The Rivals of Casper Road

The Rivals of Casper Road (2022) Roan Parrish (Garnet Run)

This is the fourth book in the Garnet Run series (actually the fifth, because there is a novella in there as well) and the characters from those stories all make appearances here.

Every year, the residents of Casper Road have a Halloween house decorating contest. Zachary has won since he moved into the neighborhood.

(T)he only one of them that Zachary considered competition was old Mrs. Lundy near the intersection of Casper Road and Hoot Owl Road. Her strange piles of sticks and stones were truly chilling. When the sun was at certain places in the sky, they cast shadows that Zachary was convinced were conjurations in their own right.

Bram moved to Wyoming after he discovering his boy friend and best friend having an affair. He never expected to leave his family in Washington, but he needed to time and space to heal, and Garnet Run seemed perfect.

Zachary initially sees Bram as a rival, but the two quickly become friends.

Bram is the squishiest of cinnamon rolls.

“It’s about this group of friends who go caving together and on one trip, they get stuck in a cave system that’s filled with these terrifying—”

Bram became aware, as Zachary cut himself off, that he was clenching the edge of the drafting table, bracing for whatever horrors Zachary was about to spill into his brain.

“Er, these totally cute and friendly fuzzy, uh, bunnies, that they want to escape from because, ya know. Bunnies. So… carrot-hungry.”

Several things to note here.

I feel like Zachary (like Wes in The Lights on Knockbridge Lane) is probably neurodivergent, but those word are never actually used.

The itch usually meant that he was missing something— some bit of information or connection required to understand something that other people seemed to understand intuitively.

Which is fine, except it is beginning to feel like she is using neurodivergent traits without providing true and named rep. It bugs me because this is the second book in a row, and these are male characters who were far more likely to have been diagnosed (unlike women who are tremendously underdiagnosed). So not naming naming neurodiversity seems like a purposeful choice, which is distressing.

Second thing to note:

This is a Harlequin, so it is also the second book without a great deal of angst, which is fine, but unexpected for a Roan Parrish book, so I kept waiting for the terrible things to happen and they never did.

To be clear that doesn’t make this a bad book, but it feels weird for a Roan Parrish book not to leave me feeling emotionally wrung out.

A major plus is that I appreciate a character who hates being scared as much as I do.

The movie was about children, but with each swell of ominous strings or camera tracking around a dark corner, Bram felt himself getting more and more tense. It was a physical reaction— an involuntary cringing back in the face of something that seemed about to hurt him at any moment.

I despise scary movies, so it was lovely to see those feelings put into words for more clearly than I’ve ever managed.

So very cute, but just didn’t feel like a Roan Parrish story.

Publisher: Harlequin Special Edition

Rating: 7.5/10

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