Bram Larkspur’s rugged, sexy looks belie his fear of all things horrifying. But as Casper Road’s newest resident, he’s excited to join the annual Halloween decorating contest. The competition is keen, especially from six-time champion, architect Zachary Glass. But when enigmatic Zachary sparks a prank war, it’s game on – until one sizzling kiss turns these rivals into allies. Now only one thing scares Bram: how quickly he’s losing his heart to Zachary.
THE FACTS
📕 A return to the town of Garnet Run
📘 Queer Disneyland
📙 Halloween Novel
📗 Neurodivergent character? Maybe?
THE PLOT
When Bram moves to Casper Road, he is leaving behind a relationship that ended with him feeling he’d been betrayed. His partner and his best friend had been cheating on him and he was left feeling as though he needed to leave home and all the reminders behind him. Casper Road is in Garnet Run, the town that is the centre of this series of books.
Also residing on Casper Road is architect and Halloween decoration champion, Zachary Glass. Once the two men become neighbours, their differences lead them to an odd friendship that has the potential for more. The decorating becomes a link for Bram and Zachary and their blossoming relationship reveals their differences and the things that may be a basis for more than friendship.
There are appearances from all the previous Garnet Run couples and even a reference to one of Roan Parrish’s other well loved series of books, Riven.
THE CHARACTERS
⭐️ Bram: Bram is the sweet, good-natured, burly guy in the story. I liked him but I was a little bit confused about his “lifestyle”. He moved to a new community and was renting a house but there was never any mention of him working, having money, leaving the house. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was that he did. Lack of a job aside, Bram was funny and I loved his connected to his family. Parrish did a great job of giving the supporting family characters a bit of development.
⭐️ Zachary: I struggled with Zachary a bit. I felt as though Parrish had written a character who was probably neurodiverse without their being much explanation. I”m not meaning to imply that there should have been a diagnosis of anything to make it valid, but it certainly seemed as though there were some mental health things going on that weren’t really acknowledged. Zachary was certainly interesting and I loved how quirky he was. I struggled a bit with some of his decisions as they didn’t seem to be in character. There’s a part of the story when Zachary basically vandalizes a neighbours property and that just didn’t seem to me like something he would do.
THE GOOD BITS
- loved the names of Bram’s family! I need to be more creative!
- Finally a Halloween story! Halloween in my favourite story and there aren’t that many books set in the fall
- The overall story was cute, loved the feeling of found-family in the town especially as it related to the queer community
- I really liked seeing the characters from the other books appearing throughout the book
- Really liked the interactions Bram had with his family. It was fun and entertaining.
DIDN’T WORK FOR ME
- needed some more back story on Bram (how the heck does he support himself?)
- was Zachary neurodivergent? Certainly read as if he was.
- A little unbelievable that Bram was so scared of everything. It was almost to the point of pathological and I couldn’t get myself to believe it.
- I feel as though some of my favourite authors have changed their writing slightly when being signed to Harlequin. Maybe a little less edgy?
THE LINKS
🖊 Author 🖊 Goodreads🖊 Publisher
I received an ARC of The Rivals of Casper Road (Garnet Run #4) by Roan Parrish from Harlequin Special Editions via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.
Kinzie Things 