Hooked on Books discussion

Team Challenge
September 2025 - November 2025

Please consult the Toy Chest of Dread for your first toy selection. This is in the 3rd tab of your spreadsheet. Post your team name and the answer that the Toy Chest supplies you at the Occult Museum (check in thread).

Team
Jackie
Kirsten
Lisa

Important Links
Belle's Cabinet of Notices (Announcements)
Occult Museum (Check-in Thread)
Scoreboard
Ouija Board (Q&A)
Collectibles
The Monkey's Paw (Feedback)
SS: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Rules
⛓️Each toy/object has specific chains and/or tasks that need to be completed.
Examples:
1. Create a chain of 3 using titles consecutively (ABC)
-All the Light We Cannot See
-Becoming Mrs. Lewis
-Catching Fire
2. Create a chain of 3 with "dog" in the titles
-Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
-The Dog Stars
-Hot Dog Girl
⛓️One person should NOT complete a whole chain by themselves. This is a team challenge. However, if a toy/object has multiple chains and a slower reader can only/want to only read for 1 or 2 chains (they must read at least one), then the other two faster readers on the team can complete the other chains between the two of them.
⛓️You may choose which toy/object from the list to capture first but you MUST complete it BEFORE starting a new toy/object.
⛓️You may use or drop articles: A, An, The
⛓️If you somehow manage to incorporate a Buddy Read into a chain, you can earn points based on the BR tier system.
⛓️Standard Rules Apply
⛓️At the end of the official challenge (last day of November), your team may choose to continue on at your own pace. There will be no points accumulated after November but you can finish any toys/objects that you didn't get to during the challenge.

Scoring
You will get 3 points for every completed book (9 per completed chain) PLUS page points.

I'm here.

Me too.

🎭💀 Belladonna Belle Beckons 💀🎭

“Oh, how tragic... Some of you left your poor teammates wandering the toy chest alone. Forgotten dolls, abandoned soldiers, clockwork hearts ticking in the dark with no one to wind them... ⏱️👻

A team that doesn’t all check in together risks becoming scattered pieces—and you know what happens to broken toys, don’t you? They end up in my collection… and I do so adore incomplete sets. 🕸️

So hurry along, little stragglers. Your friends are waiting… and the shadows are growing impatient.”

🪆🎃 Incomplete teams, consider yourselves haunted until you all arrive. 🎃🪆

Have you heard from Kirsten, Lisa? I’m assuming she’s not back from taking Ivy to school.

that's why I'm assuming too. that and classes starting. ld say let's give her another day before one of us messages her.

🧸 Hey team, it’s me—Lisa. The Toymaker. The one Belle keeps just close enough to frighten but not quite promote.

Quick reminder:
You still need to consult the Toy Chest of Dread—lurking on the 3rd tab of your spreadsheet.

Let the Chest do its thing. It will give you a number. That number decides your toy. (I don’t know how. I don’t ask how.)

Then, please post:
Your team name
The number you got from the Toy Chest
in the Occult Museum thread (a.k.a. the check-in thread, where Belle sips judgment from a teacup shaped like a skull).

Because if you don’t… well. Belle loves making assumptions. And her math is always cursed.

—Toymaker Lisa
(Toymaker, spreadsheet whisperer, barely keeping the toys in their boxes)

Jackie, can you spin and post? We can get started without Kirsten. I'm sure she'll catch up fast once she's back in the swing of things.

I spun 24 and checked us in.

Hi! I just got into town today. I need to finish up August Quills and then I'll get busy with this one. So you know (because you are the ones I buddy'd with), I did my buddy reads and then only read Drarry for the rest. I had literally NO BRAIN on this trip.

Welcome Back!! We will get our tasks for this Sunday or Monday.

Hey Kirsten! Good to see you!

24. Magical Necklaces

In F. Paul Wilson’s 1984 novel The Tomb, the pair of cursed but magical necklaces is an ancient artifact linked to the powerful and malevolent force of the Sumar Empire.

These necklaces are imbued with supernatural energies that grant protection and power to their wearers, but at a steep cost. While they bestow abilities such as enhanced strength, resilience, or other mystical benefits, they also carry a dark curse, binding the wearer’s fate to the will of the empire’s lingering evil forces.

Wearing the necklaces ties the characters into an ancient struggle between good and evil, blending allure and danger. The necklaces symbolize a double-edged legacy: magical gifts that are inseparable from their sinister consequences, highlighting the novel’s themes of ancient curses and the perils of tampering with forbidden powers.

Complete the following tasks:

🔗2. Read a chain of 3 books where two characters are magically linked or bonded
Soulmates, enemies, cursed partners, unwilling allies — if there’s magic forcing connection, it belongs here.

💔5. Read a chain of 3 books with a broken bond — romantic, familial, or magical
A friendship shattered, a sibling betrayed, a soulbond severed. Anything once whole now in pieces.

🔤6. Read a chain of 3 books where the author’s first and/or last name includes at least 3 letters from the word NECKLACE
(Bonus if it’s all 7 letters. Ultra cursed.)

So, one of our books is supposed to be a genre we don’t normally read. How do we indicate that?

a note in the justification.

So, if I'm reading a book that has a MPG India, can I use that because I don't read many books set in India?

Yep.

The Magical Necklaces stirred when Jackie asked about a genre she doesn’t normally read.

They glittered in the dark, threads of light twisting like a snare.
“Unfamiliar genres… ahh, the best ones. A necklace always tightens differently when you’re not used to wearing it.”

One jewel pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
“Yes, Jackie. Choose your India book. Slip it on. Just don’t be surprised if it never quite comes off again.”

—Toymaker Lisa

Arghh--I forgot to click the notify button or bookmark this challenge and couldn't find it again.

This is going to be so fun.

Lisa, I'm using Nowhere Else by Felicia Davin for my Necklace chain because it adds a BR (just fyi). I haven't found my bonded/stretch book yet, but I might join you for your hellhound book because humor is a genre I don't read (funny not funny).

Donna, I’m not sure where to put this, but Lisa and I would like a BR thread for How to Flirt with a Hellhound. I put it in the BR requests, too.

I am going to duck out of the Hellhound BR. I just realized that the book I read, Don't Sleep with the Dead works for soulmates (the characters trade hearts) and I don't wanna read Shannon Mae. Sorry, but I assume you'll be fine without me.

I just finished my last book. Can one of you spin and post our completions?

Unless I did it wrong, I did it!

17. The Monkey's Paw


The Monkey’s Paw is a legendary cursed object from W. W. Jacobs’ classic 1902 horror short story The Monkey’s Paw. It is a shriveled, mummified paw of a monkey that grants its owner three wishes, but each wish comes with devastating, often ironic consequences.

The paw was enchanted by a fakir to teach people not to interfere with fate. When someone makes a wish, the paw curls a finger, and the wish is granted, though never in the way the wisher expects. Wishes made with the Monkey’s Paw tend to bring tragedy rather than happiness, revealing that tampering with destiny comes at a terrible price.

Grimy and unsettling in appearance, the Monkey’s Paw is a potent symbol of greed, temptation, and unintended consequences. It serves as a chilling warning: Be careful what you wish for, because the cost may be far greater than you imagined.

Complete the following tasks
📘2. Spell the Curse: P.A.W.
Read a chain of 3 books with a title that spells out PAW

🧷3. Threads of Fate
Read a chain of 3 books with a hand on the cover — human, animal, skeletal, drawn, gloved, or ghostly. If it's grasping something? Even better.

🔮4. Wish Fulfillment Gone Wrong
Read a chain of 3 books featuring a deal, a wish, or a bargain that doesn’t go as planned. Doesn’t have to be supernatural — career goals, marriages, Faustian pacts… fate’s got range.

I've got a P and W coming up.

I'll have to look, but if we can do series I have a P and A coming up. Depending on if she's finished Kirsten will have P for The Kingdoms

I thought it was just titles.

Title, Author initials (first & last only), and series name.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Yes, but the task says title that spells out PAW.

That's probably an oversight when I created the task, but everyone else has gone with title, so lets stick to that.

Then I have a P and A coming up.

P and W for me. Any of them actually.

I only have an A on my immediate tbr, so I’d take that letter, please.

Ok. So Lisa P, Kirsten A, Jackie W

Looks good.

Checked us in.

Annabelle is inspired by a true story about a doll believed to be haunted by the spirit of a young girl. In 1970, a student and her roommate reported that their Raggedy Ann doll, the real Annabelle doll the movie is based on (pictured on the right), was acting strangely. A medium told them the doll was inhabited by the spirit of Annabelle Higgins. Despite their attempts to care for the doll, they couldn’t control its behavior and eventually sought help from Ed and Lorraine Warren, famous demonologists. The Warrens concluded that an unnatural entity was manipulating the doll. They took the doll and secured it in their museum, protected by sigils and wards. While the Warrens documented several instances of unusual activity, including the doll seemingly moving on its own, there is no proof it has ever caused physical harm or death.

The movie Annabelle draws heavily from this story, but is a fictionalized version. Still, the doll in the film (pictured above on the left) is undeniably creepy.

Complete the following tasks

Step 1: Purify the space & spirit by burning sage
Read a chain of 3 books that start with a letter in SAGE

Step 2: Choose the materials for your wards
Read a chain of 3 books with your ward material chosen on the cover (the team must choose from plants, stones, metal, or crystal, but you will all read for the same material)

Step 3: Put your ward items at the 4 corners of your area (around Annabelle). Draw your sigils/symbols in oil or water, encircling your space with a defensive boundary. It's all about intention.
Read a chain of 3 books that have the word SYMBOL in the text

Plants or metal for ward?

There are lots of trees and buildings on covers

Either is easy. Plants?

My next book is a plants book, so I like that idea.