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Welcome Back!
11 Plays2 days ago
We’re back, and we think you’ll love our brand-new plans! Join us as we discuss how we are rebranding Family Fiction and hear what ideas we are most excited about!
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Instagram: @familyfictionpod
Karmen’s Bookstagram: @karmensreadingcorner
Hallie’s BookTok: @hallie_br00kes_n00k
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Transcript
New Beginnings: Studio Setup and Podcast Return
00:00:30
Speaker
So hello everyone and welcome back to family fiction with Hallie and Carmen. Gosh it's been a hot minute since we've done that. It really really has. It feels very weird. um We're coming to you live from a brand new recording studio type deal situation because I have revamped my reading room And we have a much better spot to record in. We're no longer sitting across the room from each other on two different chairs and in the floor. And you know, whatever else I thought that stopped recording for a minute and panicked. It did take us a solid probably 10 minutes to re-remember how to set up the mics.
00:01:20
Speaker
about through my computer through the window because i think the last episode the last time we recorded was marked and that was a solo episode i think because i look surprised you remember that because i don't i looked back just to see how long it's been um so obviously if you're listening to this we are back um if you follow us on our instagram we've been posting that you know we had something coming soon um and we'll talk about that in a little bit but to begin with um basically a brief description of why we've been away um for our frequent listeners you know all 10 of you um
00:02:03
Speaker
So um we had some family stuff going on, mostly on my side of the family. I had some stuff going on with my grandmother who had cancer and was on hospice and there was just a lot going on at the time. um And then I had also started a new position at work, which was taking up a lot of my mental capacity. um So that was kind of what was happening on my end. And Hallie had some other stuff going on.
00:02:31
Speaker
Yeah, so basically I started a brand new job. um I was still in school. I'm graduating from Pellissippi this December. Listen, look at me go. And I originally started out as a like a first job as like this little bakery that's like literally 20 seconds from our house.
00:02:54
Speaker
and that was like a little part-time job was my first job ever and then as I was still going through school I realized I probably need to start getting me a full-time job because I need to get a little bit more money so I started working at a pharmacy um fun fact it's the same pharmacy that my mother has worked at and my sister has worked at and so i'm working as a like a cashier clerk kind of job but i am actually thinking about going on and once the semester's over and i graduate i'm going to get certified as a pharmacy tech that is the plan for now and
00:03:38
Speaker
make a little bit more money, and if I decide I want to go back to school, then I can. Yep, so, new jobs and family things and so we just kinda had to take a little bit of
Rebranding and Focus on Book Analyses
00:03:50
Speaker
a mental break. It was just kinda too hard to try to juggle like recording and then it was gonna be, we had thought about trying to just record when we could and upload when we could but then it was gonna be like random weeks of uploading and it wasn't gonna be consistent at all and so we just decided to take a step back for a minute and you know, readjust and
00:04:11
Speaker
re-figure out what we wanted to move forward with with the podcast and you know if we wanted to change things up that was a big conversation that we had um so getting into that um we have decided to do a little bit of a podcast switch up rebrand if you want to call it that it's still going to be a book podcast um that's not going to change um but we have decided to add some things to our repertoire
00:04:43
Speaker
um And just kind of change up the way we do episodes we kind of came across um Some hiccups trying to decide like what to do what to make um Episodes about different topics to us discuss and it was getting to a point where it was getting hard to do that And there was a direction we really wanted to take the podcast in and we just kind of had to work through that so One of the things that we're going to be doing, one of the major things, is we are now going to be doing read throughs of our favorite books and doing chapter by chapter analysis and that will include some rereads obviously and maybe potentially some new books that we both want to read and we decide to
00:05:28
Speaker
just do chapter by chapter discussions on those as well. Um, but for the most part it's going to be a bunch of rereads and just really diving into fan theories and you know, um, obviously one of the series that we really want to do is, um, Throne of Glass. So we, you know, kind of talked about being able to do chapter analysis and see where um Maybe some foreshadowing took place that you didn't catch on your first time around and this will be I know it's my first time rereading Throne of Glass. Is it yours? Yeah, this will be my first time rereading Throne of Glass since I finished Kingdom of Ash when it
00:06:08
Speaker
first came out so it's been a hot minute and I people will like post on tiktoks of like random stuff that through the books and I'll be like I did not remember that I completely forgot that so I think it'll be nice to kind of like go back and give myself a refresh of a series that really got me back into like reading fantasy and loving fantasy and really just getting back into reading right yeah and we have talked about before too we have really both wanted to reread that series and the Court of Thorns and Roses so this was a way to do it and be able to share with you guys a little bit you know and be able to do a like thorough chapter discussion and see what we missed the first time around. um So we've got some Sarah J Moss books planned and we've got some maybe The Hunger Games and maybe some of Brit's books and just we've got a bunch of different ones planned.
00:07:06
Speaker
um to do and some of them might be some like new reads for Hallie and some of them might be new reads for both of us. You know we'll see but for the most part we do want to start off with rereads and then maybe later you know if we run out of rereads then we'll jump into some new books. I definitely would love to do a reread of fourth wing sometime after onyx storm and give myself a break from onyx storm first and then be able to jump back into that series and especially and if we had you know been able to launch a little bit sooner maybe we could have done fourth wing to see if we caught what her second signa is because apparently it's in fourth wing
00:07:47
Speaker
never knew that. So I think it'll be fun to figure out theories of that and if she tells us what that is in Onyx Storm then we'll be able to reread and go dang it we could have figured this out sooner. Kind of like with Mal in Shadow and Bone, I definitely should have figured that out way sooner than I did. His name is very close to the name of the guy who like created the the enhancers, whatever they're called amplifiers or whatever. Very close to that guy's name and I should have figured that out a long time before I did. So, you know, that might be one we reread too. That one would be fun. That one would be fun, you know, considering the Shadow and Bone series got cancelled on Netflix. I want to talk about it. I miss Ben Martens. I don't want to talk about it. He's going on tour and not coming anywhere near me. I saw that. I know. I saw it. How dare he.
00:08:37
Speaker
Sir, don't you know a set front row? for those For those who may be um new listeners, Carmen may or may not have a, well, actually she does have a huge obsession with Ben Barnes. I love him. I'm in love with him. I don't know him, but I'm in love with him. You know, aren't we all? No, he is going on tour with his, you know, album that he's coming out with. And there's a lot of people who have announced tours.
00:09:06
Speaker
it is not coming anywhere near me so therefore I can't go and I'm like sorry don't you know like I've got to sit front row like I will be the last person there. You will know and feel my presence. I love him. Anyways that read throughs is one of the major things that we're doing on a Rebrand and we're also going to be doing a another type of episode. Hallie would you like to explain the next one?
00:09:32
Speaker
Okay, so the next set of episodes that we want to do that we thought would be kind of a good idea is bookish banters. Now these would kind of feel like almost like mini episodes we said. They really wouldn't be that long and basically what these would serve as is let's say there's something that we really want to talk about that um really can't be stretched out to like let's say an hour long or little bit shorter than that those will they'd be like kind of like 30 minute episodes and they'd be like um topics that are really popular right now or they could also serve as i guess we said like solo episodes yeah if we're you know if one of us is on vacation then the other one can do a bookish banter episodes and basically
00:10:24
Speaker
like Halle said there are like many episodes and it would be if we just have like a burning desire to discuss something and obviously that doesn't fit in with the read-throughs then we would put out a bookish banter episode and yeah but they could be a solo episode I mean and that's not even if we're on vacation if Halle really wants to talk about Emanga she just read then she's gonna put out a bookish banter episode yes so um that is the point with those And, you know, we kind of thought about trying to use them to do like...
00:10:56
Speaker
just many, like not even just burning desire to talk about this, but if we just want to break up a read through with a, here's some amazing books that you can read in October, like that kind of stuff. Um, you know, we'll be bookish bander. So like how I said, they'd be really short.
Fresh Elements: Intro Song and Format Changes
00:11:12
Speaker
Um, so that is a plan that we have. Um, also, if you're listening to this, you might have heard a brand new intro song that we have.
00:11:22
Speaker
And that is thanks to my cousin Katie and her boyfriend Michael. um We have a brand new intro song. If you have listened to our podcast before this, we used to just have something that came off of iMovie and I had reached out to Katie. um Her and her boyfriend sing at a local restaurant once a month and they were actually amazing. And um I asked her if they would be interested in writing us a little theme song.
00:11:52
Speaker
And so she gets gave me several different options, um this being one of them, and we did decide on this one. But if you would like to see one of the other options, if you head over to her Instagram, we posted a little reel, and it has one of the jingles on it as well. um But yeah, thank you to Katie and Michael for coming up with this great theme song. And you'll also hear another little bit of it in the outro of this episode as well. Yeah.
00:12:23
Speaker
Okay, so this next thing that we're probably going to be taking away from what we used to do in the original podcast um is we are going to not be doing any more wrap-ups. So we had these like episodes where we would do at the end of the month where it would be everything that we read in that month and that just kind of started to become a bit of a hassle especially when me and Carmen would hit these really bad reading slumps more leaning towards me because Carmen would read like eight books and I would read like three.
00:13:02
Speaker
so um Yeah, those but those episodes just kind of started to get a little bit harder to do. And so finally we just decided, you know what? When we do this rebrand, let's just completely take out the wrap-up set each month. And instead we switched over to an idea that I think is a little bit more fun, I would say. And so if you would like to talk about that one.
00:13:27
Speaker
yes so we figure once a month we'll include in one of our episodes that month um our book of the month so even if you just read one book that month then hey you get to really prop up that one book um but basically this is just gonna be like If you read three books that month, you know, what's the best book you read out of those three? Essentially just the best book that you read that month. Um, so nothing super special. Just once a month, we'll do a book of the month. Um, and it'll probably be like, if we were doing one now, it would be books that we read in October and what was the best book that you read in October. So it'll typically be like the first episode of that month for the prior month. Um,
00:14:16
Speaker
But yeah, that is one of the plans that we do have. All right, and I guess going on to the last bit of changes that we're doing is basically our schedule. So like we said, one of the main reasons that we decided to take a break is because we really couldn't find time to record and specifically just to get it out on a specific time. We used to record like,
00:14:44
Speaker
on a specific day and that just really got to be really too hard for us. And so now we've kind of just decided we are still gonna upload on a specific day. Yeah, I think we we had talked about it this weekend, which the note that I've got on here is a little old, but we had talked about, I think we're gonna keep our Wednesday uploads. um We're just trying to,
00:15:09
Speaker
record when we can. Yes. So we basically kind of just had to have a discussion of let's just each week, get with the other and see out of Friday, Saturday and Sunday of that week, what's the best time for everyone to record? Yes. Um, because I think we were just trying to record on certain days. And then you weren't we weren't getting it recorded until like,
00:15:30
Speaker
late Tuesday night and we got to upload Wednesday and it just got really really stressful. um So we originally had talked about not having a specific day of upload and you know depending on how things continue to go that may you know backtrack to that. But for right now we do want to keep our regular Wednesdays and we're just trying to be more conscious of when we record. And if it comes to, two if we come through the weekend, forget about it, and it gets Tuesday night, shoot, we haven't recorded, then hey, we're not uploading that week. So I think we just kind of have to be a little bit more understanding with our schedules and selves. Yeah, and we are going to be like
00:16:13
Speaker
I was originally going to say taking turns, but we're going to be splitting up the editing process, which might make it a little bit easier on our lives. Yes. Because originally Karmie used to do all the editing and now we're going to split it between the two of us. And so I'm slowly learning how we're going to edit. So it'll be a process. Yes. So this one will be Halley's first.
Visual Updates and Photography Plans
00:16:36
Speaker
test trial. So leave a review down below. How did she go? Um, but we're kind of, I'm kind of using some old techniques from a job I used to have. And, um, I'll be doing like the big edits of putting in the music and stuff. And she's going to do the small edits of taking out any, you know,
00:16:54
Speaker
speaking gaps and stuff like that. Yeah. It'll be, it's nothing like huge stuff that like she has to do. It's just like her doing that little part makes my life so much easier. so That's where we're at. Um, so before we get into more on this episode, um, I did also want to give a very amazing shout out to Kelby who did our photo shoot for the relaunch. You've probably already seen a few new photos on our Instagram and you've definitely seen a new cover photo on our podcast. And that is all thanks to Kelby. Um, it is part of our rebrand. We wanted to wait until we got the song from Katie.
00:17:40
Speaker
and the photos back from Kelby before we you know launched this episode. So we've officially got both things completed. And we'll definitely be doing another photo shoot with Kelby in the future oh yeah when do we run out of photos to use. So for right now, anytime you see any new photo shoot looking photos,
00:17:59
Speaker
And anytime you see like a fun little reel posted with videos that look like they came from that photo shoot, that is all thanks to Hilby. So huge shout out to her. Please go check her out. um She is linked on our Instagram. I cannot remember her Instagram handle off the top of my head so just go check out our Instagram to view her.
00:18:21
Speaker
um
Book of the Month: Horror and Thriller Picks
00:18:23
Speaker
So uh one segment we are carrying over from you know family fiction 1.0 um into family fiction 2.0 is currently reading. So Halle what are you currently reading? I'm currently reading What Happened on Hicks Road by Hannah Jane. It is a mystery, I'm still in my mystery kick um and I'm on only like four chapters in and it's pretty interesting so far so I'll have to let y'all know how it goes. Yes I am currently reading The Sacrifice by Chantal Tessier which is the third book in the Lords series um you know I'm doing okay.
00:19:09
Speaker
So let me just give you a little snippet. So I ah really wanted to read The Sacrifice as soon as I finished The Sinner. For those of you who aren't familiar with the series, the first book is the ritual. It's dark romance. It's amazing. Are we shocked? I read The Sinner and then immediately wanted to start The Sacrifice, but they're the books are they're pretty dark. So I was like, I need to take a mental break. I need to read a fantasy.
00:19:37
Speaker
said fantasy did not go well um it was a dnf and so now i'm reading the sacrifice so here we are it's a fantastic series if you like dark romance i highly recommend one of my friends i got her to read it and she read the first two books in a week i had to check on her mental sanity after that because that's that's a lot so pray for her um but yes that is my current read. Speaking of book of the month, we are doing our book of the month for October. um So my book of the month for October was We Used to Live Here by Marcus Clewer
00:20:17
Speaker
and this is actually the book that we chose for book club book pick this month because everyone was already reading it and it was ah absolutely amazing um it kept me on my toes the book is getting made into a movie with Blake Lively you know um still not sure how I feel about her but we're gonna persist um And it was amazing. It was one of those books that you read it and then you've got to try to figure out, you know, what do you think actually happened? Like if you've read Verity by Colin Hoover, it's kind of like that. You're left with an ending of like,
00:20:58
Speaker
I have so many theories on what could have happened. Um, so just to get a brief synopsis, as a young queer couple who flips houses, Charlie and Eve can't believe the killer deal they've just gotten on an old house in a pictures picturesque neighborhood. As they're working in the house one day, there's a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be all right if he showed his kids around.
00:21:26
Speaker
People please her to a fault, Eve lets them in. As soon as the family enters their home, strange and inexplicable things start happening, including their toddler going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement.
00:21:40
Speaker
even more weird The family can't seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family. Or is Eve just imagining things?
00:21:58
Speaker
and and The genres are horror, thriller, and mystery. And it has some paranormal stuff in it. I gave it a 5 out of 5. It was absolutely amazing. After you read it, I highly recommend you go read a bunch of Reddit theories because there's a lot going on. One of our friends is actually currently reading it, Emily, and in some of the like journal entry things that are in it, there's Morse code at the bottom of the pages.
00:22:26
Speaker
Apparently and I didn't catch that and so after she finishes reading it She's gonna go back and see if she could figure out if the Morse code maybe tells us something else. So we'll see Howley what was your October book of the month? Okay, so my October book of the month is was a little bit easy to pick because I only read two books that month and exhibit A as to why we're getting rid of the monthly wrap ups. I read 10 so here we are. um So my October book of the month pick was Never Lie by Frieda McFadden. So this is actually the first book that I read by Frieda McFadden. She's a new author to me and my gosh
00:23:07
Speaker
did I enjoy this book and did I enjoy this author. So the genre for this book was thriller, mystery, suspense, psychological thriller. um I read this book in two days which was so good. If I read a book in like one or two days, that's how you know it was a good book, so just to kind of give you a little bit of a synopsis about it. um Newlyweds Tricia and Ethan are searching for the house of their dreams, but when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrian Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace for four years earlier,
00:23:49
Speaker
A violent winter storm traps them at the estate, with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end. In search of a book to keep her entertained until the snow abates, Trisha happens upon a secret room, one that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed.
00:24:08
Speaker
As Tricia listens to the cassette tapes, she learns about the terrifying chain of events leading up to Dr. Hale's mysterious disappearance. Tricia plays the tapes one by one, late into the night. With each one, another shocking piece of the puzzle falls into place, and Dr. Adrian Hale's web of lies slowly unravels. And then, Tricia reaches the final cassette, the one that reveals the entire horrifying truth.
00:24:34
Speaker
yeah That sounds good, I gotta read that. It was very good and the whole time I was reading it, listen, I'll just tell you, if you read Verity by Colin Hoover and loved it, you will love this book. Dang it, we both picked books that are like, if you liked Verity go read this book. Like the whole time I was reading it, I was like, this is very much like Verity and I've actually, mom was like, you keep saying Verity and I'm like,
00:25:03
Speaker
Oh mother. You need to you need to read Verity. October is the season for these types of books man. It was so good and normally part of me like when it comes to books like these I can kind of sort of guess where it's gonna go and nope.
00:25:19
Speaker
Not with this book. i I did guess one thing right about this book, but the other part, there's a certain truth that comes about where you find it out and you're like, how did I not realize this sooner? Like it just completely flew over my head. So good luck. I gave it, I think I gave it five stars. It was very good. If you have never heard of Frida McFadden, definitely go check it out.
00:25:46
Speaker
definitely go check her out and I would definitely recommend reading this book um and so I'm excited to dive into more of hers. We me my mom and my sister have all fell down the freedom of fat and rabbit hole. It's been very good. Yeah the only two books I've read by her so far is The Teacher and The Housemaid and they were both amazing. So yeah she's a great author.
00:26:07
Speaker
Moms read one by one. That was the first one that she read. She said it was really good. And then she also read The Inmate, which Carly also read. And she like they liked that. And now mom's reading The Boyfriend, which she started it and she thinks it's pretty good so far. Carly's also listening to
Closing Thoughts and Social Media Engagement
00:26:23
Speaker
it. Carly's really into audiobooks, so. Carly likes anything that could be true crime. Yeah. If there's anything that's like true crime. Mystery thriller. For those who don't know, Carly's my sister. She's on it.
00:26:35
Speaker
um but yeah so I think that pretty much wraps up our welcome back episode um we don't have much else to discuss um we'll try and let you know as soon as possible about what book we're gonna be discussing next so just keep an eye on our instagram stories Be sure to follow the podcast and rate us five stars. It's been a hot minute since I've done this. so um But yeah, definitely be sure to follow us. um We'll give you guys updates as we go. You know, along with the podcast, be sure and follow us on Instagram at Family Fiction Pod.
00:27:13
Speaker
um we'll be posting updates for rereads that we're gonna do and new episodes on there and that'll be where you can check out our amazing new pictures we got made and all of our fun little reels. So be sure and follow us on there to stay up to date. Again, thank you guys so much for listening and we will see you guys next week. Thanks for listening. Bye!