#Black River Orchard

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[marthawrites]

Late again, BUT here's my October reads! General spoiler free thoughts below the cut ♥

From Below: Diving into this book I really wasn't sure what to expect aside from the obvious! The premise was pretty simple: a diving team goes under to examine a shipwreck that mysteriously happened in the 1920s. So, lots of dark, creepy, unsettling vibes in the deep dark ocean. AHHH I hate deep dark water so when I saw this book I knew I had to check it out. Overall this was a very tense, suspenseful, and claustrophobic read. For me, personally, the pacing felt a little weird. But it was an enjoyable story nonetheless with tons of creepyness going on. I think it would make a really interesting movie!!

Diavola: This was a "haunted house" style book that I was really interested in checking out! Honestly one of my favorite horror tropes is "the house is sick and so are we" (thanks AHS murder house!!). This story definitely had ghosts and psychological horror vibes and it was overall a spooky, entertaining, and weird read. The family in it was borderline insufferable though LOL and I think that was the whole point!! The ghost dilemma was nearly (if not totally) overshadowed by how horrible the family was! Which, again, I think was the point - the author did a fantastic job writing believable shitty characters (and I say this with respect)!

Salt and Broom: This was a witchy retelling of Jane Eyre. It fit perfectly into the October vibe and the writing was a refreshing change for me - a very sweet, secretive, somewhat dark, clean read. A lot of books I read are intended for a mature audience, and this was a nice change of pace. I would 100% feel good recommending this to a pre-teen to check out! It had a happy ending too and I am always a sucker for a happy ending!

A Friend In the Dark: Oh man this one was crazy!! It goes to show how you can never be too careful around people you meet online - ahhh! Very wild. If you enjoy face paced thrillers I definitely recommend checking this out!

Black River Orchard: Okay this was by far my favorite read of the month. I really don't want to give too much away because it's GOOD and when the things start adding up it's a big "OOOOH!!". Overall this is, imo, an incredibly well done, original, take on vampires. There's lots of different characters in this book, and they all have POV chapters, so at first it seems (to me anyway) overwhelming to keep track of everyone. Speaking of the characters, I absolutely loved how the author wrote all of them. They all had their own distinct voice and it was soso well done. HIGHLY recommend looking at this book!

The Haunting of Ashburn House: My last spooky read for the month! Haunted house stories are always fun for me, and this one didn't disappoint. Overall an entertaining read that also had a cast of well written characters

Shadow and Storms: The final book in the "Blood and Steel series"! This whole series was a nice break between the horror, thrillers, and weird books I've been reading. The ending did feel a little rushed, all the big build up to the big bad guy villain and war, for it all to be over relatively quickly. But, I'm not totally complaining. It DID end with a happily ever after and I'm always a fan of those

Bonded by Thorns: A "beauty and the beast" retelling. WHEW defs not kid appropriate though! This was very "spicy" while also staying relatively true to the original story. A great read if you want to check out of real life for a bit!

Never Lie: My first Fredia McFadden book! I now understand why people call her books "popcorn thrillers". It seems like people either love her stuff or hate it. I enjoyed this one for sure! Very twisty, fast paced, and quick! I'm glad I started with this one because I feel like it's one of her more popular ones. I will be checking out more of her stuff!

This was the most books I've ever read in a single month - wowowow!

[mr-snailman]

dan, dan, apple tree man...

finished this one after foreverrrrr. tribute to the most fun I’ve had with a horror novel this year! Dan Paxson they could never make me hate you </3 don’t 100% love it but eh whatever its fine one less thing in the wip pile :)

[birchblood]

Emily remembered seeing a documentary once about strange foods, and in it, they spoke of ortolan buntings: tiny, vulnerable songbirds who were captured and put in limitless darkness, their response to which was to gorge themselves on seeds and grain, which doubled their size. The birds were then drowned in brandy, marinated in what killed them, and later roasted and eaten. When eating the sad little brandy-drowned birds, diners covered their heads with cloth so that God could not see their cruelty.

from Black River Orchard, by Chuck Wendig

[black-water-simping-ships]

chuck wendig: my newfound passion for heirloom apples has inspired me to write this novel, Don't Eat That Heirloom Apple

[inabooknook]

Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig

This book was so perfectly fall, it's hard to describe how happy it made me. It is a story of a man who finds an heirloom apple tree and decides to graft it onto other apple trees in order to regrow the heirloom varietal. However, in classic Chuck Wendig style, this is not really about apples. This book is about the evil incarnate in humans, and how this apple changes them. The tale was clearly well-researched, and the characters were so interesting and I found myself in many of them as well. As someone who loves the idea of apple-picking and tasting interesting and new apples, but also how they came to be in our country, this book was the perfectly spooky fall / Halloween book to read and at the perfect time as well. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for something to scare you just enough this fall!

This ebook was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[sarahhudgins]

I'm spending the evening curled up with a spooky book (Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig). Will I stay up late to finish these last 200-ish pages? Probably. Will I be made at myself in the morning for not going to bed at a reasonable hour? Most definitely.

[mylifeinfiction]

My Best of 2023: My Top 10 2023 Books

1. Boys in the Valley (Philip Fracassi)

2. The Ferryman (Justin Cronin)

3. Don't Fear the Reaper (Stephen Graham Jones)

4. Small Mercies (Dennis Lehane)

5. Black River Orchard (Chuck Wendig)

6. Spin a Black Yarn (Josh Malerman)

7. The Night House (Jo Nesbø)

8. Sister, Maiden, Monster (Lucy A. Snyder)

9. The River We Remember (William Kent Krueger)

10. How to Sell a Haunted House (Grady Hendrix)

Note: This is out of the 42 2023 releases that I read throughout the year.

Thank you all so much for reading/sharing/etc. Here’s hoping 2024 is full of good things and great books!

Happy New Year!!

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

[libraryofbaxobab]

October 9, 2023:

The old-fashioned looking font on the cover does this book a disservice because it really is a fully 2023 novel (down to examples not of how teens text each other, but how an adult thinks teens still text each other but that's besides the point). If you follow this author on social media, you might know that he is obsessed with apples. This guy knows so much about rare heirloom (rareloom?) apple varietals and he's very passionate about them, so when I heard that he was working on a book centered on that knowledge, I got hyped about this months-to-years in advance. Not to project onto the author, but I think he was hyped too. This is written with a vaguely anticipatory air, like this book is supposed to be his... masterpiece? Passion project? Love letter to his special interest? For that reason, I wanted to enjoy this more. I wanted to suck it down greedily in a weekend, or else savor it bite by bite, but in reality it just took me a really long time to struggle through it. It's... challenging to read. Don't get me wrong, I loved all the apple lore! It was just hard for me to get into, and it's for sure not the book's fault. There were spooky vibes, a spooky guy with a spooky smile, class traitorship, an emotionally abusive lesbian marriage, and, best of all, a sex-positive portrayal of ethical nonmonogamy & kink! I appreciate all of that. I just felt removed from it for reasons I can't pin down. Maybe I need to take a break from books.

Something I like but will likely be divisive about the writing is the inclusion of written intrusive thoughts. Italic text will interrupt a paragraph which will then continue, substituting the intended rest of the sentence in place of the harsher but truer italicized text. To take my own words for example, my earlier sentence might have been written like this:

This is written with a vaguely anticipatory air, like this book is supposed to be his masterpiece passion project.

It reads like distressed jeans. Distressed writing. Though I do like it, I think it was 1) very overused in this book, and 2) used indiscriminately among characters. In my opinion, it would be more effective to use this more exclusively in the point of view of characters that are more likely to have intrusive thoughts. Although everyone has them, not everyone has them equally, after all.

Overall, I don't think I can give this a fair number. I fear a score based on my net-enjoyment of the reading experience will undervalue the things it has going for it, and there's really nothing wrong with it either. But it would also be disingenuous to overrate a book just because I think I should have liked it more.

?/10 #WhatsKenyaReading

[ghostbustermelanieking]

black river orchard is one of my favorite horror books i've read this year, and i love it to death, but i've found upon reread, i'm still spending the whole book mentally yelling LEAVE HER ASS SHE'S NOT WORTH IT at emily 😅 can anyone else relate?

[the-haunted-office]

"Ahahaha, sorry, I'm sorry, I just cannot take this evil apple dude seriously, ehehehehe. I know he's supposed to come across as like, intimidating and scary and all, dressed all in white and creeping around people, trying to tempt them into eating apples in exchange for giving them everything they ever wanted, but it's like... he's just too cartoonish, ehehehe."

[mr-snailman]

just finished black river orchard and man I forgot how much I love horror novels lmao… I dunno I’m still turning this one over in my head but I wanna draw something for it now. if you like staying up til 3 AM, believe love can spread like wildfire, or feel any particular way about apples— this might be the book for you

[black-water-simping-ships]

Black River Orchard is really good so far (19% which doesn't sound like a lot but it's a long-ass book let me tell ya) and honestly? this is one of the few horror settings i'm absolutely certain i'd survive. because sweet apples make me sick i'm very very reluctant to try new variations. y'all can keep the ruby slipper, i'm content with a granny smith

[happilylostinwords]

Cleaning the slate, i.e. 2023 in review

I set a humble goal (via the ever trusty and gentle-pressuring Goodreads) of reading 48 books in 2023. As of today, December 29, 2023, Goodreads tells me I have read 59 books. And I’ve got 10% left in the one I’m reading now so I will hit 60 books this year. Yay me! And before I get too confident, I’m setting the goal for 2024 at 48 books too. Four books a month is entirely doable without…

[chrisullrich]

Weekly Roundup 11.10.23

Another week, another weekly roundup. I like how that sounds. This week I’ve got another bunch of things I’m interested in, watching, reading or whatever. In other words, If I like it, it’s probably something I’m going to talk about this week or in the near future. What can I say? I like to share. But before I get to the (more) interesting stuff I just wanted to mention I’m currently writing this…