It’s when I watch him go all sweet with his little boy that I really fall for him.

Someone convinced him once that his best wasn’t good enough. But I’ve never felt more cherished than I do in his arms.

My contract may say this arrangement is only for two months.

But my heart says this is forever.

The Friday 56 Excerpt:

When the lights turn into Cade’s driveway and shine at the picturesque rancher, my body sags with relief. This isn’t my home, but . . . I feel like I’m home.

What do you think? Would you read this one? I’ve been in a contemporary romance mood lately and this was my favorite of the series so far!

Can’t Wait Wednesday: Black Sheep

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released.

Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison

Standalone, Horror

eBook, Hardcover, 336 Pages

September 12, 2023 by Berkley Books

Blurb:

A cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle.

Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly…something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.

Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.

When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.

Why I Want to Read This Book:

Rachel Harrison is one of my auto-buy authors, though The Return will always be my favorite and I haven’t read Such Sharp Teeth yet. Everything about this book just screams read me now, especially that the main character’s mother is a former horror film star.

Will you be checking this one out? What upcoming releases are you looking forward to?

First Chapter, First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros: Dead Eleven

First Chapter, First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros is a weekly meme hosted by Socrates Book Reviews where you share the first paragraph of one of the books that you are currently reading. Each week bloggers will choose a book or books of the week (which will be one of the books that you are currently reading) and that book will take part in this book blog meme.

This week I’m participating with: Dead Eleven by Jimmy Juliano

First Chapter, First Paragraph

Blurb:

On a creepy island where everyone has a strange obsession with the year 1994, a newcomer arrives, hoping to learn the truth about her son’s death–but finds herself pulled deeper and deeper into the bizarrely insular community and their complicated rules…

Clifford Island. When Willow Stone finds these words written on the floor of her deceased son’s bedroom, she’s perplexed. She’s never heard of it before, but soon learns it’s a tiny island off of Wisconsin’s Door County peninsula, 200 miles from Willow’s home. Why would her son write this on his floor? Determined to find answers, Willow sets out for the island.

After a few days on Clifford, Willow realizes: this place is not normal. Everyone seems to be stuck in a particular day in 1994: they wear outdated clothing, avoid modern technology, and, perhaps most mystifyingly, watch the OJ Simpson car chase every evening. When she asks questions, people are evasive, but she learns one thing: close your curtains at night.

High schooler Lily Becker has lived on Clifford her entire life, and she is sick of the island’s twisted mythology and adhering to the rules. She’s been to the mainland, and everyone is normal there, so why is Clifford so weird? Lily is determined to prove that the islanders’ beliefs are a sham. But are they?

Five weeks after Willow arrives on the island, she disappears. Willow’s brother Harper comes to Clifford searching for his sister, and when he learns the truth–that this island is far more sinister than anyone could have imagined–he is determined to blow the whole thing open.

If he can get out alive…

What do you think? Would you keep reading? I just got this book and started it on Saturday. Another read set in Door County! The card at Barnes and Noble called it “if Stranger Things were set in Door County.”

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – 7 August 2023

#IMWAYR is a weekly meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at The Book Date.

Hey Bookdragons! Happy Monday! I was a bit all over with my reading last week. Starting books I was going to wait on, putting others on my TBR off for a while in favor of starting books that fit it with my spooky season kick off, and reading a couple ebooks bit by bit.

What I Read Last Week:In the Pines by Mariah Stillbrook

I fit this ARC in when I could and it definitely gives witchy, cozy vibes. If your into the witchy, cottagecore, Wiccan lifestyle or you enjoyed Tish Thawer’s The Witches of Blackbrook series of Melissa de la Cruz’s Witches of East End series I think you would enjoy this one!

A Death in Door County by Annelise Ryan

I couldn’t wait to read this one and I devoured it!! It made me want to try to squeeze in another day trip to Door County before winter sets in. I can’t wait for book 2!

Currently Reading:Happily Haunted Afters by Brittany Kelley

This one grabbed me right away and I’m reading it while having downtime while out and about because I have the ebook on my phone.

Dead Eleven by Jimmy Juliano

This is from last week’s birthday Barnes and Noble haul. It was on the same table as A Death in Door County and billed as “if Stranger Things were set in Door County!” Of course I had to start it immediately and it hooked me!

Next Read:Always Mine by Laura Pavlov

My mood has spoken, I can’t wait any longer to read this one!

What are you reading and loving this week? Have you read any of these?

The Sunday Post: 31, Beyond Belief, and Spooky Vibes

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme.

31, Beyond Belief, and Spooky Vibes

Hey Bookdragons! Happy Sunday! How was your week? Have you had nice summery weather or are you over it and ready for fall?

Friday I turned 31. It was the highlight of my week. The day where not only was I thought of by so many kind friends, family members, and coworkers but I got to do some fun, relaxing things. I started the day with my monthly manicure and picked a shade slightly darker that last month’s pink. Then I might have spent a little too much money at Barnes and Noble (shhh). I had dinner at Olive Garden and had a waitress who was so kind and welcoming to this solo diner that I almost cried (as a lot of restaurants lately have been annoyed and unfriendly to serve me when I eat alone… a story soon to be shared on my travel blog). And I ended the afternoon with Starbucks in which I attempted (and succeeded) using a drive-thru for the first time since getting my license! Then when I got to work and one of the officers I work with found out it was my birthday he brought me cookies his wife had just baked when he went on patrol. Another had left a birthday card in my box.

It was such a special day after a hard week. On Tuesday the hospice facility my mom is in said they were shipping her home on Friday whether we liked it or not because she wasn’t dying fast enough for them. My sister fought with them all week and tried to find another facility in between. We thought she had with one that said they would take her for two weeks if we paid up front. We were all ready to dip into the funeral fund to do so but then they talked to the current facility and did a one-eighty and refused unless we could come up with two months up front (almost $18k which is impossible.) Hearing that we would draw on the funeral fund the current facility suddenly decided she could stay for two weeks if we paid the two weeks up front. Fishy huh? Suddenly her bed wasn’t being given away after all. It’s not like they haven’t been getting paid, we have promptly paid them every week exactly the amount they asked for.

Anyway, this week I also kicked off my spooky season celebration! I am all in for spooky and cozy reads and streams. I’ve been binging a show on Hulu which I’ll talk about this week on my weekly check-in and my spooky season TBR is getting underway.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – 31 July 2023

First Chapter, First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros: A Death In Door County

Taylor Fenner’s Spooky Season 2023 Kick Off: 92 Days of Spooks, Scares, and Cozy Reads

Can’t Wait Wednesday: Nightbane!

The Friday 56: The Mary Shelley Club

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – 7 August 2023

First Chapter, First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros: Dead Eleven

Can’t Wait Wednesday: Black Sheep

Taylor Fenner’s Spooky Season 2023 Week 1 Check-In

The Friday 56: Heartless

Birthday Book Haul

Ok, so I picked these up at Barnes and Noble vs getting them in the mail. Still counts.

The Bones of the Story: I have the ebook and I loved it so much I wanted a physical copy.

Psyche and Eros: has been on my TBR for a while and it looked good when I flipped through it

Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes: the only book I actually went in for (looking for books on shipwrecks in Door County/Lake Michigan specifically but this one looked good

Dead Eleven: was on a table with my last read, A Death In Door County, and is billed as “if Stranger Things was set in Door County,” so I had to have it!

Death in the Dark Woods (to see if I can order a signed copy from Boswell Books in Milwaukee)

The Friday 56: The Mary Shelley Club

The Friday 56 is a weekly blog meme hosted by Freda’s Voice. How to participate: Grab a book, any book. Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay. Find a snippet, short and sweet. Post it, and link up on Freda’s Voice so everyone knows to visit.

This week I’m participating with: The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky!

Blurb:

New girl Rachel Chavez is eager to make a fresh start at Manchester Prep. But as one of the few scholarship kids, Rachel struggles to fit in, and when she gets caught up in a prank gone awry, she ends up with more enemies than friends.

To her surprise, however, the prank attracts the attention of the Mary Shelley Club, a secret club of students with one objective: come up with the scariest prank to orchestrate real fear. But as the pranks escalate, the competition turns cutthroat and takes on a life of its own.

When the tables are turned and someone targets the club itself, Rachel must track down the real-life monster in their midst . . . even if it means finally confronting the dark secrets from her past.

Friday 56 Excerpt:

I would be like Malcom McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. My eyelids forcibly pulled back as I watched the horror unfold before me.

What is the horror this character is facing? Can you guess? Would you/have you read this one? I just relistened to the audiobook of this one and enjoyed it.