At the end of September Fern & Fable Books and Ormond Collective are going to be merging into one cohesive company - Fern & Fable Books and Collective

Fern & Fable will serve as the brand name for both entities as the bookshop joins the collective space at 58 W Granada Blvd.

We know change is hard and this sounds super weird. So let us walk you through it!

What’s changing?

We are combining our two shops into one cohesive name, brand and space.

And with that comes a new logo!

Beth O’Connor (our friend behind Rock Paper Supply and Wild Indigo) has revamped the current Ormond Collective logo to reflect elements of our beloved Fern & Fable branding. The oak branch now includes a stack of books along with the many rich elements that represent our Collective family. Everything now lives on one branch… that branch being 58 W Granada Blvd. :) (Also see that adorable snail on the book stack?! We love him so much, I think we should name him Fernando!)

So yes, Fern & Fable is moving across the street!

We are closing the doors of 51 W Granada Blvd after 3 incredible years in that sweet little shop. We will miss the space, it holds so many dear moments for us. But we are excited to expand and spread our wings into a larger venue!

With this move, Ormond Collective is officially going to fall under the Fern & Fable umbrella. (Most of us have naturally started calling it The Collective so we’re running with that.)

There will be some shifts in booths and displays to make room for the bookshop but there will be a clearly organized path to experience both the bookshop and the collective in one shared shop. Our incredible and patient vendors are working closely with us to ensure a smooth transition. When entering the doors of Fern & Fable, you will find all of the vendor market space to the right side of the shop for a familiar and easy shopping experience.

The Bookshop will take over a portion to the center/left with room to grow while retaining the cozy cute vibes you love!

What will stay the same?

99% of what you love about both of our shops will remain the same. The same adorable booksellers and collective staff (more staff in one place will provide you with an even higher level of service), the same great selection of books , the same good vibes, the same beautifully curated Collective market and the same fun experiences!

Ultimately the bookshop is simply embracing the room to expand (more bookshelves, more events and a parking lot!) while still providing space for other local small businesses to thrive!

The Collective remains home to over 25 local small businesses, artists and makers!

Much of what you know and love will continue to be part of the Collective and we are so honored and grateful for our vendors!

We hope our book worms and local shoppers will find 58 W Granada Blvd to be a welcoming haven for all our collective interests.

When will this happen?

The Week of September 20th we will close the doors at both shops as we say goodbye to 51 W Granada and begin the moving process to 58 W Granada!

We will reopen the doors at 58 the following weekend with a beautifully meshed new shop!

Stay turned for further details and updates!

We will have a special moving sale and time to say goodbye to the “middle” bookshop (shout out to those of you who have been with us since the “tiny shop” days!).

You will start to see some movement in both shops this month, thanks for your patience as we begin to rearrange and transition inventory!

Both Fern & Fable and Ormond Collective will be open and operating as normal from now until September 20th!

Can I still use my gift cards?

Yes, gift cards issued to Fern & Fable Books or Ormond Collective will both be redeemable in our new location!

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When you walk into the doors of Fern & Fable Books and Collective we hope you continue to feel seen, loved and celebrated. Thank you for how you have continually shown up for us and for your fierce support of literature, art and local businesses. We are grateful to live in Ormond Beach amongst such a wonderful community and are very excited for this new season!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. We will do our best to communicate clearly with you throughout this process. We appreciate your understanding and patience with us in the days ahead. We are so grateful to be continuing our adventure on Granada, Ormond’s beloved Main Street and are excited to create more memories with you!

With Gratitude,

Rayna & Sam

Fern & Fable Books and Collective

We are so excited for the Book Fair coming up on Friday! We will be closing the bookshop at 3pm on 2/13 to head to Three Odd Guys Brewing for this fun evening!

This morning it was pouring rain and therefore very quiet in the shop, so it was the perfect morning to decorate for Halloween! Come see us this weekend for spooky vibes, cozy (or creepy) reads.

I’m finishing A Land so Wide by Erin A Craig for Bookclub next week and thinking about what my net spooky read will be. You know, I’ve never actually read Frankenstein and I probably should. Last year I read Dracula for the first time and loved it. (I do get a little embarrassed by the classics I *should* have read as a bookshop owner, but honestly been very fun to visit beloved classics for the first time.)

Anyways, back to business - I’m in your inbox to let you know we have lots of fun stuff coming up this month. Here’s a glance at the calendar:

We have local Author Elaine Edwards joining us tomorrow for the Ormond Beach Art Walk

Sunday Oct 5th kicks off Banned Book Week!

Join us for a silent read-in from 12-1pm with Libro.fm

Bookclub is Next Thursday Oct 9th at 6:30pm!

We will wrap up Banned Book week with our friends at Citizens for Truth and Justice in Education

Rebekah will running the show at Three Odd Guys Brewing in Longwood for Tipsy Books & Brews Book Fair! She’ll be there with lots of spooky reads, adorable totes, stickers and more! Its going to be such a fun event. Grab your tickets now HERE!

And we are SO excited to be sharing our very first event at Ormond Collective - Super Spooky Craft Night! Join us for 4 super fun, easy, adorable crafts (Bookish Pumpkins, Cute Ghosts, Candles and more) drinks (Sweater Weather? How bout Sangria Season?!), snacks and chill grown up halloween hangs before the kids and their sugar crashes take over!

Space is limited so buy your ticket asap HERE

And mark your calendars for a Family Fun Halloween event with Fern & Fable x Ormond Collective on Oct 25th from 12-3pm! Details to come!

Our lovely manager Rebekah asked me if I still wanted to do the newsletter…and I immediately said “OH MY GOSH THE NEWS LETTER!”

So the answer is yes, yes I do want to write the news letter! And yes I totally forgot about it the last few months while pushing to get Ormond Collective open. Ooops!

These days you might see me playing frogger as I attempt to cross Granada from shop to shop…(who else is SO ready for this construction to be finished?!) Its an adjustment running two different retail spaces, but I’m having SO MUCH FUN!

Our adorable sister shop is now open and thriving while we’re learning the day to day of managing two shops. So I’m back trying to keep the people updated on all the things, hence this note!

July - September were wild and exhausting but so much fun as we worked with our 30+ vendors to open the doors of Ormond Collective. What an incredible space our collective has put together, I am so overwhelmed and honored by all the businesses who have chosen to join us on this journey!

At Ormond Collective, not only can you shop with a wide variety of our favorite small businesses, you can also find my own line called Fernie’s (known as Fern & Fable’s stylish little sister) We have moved and greatly expanded our plant inventory in that space as well as added new home goods, florida finds and cute trinkets! If you haven’t checked out or sister shop yet, please do! We are so proud of this project and have loved sharing it with the community these first two weels. Check out these two local papers who covered the opening of Ormond Collective- Ormond Beach Observer Article and Hometown News Article

July - September were wild and exhausting but here we are approaching October and preparing for the holiday season. We’re bringing out the halloween decorations this week, getting our scary TBR books out and making lots of fun plans!

I’ll be back in your inbox early next week with a full rundown of all the events and plans we have for October. In the meantime, don’t forget there is still time for you to join us for our October Bookclub on the 9th at 6:30 - We are reading A Land So Wide by Erin A. Craig. Come by the shop to grab your copy today!

Thank you all so much for your support, your patience and kindness through every stage and phase of this little bookshop. And I’m so grateful for my wonderful team, Rebekah, Emma and Jennifer who care for our bookish community so well day to day!

See ya soon with more spooky season updates!

<3, Rayna

We hope your summer has been lovely! We know many of us are heading back to school very soon! We hope that you’re last bits of summer vacation as we transition into school prep and trying to survive the heat. We know you’re calendars are getting full, but we hope to see you soon for some of our events in August!

Join us this Pride month at Fern & Fable for a reading and conversation with author Kristen Arnett, to celebrate the launch of her new book, Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One. She will be joined in conversation by William Johnson, Director of PEN America Florida.

Special thanks to our neighbors at The Grind Gastropub for hosting this event in the wine cellar!

Light Hors d’oeuvres provided & Drinks available for purchase!

Following the reading and conversation, there will be a Q&A with questions from the audience and a book signing back at Fern & Fable next door!

Please RSVP to this free event on Pen America’s event site https://pen.org/.../reading-with-pride-a-conversation.../

We've got two great titles to discuss during June! Wed love for you to join us for one or both of these book club meetings! Feeling literary with some mysterious questions, twists, near future climate change all on a remote island near Antartica? Or perhaps you want to live in a love song and are ready to get into the feels? Well, Rayna and Rebekah have got your covered - on June 5th and/or 12th to discuss some great summer reading!

Thank you for taking time to celebrate with us, to wear your Fern & Fable swag, share your kind words of encouragement and spend your hard earned money in our little bookshop. Your kindness and support have been beyond what we could have expected. We are so so thankful for each and every one of you and how you continually show up for us!

This coming Saturday May 3rd is the Ormond Beach Art walk!

Meet James Chapin starting at 4:30 followed by a reading and Q&A at 5:30.

Chapin is a Floridian, writer, conservation worker and wildlife biologist based.

Ride South until The Sawgrass is historical novel about The Florida territory, the seminole war and early Florida statehood.

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We wanted to make sure you didn’t miss the updates on a few exciting events coming up in April at Fern & Fable!

April’s Book club will meet on Thursday April 3rd to discuss Assistant to the Villain We think it would be a great listen on libro.fm this week to get your reading in before the meeting! :) We will be announcing the May pick soon!

We are excited to announce a very special release party for the new Emily Henry Book - Great Big Beautiful Life on April 22nd at 7pm. Space is limited so grab your tickets today. You can purchase HERE

You can preorder the book from us if you are not able to join us for the party! Just send us an email or stop by the shop!

If you aren’t able to pick up in the shop you can still support us with your preorder through Bookshop HERE or Libro.fm HERE

And lastly we are having a very special Late Night at The Bookshop in conjunction with our Indie Bookstore Day celebration! Our friends ate Eternal Linx & Boho Clay Co will be joining us to bring some extra beauty and bling to our event.

We hope you can join us!

One of my hopes is to keep our newsletter a bit more updated. I am hopeful that with the support staff we have, this year will only get more organized and smoothly operational. Thanks for your kindness through all the growing pains and messy moments!

I appreciate each and every one of you so very much. I hope the start to your spring has been lovely!

With gratitude,

Rayna

I keep starting to type a Happy New Year Greetings…but somehow we are closer to Valentine’s Day. I feel like I lost half of January to the flu…shout out to Rebekah and Sam who kept the shop running through the majority of my sick days. Including the midnight release of Onyx Storm! Rebekah hosted an incredible midnight release party and assembled many “party in a box” preorders! We loved all the excitement surrounding Onyx Storm, thank you to each of you who went out of your way to preorder through our little bookshop! We know at takes extra care and intention to make that choice vs a big retailer. We are so very grateful! If you’re still looking for Onyx Storm, we have more regular editions (deluxe are sold out!) coming very soon. We do have lots of great merch in stock - including totes, stickers, pins and more for all the dragon riders in your wing!

Speaking of Rebekah… I hope if you’ve gotten a chance to meet our incredible new bookseller who began working for us last fall! Rebekah is a long time friend of the shop, podcast host of Tipsy Book Reads and professional photographer.

At the end of last summer I realized I had reached my max in running the shop solo and reached out to this brilliant friend to see if she’d be willing to bring her expertise to the shop. I cannot tell you what an absolute joy and gift she has been. Whether it’s fantasy recommendations or social media management, she’s already made such an impact. We are so excited to continue to grow and improve Fern & Fable with Rebekah on board!

Along with our newest employee, you’ll start see some exciting changes this spring in the shop - we’re preparing to build new shelving in the children’s room, bulk up our genre selections and refine our retail space. Thanks for your understanding in the in-between stages.

Another exciting update, thanks to our friends at Bookshop.org

We are so excited to now be offering ebooks with Bookshop! The app is now live on both apple and android app stores! - Unfortunately, these ebooks do not work with kindle readers at this time (but here’s hoping that will change!). Amazon really has a chokehold on kindle and bookshop has created this app as an alternative that support local bookshops. I have been beta testing the app and reading with my iPad and phone and it’s been a great experience. We recommend watching this really helpful video on instagram by HERE

Read the NPR Article!

Bookshop.org has been such an ally to indie bookstores as we fight to have a place in the bookish world. I hope you’ll give the new app a try!

Coming up -

We will be starting off February strong this coming Saturday - 2/1 with The Granada Grand Festival on the street behind us - New Britain Ave - Lots of vendors, artists and more 10-4! Make sure to stop by and see us before or after you peruse the festival!

And then from 4-6pm, Ginger Pinholster will be joining us during the Ormond Beach Art Walk! Come meet this incredible local author and get a signed copy of Snakes of St Augustine!

BOOK CLUB IS BACK!

We are meeting next Thursday Feb 6th at 630pm to discuss Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. We are looking forward to connecting with you to discuss this book.

Intermezzo Audiobook , Ebook, Ship to home

Next month we will meet on Thursday March 6th at 630 to discuss Beautyland by Marie-Helen Bertino. I loved this book and I think it will make for great conversation!

Come by the shop to grab your copy! Or pick up the Beautyland on Librofm Audio, Bookshop Ebook, Ship to home

Still working on getting kids book club and other events up and running. Thanks for your patience while we continue to work on mapping out 2025!

And an FYI for the end of the month…

We will be closed Sunday 2/23 - Thursday 2/27

to attend the American Booksellers Winter Institute! It’s a national event that brings together booksellers from around the country to learn, connect and grow. We are SO excited for our first industry conference and looking forward to sharing the knowledge we will gain to continue to improve our little local bookshop! Regular hours will resume on Friday 2/28.

Thanks for reading and we are looking forward to many bookish adventures together this year! <3, Rayna

We are open 7 days a week during this holiday season.

Come by Fern & Fable

Mon - Thurs 10-6, Fri & Sat 10-7 and Sun 10-4!

December Events:

Dec 12th We’ve got our final bookclub meeting of 2024 to discuss David Sedaris’ book of essays “Holidays on Ice”. So far this book has provided a nice escape from the whirlwind that is December for me and I look forward to discussing it with you all!

Dec 13th 7-10pm is our finally Late Night at the Bookshop for 2024! We are excited to have extended shopping hours, special sales and some festive fun for everyone! We are working on some great gift boxes / bags for everyone in your life for easy and unique gifting ideas! They will debut during the late night event.

Dec 14th Don’t forget to stop by during the Ormond Beach Home for the Holidays Parade (starting at 630pm) We will have glow sticks and candy and be open for evening shopping while you’re out and about.

Dec 20th we will be hosting an Ornament Crafty party. Tickets are limited to 20 people so if you’re hoping to join us, email us asap! fernandfablebooks@gmail.com

Christmas & New Year schedule:

Open Christmas Eve 11-3

Closed Dec 25 & 26th

Open 11-4 NYE

Closed New Years Day

Jan

There are still a handful of tickets available for our Onyx Storm Party on January 20th! Deluxe edition book boxes still available! (We have limited amount of Deluxe Editions on order and once they’re gone, they’re gone. The publisher is sold out!)

Stay Tuned for 2025 Bookclub picks for both our adult and kids clubs!

Happy holidays friends, we sure are grateful for you!

We are having our first ever Flash Sale with a table full of great titles reduced to $10!

On Saturday we are hosting our halloween story time at 11:30

And Saturday after 3-7pm is the Ormond Beach Art Walk and we are featuring local author Chrissy Chickory

And finally on Sunday we are hosting a very special story time with The Peabody Foundation.

We hope you’ll stop by this weekend!

Today is a very slow, very rainy day here at Fern & Fable…this rain seems to be never ending! But it does make for great reading weather (or great catch up on work things like newsletters kind of weather)

I can’t believe we celebrated our 1st anniversary last month. It has been a wild and wonderful ride. Thank you to everyone who joined us for the grown up book fair (especially for your patience with the line!) It was so much fun and I could not have pulled it off without Rebekah and Jessica of Tipsy Book Reads!

After we recovered from the fun book fair, the very next week we enjoyed the opening reception of “The Art of Literature” with our neighbors at Art Spotlight! The show is on display until September 28th, if you have not gotten a chance to visit! So many incredible pieces of work inspired by books. It was an honor to take part in the event, to meet the artists and enjoy our wonderful community. We currently have a piece from the show by Monte Waterfield titled “How many more Can she Carry?” on display in our shop. It’s a perfect representation for Banned Book Week!

BANNED BOOK WEEK

We are really excited to celebrate banned book week with our friends at Citizens for Truth and Justice in Education. They work tirelessly on the local level to advocate in our school system! Sept 21st at noon will be our kick off event. We’ll have drinks, snacks, bookmarks and some banned books to give away. We are also launching a new fundraising campaign with Bonfire.com to raise money to keep our free banned book library stocked! Our community has been SO generous in sponsoring books since June to fill our adorable free library and the library is a huge hit. But that means, we need more books, So let’s keep it stocked! Buy a shirt - Sponsor a book!

Check out our Bonfire store front to get exclusive merch. All proceeds go directly to purchasing banned books to give away in our free banned book library! https://www.bonfire.com/store/fern--fable-books/

Another exciting event on September 21st at 7pm we are Hosting the Within The Embers Launch Party with T.A. Reilly. You can purchase tickets on Eventbrite HERE

Book Clubs

Book Club Meetings have been off to a great start this fall. I really enjoyed Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton and the discussion did not disappoint!

Tonight we are going to be discussing Queen Charlotte by Shonda Rhimes and Julia Quinn. It was an easy sweet read, but I do think the story was a portrayed more powerfully on screen. (The rare instance where the book came before the show!) But I’ll save the rest of my thoughts for book club tonight.

In two weeks we will be hosting a conversation with Author Tracey Lange (via zoom) with our wonderful friend There is still time to join us for this event. You don’t have to read both titles beforehand, but reading one would help with conversation.

In the spirit trying to keep things organized for the remainder of the year, I’ve already scheduled out our book club picks through December. Hopefully it’ll remind us all to take a little space for ourselves in the midst of the hectic holiday season. (Book club is a great form of self care you know!) Here’s what’s coming up -

Kids Book Club

We have two more kids book club meetings for 2024.

This book club is a highlight for my kids and I. We’ve been reading each title out loud as a family and are enjoying the carved out time together. After our Oct 26th meeting we will pause Big Kid Book clubs until after the holidays.

Story Time

We have our monthly story times schedule for the first Saturday of each month. And the next few months are extra fun as we get to add a little holiday flair!

We will be hosting a story time double feature on Oct 5th at 1130am! We’ll enjoy some halloween treats and do a festive craft to go along with Vlad and Leila’s stories. (If you joined us last year we read about their friend Gustavo the Shy Ghost!)

A few other kid centered events coming up

We are collaborating with our friends at The Peabody Foundation in celebration of their Young Audience Series - Don’t let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! We absolutely LOVE these shows by Theaterworks that they bring to our community. We so enjoyed connecting over Charlottes Web and Ada Twist Scientist this past spring and are excited for more!

We are excited to be joining our friends at the Early Learning Coalition for the Storybook Village on October 12th. We had such a great time last year and cannot wait to celebrate the beloved work of Laura Numeroff, (author of If you Give a Mouse a Cookie) We will be hosting the craft table inspired by If You Give a Cat a Cupcake! visit https://www.elcfv.org/volusia-storybook-village to learn more

We love a full calendar and we cannot wait to bring you even more community events throughout the upcoming holiday season. We look forward to seeing you in the shop soon. Thank you for your support.

And remember you don’t have to come to the shop to support us! Audiobooks from libro.fm and shopping online through bookshop.org both directly support our little local bookshop.

We’re always just an email - fernandfablebooks@gmail.com or text - 386-299-5526 away if you need anything.

Thanks,

Rayna

I hope the end of the summer is treating you well. Maybe like my family, you’re deep in the throws of back to school shopping. We’ve got backpacks hanging by the door ready to start 3rd, 5th and 7th grade on Monday morning. Though we’ll all mourn our summer of sleeping late, we are ready for routine. The kids have been such big helpers and spent many long summer hours at the shop. If you’ve been in the last few months, chances are it has looked like the shop is run by humans under 5 ft tall while I worked in the back. (Now questioning of my 12 & 10 years are actually 5 ft tall? I need to measure them!) Or perhaps you’ve been one of the lucky customers I’ve helped while simultaneously breaking up a fight. Maybe you’ve been browsing and found a child sitting in the corner of the shop with a bag of Doritos and an iPad (though I try to remind them that screens are not on brand… ) . It’s a little wild around here, but I think that’s part of what makes it magical. Joking aside, getting to raise my kids in the bookshop is a gift I will never take for granted. Thanks for always supporting this little family business. We are here because of your constant support.

We’ve got some really exciting stuff happening this month so lets jump in…

First off, here are our updated hours

We are still learning the patterns of the area, but are assuming things will slow down a bit during August and September. We plan to extend hours closer to the holiday season.

We are celebrating our FIRST ANNIVERSARY on August 31st! It’s hard to pin point or actual first anniversary as we stated with popups then the little shop and then moved to Granada in Dec. But August 31st marks our ribbon cutting ceremony of our first shop so I think it’s a great time to celebrate!

It will be a busy day at the shop, we’ll be celebrating all day long (details to come!) so be sure to stop by 10-6 on Aug 31st.

Our kids book club also happens to fall on that day so bring the family out at 2pm to discuss When Sea Becomes Sky.

In case you haven’t heard by now, we are hosting a very special after hours 18+ book fair with our friends at Tipsy Book Reads to celebrate our first anniversary! It’s going to be so much fun! You can purchase tickets HERE We are busy planning and stocking up for this extra special event, grab tickets while you can! We hope to see you there!

Wait until you see all the cute book fair exclusives…get ready to stock up on all the cute stickers, pins and accessories! We want you to feel like that little kid at the book fair who is dying to buy the sparkly pen and the newest Goosebumps.

Adult Bookclubs are back!!!

We’d love for you to join us for either (or both!) of these discussions. (And both of these titles are currently 20% off!)

Stay tuned for details on our Sept 26th club soon!

Are you an artist? We have an upcoming collaboration with our wonderful neighbors at Art Spotlight and would love for you to get involved! You can find the details for the call to art HERE

Lastly, we’re working on amping up our google reviews and social media follows. We are going to be giving away cute vinyl Fern & Fable logo stickers as a thank you! We appreciate you sharing with your friends. Word of mouth (aka social shares) makes the biggest impact on our local small business

Review on Google

Follow on Instagram

Follow on Facebook

Follow on TikTok

I am beyond grateful for our community and will catch up with you soon!

Thanks for reading,

Rayna

Well it’s been well over a month since our last newsletter. And a lot has happened in that time. June flew by in a flurry of fun and busy days. We’ve been enjoying connecting with so many local families around the Summer Reading Challenge with Neighborhood Scoops. The summer reading challenge continues through August, so there is plenty of time to fill out a log and receive a free (Children - YA) Book and a free ice cream from our favorite sweet spot.

We love Neighborhood Scoop so much…probably a little too much! Last night we realized that we had been to Neighborhood Scoop three times this week alone…but ya know once was for Boba for the preteens, then ice cream after the beach and then of course we had to bring visiting family to our family ice cream shop too!

June was busy with meet me at the bookshop and craft days, kids book club, story times, pride celebration and an incredibly fun Late Night at the Bookshop!

Throughout June - in celebration of Pride month - we were able to collect so many sponsored books for our Free Banned Book Library! You all have blown us away yet again with your support and kindness. We are planning to continue the sponsorship program on a regular basis to keep free books available to our community. We can’t wait to get the little free banned book library up and running on our front porch!

Though our Fern & Fable Bookclubs are on pause during the summer, there is a great opportunity to join our favorite bookstagrammer, Natalie for a bookclub on July 17th. All the free copies of the books have been claimed but we do have Loneliness & Company available for purchase!

While adult bookclub is on a break we've been really enjoying our kids book club. In June we read Manatee Summer by Evan Griffith and we raised $100 for Save The Manatee! (Thank you to everyone who purchased a manatee plush or art print!) We loved learning about these gentle giants and discussing conservation efforts with the kids.

Our next kids bookclub is coming up! Grab your copy of The Big Sting to read before we meet on July 27th

Another fun event happening on July 27th is Christmas in July in Historic Ormond Beach! It will be such a fun day to enjoy the many businesses along our beautiful Main Street!

Don’t forget about story time every Saturday at 1130 am! Bring the kids to beat the heat and chill with us while I read silly stories!

July isn’t quite as full as June was around the shop, but there is still quite a bit of fun stuff going on. And nothing beats a trip to a nice cold bookshop on a hot hot day! We’re stocked up on lots of great summer reads! If you need some inspiration here are a few of my favorite books recently:

Real Americans by Rachel Khong

This one got me out of a reading slump! It quickly captured my attention I love a family drama! And this one had some very interesting unexpected elements that brought up interesting questions with real life implications.

Another family drama I absolutely adored - Same as it Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

This book begins with the main character awkwardly running into someone from her past at the grocery story and it felt so relatable. Claire Lombardo’s writing immerses you into her characters so deeply I was left wanting more, which says a lot for a 500+ page book.

Wouldn’t be summer if I didn’t mention Funny Story by Emily Henry

Emily Henry needs no introduction, but this was a fun escape from my usual intense lit fic. The character relationships had enough depth to keep me engaged (which I honestly can’t say for all of Henry’s books) yet it also felt just like drinking a cocktail by the pool with no stress.

James by Percival Everett

Another book that needs little introduction but is SO GOOD. Percival Everett is incredible and I loved this retelling of Huck Finn’s adventures from James perspective. Necessary and beautiful work.

Honey by Isabel Banta

A fun summer read… imagine a novelization of Britney Spears memoir. If you grew up in the 90s - 00s you’ll enjoy this one. (I mean that cover is what drew me in!) You’ll find yourself saying “That’s totally Christina Aguilera, Oh is that Jessica Simpson!” It captured that time in all its glory (and struggle) well!

You know that meme of those houses in Santa Monica, well this is essentially me reading Honey and then Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

…

I picked up my first Leigh Bardugo on a whim. Anything she writes flies off the shelves. So I started with Ninth House, magical, mystical dark academia based on the secret societies at Yale. (I love fiction that sends me on a good google search!) My only knowledge of anything Ivy League is Rory Gilmore related, so I did kind of picture Rory and Logan fighting ghosts and demons…(I mean…In Omnia Paratus was our YOLO in 2004…) Regardless of my gilmore girls view I really enjoyed the wild and creepy adventures of Alex Stern and her friends and I’ve already started the 2nd book - Hellbent. But before I continued on the Bardugo train - I read The God of the Woods by Liz Moore…

THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD. It just sucked me right in from the first pages. I’m not a huge reader of thrillers, (sometimes I’m a bit of a baby when the scary stuff feels too real.) but this had the depth and drama along with the edge of your seat mystery was such a great combo. The 1970s summer camp setting was perfection. I wish I was sitting in a cabin by a lake the whole time I read this. The character development was so interesting and fulfilling. Yet the whole time I was unsure of where the mysteries were leading. This was the first book by Liz Moore I’ve read, but you better believe Long Bright River is in my TBR!

Like I said I’m currently reading Hell Bent

along with Pearce Oysters by Jocelyn Takacs

Yes, another family drama…my absolute favorite kind of fiction

I’m listening to In The Lives of Puppets while I eagerly await the release of TJ Klune’s new book - Somewhere Beyond the Sea - in September!

I got my hands on an advanced copy of Louise Erdrich’s new book, The Mighty Red that comes out in October! She is one of my very favorite writers and I cannot wait to read this one!

Thanks for all your support this summer, I hope to see you in the shop sometime soon!

- Rayna

*All links are to titles on https://bookshop.org/shop/fernandfablebooks which allows for online direct to home shipping. Books are available at Fern & Fable and audio available at https://libro.fm/fernandfablebooks