A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand is the first authorized return to the world of Shirley Jackson’s iconic The Haunting of Hill House.
When struggling playwright Holly decides to rent a spooky manor in order to workshop her piece with the actors, she thinks it’s a great use of her grant money. Her partner, Nisa has written music for the production, her longtime friend Stevie is set to serve as audio engineer, and iconic actress Amanda has agreed to lend her talents on stage. Hill House has called to Holly since the day she stumbled across it, and what could be better than a looming mansion to inspire and rehearse a play about witches?
Hill House isn’t as enthused about Holly, however. A reluctant landlord, grumpy personal chef, and cheery but cautious house cleaner all try to warn her away. Not even a neighbor wielding a hunting knife or the odd illusions of black hares will turn her away from this once in a lifetime opportunity. That is, until Hill House begins its cycle of horror all over again.
As a fan of Shirley Jackson’s creeping, gothic style, I was excited about the publication of this book. The plot was all set for a pseudo-locked room mystery that would be just the right hint of creepy. For most of the book, the slow pacing kept me on edge. But with an ending that was wrapped all too tidily, this book left me a bit disappointed.
Martha Hallybread is a long-time, loyal hand-servant in Cleftwater, a small, seaside town in 17th century East Anglia, England. Unable to speak, Martha relies on a self-taught sign language to communicate and is well thought of in her community. When the witchfinder arrives and begins arresting local women, Martha’s hand gestures make her stand out to him as strange, but her skills as a midwife are needed to help the witchfinder search for marks of the devil. Forced to collude against her own friends and neighbors, Martha is afraid to help them and more afraid that she herself will be accused – or worse, that her secret history – and the wax poppet witching doll she keeps by her side – will be discovered and cause her to hang.
The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer is a well-researched, atmospheric, and haunting debut that will appeal to readers of Hilary Mantel and the historical fiction of Minette Walters and Margaret Atwood. Martha’s unique way of communicating, along with her frustrations, fears, and complicated feelings about her lot in life are quietly yet intensely palpable. Think you’ve read enough books about witch trials? Pick up a copy of this unforgettably rendered read that will immerse you in 17th century and keep you guessing Martha’s fate, and prepare to be surprised.
“Rachel” has lived a life of captivity for years. Abducted by a serial killer, she has been held in a shed on his property…until one day when he is forced to move, taking her with him.
Aidan is a widower who always lends a hand in his community. He’s an upstanding citizen who is mourning the loss of his wife while raising a teenage daughter. He catches the eye of local restauranter Emily, all to eager to lend her support. Too bad he’s hiding a secret- he’s murdered eight women and is holding a ninth captive.
Moving into the new house doesn’t mean the end of Aidan’s abuse. Although Rachel now has a bed to sleep on, she is still handcuffed and assaulted daily, despite the fact that she now sleeps down the hall from Aidan’s daughter, Cecilia. As Rachel gets to know Aidan and Cecilia on a deeper level, she starts to wonder about the women who have come before…and the ones who will come after.
Told through the voices of Rachel, Cecilia, and Emily, with each character experiencing a very different version of one man. Small town life, passing time, and grief all play a part in this page-turner. This was a disturbing, brooding read, similar in style to Gillian Flynn or Room by Emma Donoghue.
We’re nearing the end of spooky season and if you haven’t gotten your fill of scary stories, here are some to keep you in the spirit of witches, hauntings, and monsters:
“An 80-year-old mansion harboring dark secrets comes to menacing life in this classic spine-tingling tale from Shirley Jackson. Anthropologist and ghost hunter Dr. John Montague invites three strangers to stay in haunted Hill House for the summer. One of the guests is 32-year-old Eleanor, for whom three months in a haunted house is preferable to caring for her invalid mother. Soon, Eleanor begins to see and hear things that the other guests cannot. Is it all in her imagination, or is she the only one who can perceive the evil that lurks in Hill House?”
“Hand’s new novel revisits the infamous haunted house from Shirley Jackson’s classic The Haunting of Hill House. Holly, a struggling playwright looking to flesh out her witchy comeback, thinks that Hill House, the eerie mansion she’s stumbled across in Upstate New York, would be the perfect place to finish her play. She rents the house and takes her partner Nisa, a singer; their friend, sound guy/actor Stevie; and theater legend Amanda along, despite warnings and a disturbing first visit. The house rapidly reveals itself to be a malevolent force, playing on the past traumas and insecurities of its guests with typically devastating consequences.”
“It’s snowing, and the unnamed narrator is traveling with her new boyfriend Jake to visit his parents at the family farm. The novel’s vague title seems to become clearer as the narrator repeatedly ponders calling off their relationship. While this revelation may not have arrived at the best of times, it’s quickly apparent that a failed relationship is the least of her problems. When the couple arrives at their destination, Jake’s parents are awkward, and the evening goes from strange to unsettling as the narrator explores the setting of Jake’s childhood. When the pair drive home, the weather takes a turn for the worse. Jake turns off the highway and parks by an empty high school. He goes inside, leaving the narrator alone and frightened. When she enters the building, her vague sense of foreboding turns into outright terror. Interspersed throughout are snatches of conversation about some unknown act of violence that only heightens the feeling of unease.”
“When the Creed family’s beloved cat, Winston Churchill, dies, Dr. Louis Creed — on the instructions of his elderly neighbor — buries the animal not in the “Pet Sematary” where local children inter their deceased pets, but rather in the haunted Indian burial ground behind it. The next day, a changed Churchill comes back, a little smellier and more vicious than before. What will happen when a person dies and is buried in the same area?”
“Four friends gather at a Heian-era mansion in the Japanese countryside to celebrate the elopement of two of their group. From the start, something is off. There’s no paper trail of their rental, for reasons the owner makes vague; more unsettling is that this house has a haunted history. A thousand years ago, a bride awaited her groom at the site; he never arrived. She made her guests bury her alive under the building’s foundation so she could await him forever. Every year since, it is said, a young woman is sacrificed to help the lost groom find his way back to his beloved. This short novel, immersed in unease and oozing menace, is engrossing and methodically paced. The atmosphere, the characters, and their strained, complicated relationships are carefully constructed and slowly revealed, until the group finds itself in the middle of a nightmare, stalked by a faceless woman in white as they fight to leave the mansion alive. The conclusion will leave all unsettled, haunting both characters and readers.”
“In 1915, Montana allows unmarried, Black women the opportunity to claim a homestead, so, having lived her entire life in a California farming community with her parents, Adelaide Henry, 31, sets off. But before she leaves, Adelaide places her murdered parents in bed and burns the house down. Taking only an overnight bag and a heavy, securely locked trunk containing her family’s curse, one that she is now solely responsible for controlling, Adelaide will attempt to flee her past while still shackled to it, thus setting LaValle’s latest, a pervasively uneasy and brilliantly plotted horror-western hybrid, in absorbing motion. Readers are led to Big Sandy to meet its marginalized and outcast citizens, feel the wide open, unforgiving landscape, and watch the captivating drama, both real and supernatural, unfold. Told with a pulp sensibility, this masterfully paced tale, with short chapters, heart-pounding suspense, a monster that is both utterly terrifying and heartbreakingly beautiful, and a story line focused on the power of women, bursts off the page.”
The three-time Emmy nominee, producer and musician reflects on his long career and how he beat the odds to become one of today’s most successful and beloved actors.
In 1992, when eight respectable, upstanding people are found dead across the US, Jack Reacher, assigned as the Army’s representative, must discover the link between these victims and who killed them, navigating around the ulterior motives and deciding if he should bring the bad guys to justice the official way or his way.
In the years before the Civil War, Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, struggles through the miles-long march, seeks comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother, opening herself to a world beyond this world.
In 1931, the world’s greatest detective, Hercule Poirot, finds his plans for a much-needed, restful Christmas holiday thwarted by a murder investigation and has less than a week to solve the crime and prevent more murders while someone plans to wreak holiday havoc on his life.
Prisoners of war in 1942, Australian nurse Nesta James and Norah Chambers held in the notorious Camp Palembang, deep in the jungle of Sumatra battle disease, starvation and unimaginable brutality meted out by Japanese soldiers, but find, in themselves and in each other, the courage and resourcefulness to survive.
When a dead body is placed directly in the path of an early season hunt, “Sister” Jane Arnold, with the Jefferson Hunt Club busier than ever, must decipher cryptic clues left for her and her friends before any of them wind up dead.
The only surviving victim of a killer suspected in the disappearance of two sisters, bookstore owner Madeline Martin, when a true-crime podcaster opens up the cold case, must return to a past she hoped was dead to expose the terrifying truth when more young women go missing.
Today is the great novelist’s John le Carré’s birthday! Le Carré briefly served in British Intelligence during the Cold War, which no doubt informed his writing. Best known for his espionage novels, he is considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era. If you haven’t yet explored his works, here are a few to start with (and the movies based off them as well!):
Showcasing the music legend’s most unforgettable looks from the 1960s until now, this stunningly photographed book displays Dolly Parton’s iconic sense of style along with entertaining personal anecdotes that, for the first time, reveal the full story behind her lifelong passion for fashion.
In this explosive sequel to The Firm, Mitch, a partner at the largest law firm in the world, is asked for a favor by a mentor in Rome that plunges him into a sinister plot that has global implications and once against places everyone he holds dear in danger.
Arriving in Avalon, New York, to drop rescue puppies off at their forever homes, Brenda Malloy is trapped in the town by a blinding snowstorm, an escaped mutt and a life-saving encounter with a single dad and paramedic who restores her faith in Christmas and love.
In this thrilling new perspective on history, the New York Times bestselling author of Code Girls turns her attention the women of the CIA who fought to become operatives, transformed spy craft and provided the data analysis that helped track down Bin Laden in his Pakistani compound.
In 1921 Penang, when Willie, a famed writer and old friend of her husband’s, arrives for an extended stay, Lesley, as her friendship with Willie grows, makes a dangerous decision to confide in him about life in the Straits, including her relationship with a charismatic Chinese revolutionary a confession that has devastating consequences.
When best-selling author Dame Ariadne Carlisle’s lead reindeer Rudy—and her good luck charm—goes missing, Chet the dog and his human partner Bernie, while searching for Rudy, find their seemingly simple case turning into a murder investigation when Dame Ariadne’s personal assistant plunges to her death.
A group of people, still traumatized by the disappearance of three young boys in the 1970s, converge in a small Wisconsin town after a chain of random events culminates in violence and reveals long-buried secrets.
It’s October, which means it’s time for spooky reads! One of my favorite settings for spooky reads is the classic haunted house. Haunted house stories have been scaring readers for centuries, with early stories of horror like The Castle of Otranto (1764) and The Turn of the Screw (1897) introducing the idea of haunted buildings, castles, apartments, and more. Shirley Jackson’s classic The Haunting of Hill House (1959) was nominated for the National Book Award, proving that books that give you goosebumps are more than just bestsellers- they are works of literary art.
In the spirit of creepy casas, here are a few new and old books that are all about haunted houses.
Open them up if you dare!
A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
Holly Sherwin has been a struggling playwright for years, but now, after receiving a grant to develop her play, she may finally be close to her big break. All she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. When she stumbles across Hill House on a weekend getaway upstate, she is immediately taken in by the mansion. Yet as they settle in, the house’s peculiarities are made known: strange creatures stalk the grounds, disturbing sounds echo throughout the halls, and time itself seems to shift.
Forced to return to the small Southern town where she grew up to sell her late parents’ house, Louise discovers that her and her brother’s old grudges pale in comparison to the terror that still lurks within its walls. It’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market. But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…
When a friend of Mark and Steph suggests a restorative vacation abroad via a popular house swapping website, it sounds like the perfect plan. They find a genial, artistic couple with a charming apartment in Paris who would love to come to Cape Town. Mark and Steph can’t resist the idyllic, light-strewn pictures, and the promise of a romantic getaway. But once they arrive in Paris, they quickly realize that nothing is as advertised. When their perfect holiday takes a violent turn, the cracks in their marriage grow ever wider and dark secrets from Mark’s past begin to emerge.
In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by local legends.
“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories — she’s come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he’d built for his family.
Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone.
“Mom seems off.” Her brother’s words echo in Sam Montgomery’s ear as she turns onto the quiet North Carolina street where their mother lives alone.
Stepping inside, she quickly realizes home isn’t what it used to be. To find out what’s got her mom so frightened in her own home, Sam will go digging for the truth. But some secrets are better left buried.
When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street – for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price – they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee. Margaret is not most people. Margaret is staying. It’s her house.
At the end of a dark prairie road, nearly forgotten in the Kansas countryside, is the Finch House. Soon the door will be opened for the first time in decades. But something is waiting, lurking in the shadows, anxious to meet its new guests…
When best-selling horror author Sam McGarver is invited to spend Halloween night in one of the country’s most infamous haunted houses, he reluctantly agrees. At least he won’t be alone; joining him are three other masters of the macabre, writers who have helped shape modern horror.
David Burroughs is serving a life sentence for an unthinkable crime – the brutal murder of his three-year-old son Matthew. David doesn’t believe he did it, but has no memory of that night. And, evidence was mounted against David at the trial, including testimony from an eyewitness who saw him bury the murder weapon. Broken by loss, David has resigned himself to serve out his life sentence at a maximum security prison.
Now, five years into that sentence, David gets his first visitor, his ex-wife’s sister Rachel. Rachel shows him a photograph of a group of strangers. Among them is a young boy who looks too much like Matthew to be a coincidence. How can Matthew still be alive? Hoping there’s a chance, David decides to break out of prison in search of the truth.
On the run, David relies on his wits and the few friends he has left to try and track down what could be a ghost – all the while the police and FBI remain hot on his trail. Can he find this boy, who might be his, before the law throws him back behind bars –or worse.
With non-stop, gripping action, and plenty of twists, I Will Find You by Harlan Coben takes readers on a wild ride to its satisfying and surprising ending. This fast-paced thriller is perfect escape reading for fans of the author, suspenseful thrillers, and the 1993 film The Fugitive. Get a copy and then, hang on tight!
The week of October 4-10 is World Space Week, an international celebration of science and technology, and how those have contributed to the betterment of humanity. The dates were chosen to commemorate the anniversary of the launch of the first human-made Earth satellite, Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, and the signing of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies on October 10, 1967.
To celebrate, enjoy this list of space themed books, whether you like true accounts or imaginative tales, hopefully you find something that sparks a sense of wonder.
Read it or Weep 