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Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re sharing our latest book reads conversation!

Over the last few months instead of doing our typical bookclub episodes, we’ve started talking about some of the things we’ve recently read and enjoyed, connected with, or learned from. It’s been a great way to share what we’re consuming and loving lately and finding new recommendations.

In this episode, we cover a wide range of books - some new releases, TikTok darlings, and even a craft book. We also talk a lot about the books we’ve from a craft standpoint, what the author did that we found interesting. Things like:

• Chapter Framing Devices - Social media post comments in Take a Hint, Dani Brown; News articles in Funny You Should Ask; Text messages in Flawless

• Favorite Tropes - Fake Dating (broken up) - Happy Place; Fake dating (brother) & Enemies to Lovers - Love, Theoretically; Teach me & Mr. Popular and a Wallflower - The Wrong Mr. Right; Sunshine and a Grump - Act Your Age, Eve Brown

• Character Lists of Objectives - A coming-out-of-your-shell list - The Wrong Mr. Right; The get-a-life list in Get a Life, Chloe Brown;

• Re-emerging Genre - Western - Flawless

Fable also shares a story that she felt didn’t fully buy-in to it’s own stakes, especially when the characters acted in ways that made the reader feel that there were no true consequences to the fears that were originally driving the character. It was a book that taught her many things, though, about tension and making sure the stakes really matter.

Towards the end of our conversation, Fable mentions a craft book that she’s reading that talks about tapping into universal fantasies. It was an interesting read, but brought up some questions it didn’t answer. However, this led us to talking about stories that feature abductions - from alien stories to monster stories and how we’ve been telling this particular type of story since the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone was first told.

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Books and Films Mentioned:

• Happy Place by Emily Henry 

• Book Lovers by Emily Henry

• Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood 

• Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman

• The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

• Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

• Flawless by Elsie Silver

• Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert

• Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibber

• Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

• The Wrong Mr. Right by Stephanie Archer

• That One Night: A Pucking Around Prequel Novella by Emily Rath

• Pucking Around by Emily Rath

• 7 FIGURE FICTION: How to Use Universal Fantasy to SELL Your Books to ANYONE by T. Taylor  

• Captive of the Horde King (Horde Kings of Dakkar Book 1) by Zoey Draven

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)