So haunting....

Doesn't this house look totally haunted? I love how broken and eerie it looks. It would make such a great setting for a scary ghost story. 

This one looks pretty haunting as well:

But I think this one is my favorite. This is one I'd love to buy and fix up...even if it is haunted.  

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

 "Strange noises, bad vibes, your mom and dad recently passed--Your house is haunted and I'm not selling it until you deal with that."

 

The plot in brief:  Louise and her brother, Mark, don't get along. They haven't even spoken in years. But when their parents die, Louise flies back home to Charleston to help with the funeral. Only it's not just Mark she has to deal with, or getting their childhood home ready to sell, it's also the haunting memories from her past that she's been repressing. Oh, and all of her mother's dolls and puppets...the ones that always seem to be watching...and waiting. 

My thoughts:  I struggled with this one...partly because of my mood and mental state, and the fact that I've been running tired and stressed lately. It's been hard to enjoy any book that's not super light or fluffy. And this book is neither. But I thought the premise of this one sounded ghostly and fun...and I like the way Hendrix writes. Usually. 

Only I found it difficult to connect with the main characters in this one; Louise and Mark are both pretty unlikable at the beginning, though by the end I did like them a little more. And for a horror story, I thought the book's pacing was pretty slow. All the internal dialogue and flashbacks made it drag, especially at the start, although it does pick up about halfway through. And the ending does have some good moments of suspense. Then there's Pupkin, their mom's favorite puppet; he was truly creepy! So there are good things about this one. I just didn't love it as much as I hoped I would. But maybe you will.

Happy Reading!

The Hendrix novel I loved:

The Final Girl Support Group. 

This one is fabulous!

Some ghostly reads for October...

I love a good ghost story. Especially when it's set in an old house that's haunted. And Sarah Rayne has written several quietly suspenseful ghost stories in her Nell West and Michael Flint Haunted House Series. There are six books in this series:  Property of a Lady, The Sin Eater, The Silence, The Whispering, Deadlight Hall, and The Bell Tower. It's hard to pick a favorite because they're all really good, but I recommend starting with one of the first ones.  

Another fun series is J.L. Bryan's Ellie Jordan series. She and her colleagues kick ghosts out of haunted places by finding and trapping them. What I like about this series is that the characters are funny, the books are suspenseful, and the endings are always satisfying. I think there are sixteen books in this series. I haven't read them all yet, but I've loved all the ones that I have read. It's best to start with the first book: Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper. But Cold Shadows, Maze of Souls, and The Crawling Darkness are also really good. 

And if you're into ghost stories that have a more classic feel to them, you can't go wrong with either Susan Hill's The Woman in Black or Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. They've made movies of both of these books, but even if you've seen the movies, I still recommend reading the books, because the books are better.

So if you're looking for some fun ghostly reads this October, these are some to try. 

I list more ghostly books I've read and enjoyed under my Ghostly Reads tab at the top.

Happy Reading!

Want ghosts?

Eighteen months ago, Ellie Jordan and her boss came up against a ghost they couldn't trap. Now it's back, a creepy boogeyman that crawls out of the darkness to feed on people's fears, and it's terrorizing a new family. It especially likes children. Ellie, along with her ghost-trapping partner, Stacey, is determined to stop it before it hurts anyone else. There are just a few problems:  they don't know who it was, where it came from, or how to trap it. Luckily, they have the help of Jacob, a CPA who's also a psychic medium, and Michael, the cute firefighter who lives upstairs from where the main hauntings are taking place. And they're going to need all the help they can get because what they're fighting is very scary...and very dangerous.

"It can kind of take over certain doors, and certain small spaces, and use them as a crossing point. It's powerful. And it likes to terrorize living people. It ... drinks fear like a bat sucking blood. The fear makes it stronger, but also corrupts it. The stronger it grows, the more evil it becomes. If it ever was human, I'm not sure it even remembers that."

The Crawling Darkness by J.L. Bryan is another book from off my TBR shelf. I bought it because I love Bryan's Ellie Jordan series. These books are humorous, suspenseful, full of ghosts and always a lot of fun. And they take place in Savannah, Georgia, which makes for some great atmosphere. I really like all the characters, too; Ellie, especially, is tough, funny, and always up for the next ghostly challenge. The other thing I love about these books is that the endings never leave you hanging; they pack a wallop and always satisfy. So, if you love a good ghost story, I highly recommend The Crawling Darkness... and all the other books in this series.

Happy Reading!

Other Ellie Jordan novels:

Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper

Cold Shadows

Maze of Souls 

Craven Manor

Abandoned and practically in ruins, Craven Manor looks and feels haunted. When he's offered the job of groundskeeper, Daniel Kane wants nothing to do with the manor. Especially after he reads the owner's list of unsettling rules for staying there:

• No strangers are allowed onto the property.
• Do not enter the tower.
• Do not leave the groundskeeper's cottage between midnight and dawn. Draw your curtains. Keep the doors locked. If you hear knocking, do not answer it.

But Daniel is desperate. So he reluctantly accepts the job and moves into the groundskeeper's cottage. His first task? To clear the crypt of thorny vegetation. And it's going well. Except for the strange tapping on his door at night. And the mysterious figure he glimpses in the tower window. Then there's the feeling he has of constantly being watched. And the ghost-like black cat haunting the manor's halls. But that's not all. There's a terrible evil inside Craven Manor's tower itching to get out.

This is another good haunted house adventure from Darcy Coates. It's entertaining, fast-paced, and full of ghostly suspense. The strange history of Craven Manor had me questioning everything Daniel was told. And just when I thought I had it figured out, Coates threw in another twist. Daniel makes a few very stupid mistakes along the way, but I still liked him. Overall, this book is a fun mix of supernatural and mystery. It's not super scary, although it does have it's moments. And I liked the ending a lot.

Happy Reading!

A haunting tale...

Title & Author:  The House Next Door by Darcy Coates
Genre:  Paranormal
First line:  I live next to a haunted house.

Summary:  Jo has never been inside Marwick House; her cats won't even enter its yard. And she's never met any of its occupants either, mostly because none of them stay for very long. Until Anna moves in. She seems nice, and a little fragile, and Jo tries to warn her that sometimes strange things happen in Marwick House, but Anna doesn't seem to mind. Not even when she sees the ghost of Helen Marwick who died a very unhappy death there years ago. But things change when Helen starts to make her presence known.

My thoughts:  I love novels about haunted houses and Darcy Coates writes some good ones. At first, Marwick House seems fairly benign. There's a little ghostly activity here and there--flickering lights, doors that open and close, haunting piano music in the hall--but it's not until the second half of the book that things ramp up and start to get really suspenseful and scary. I was intrigued by Marwick House itself, and I liked the quiet build up at the first, and how I almost felt sorry for Helen. Jo and Anna were a little too passive at times for me to really like them, but Jo made up for it at the end. And what an ending! Although I thought the The Carrow Haunt was better, I liked this ghostly tale enough to give it 3.5/5 stars.

Happy Reading!

Ghostly fun...

"Two weeks in the state's most haunted house. This is either

going to be a great decision or the worst experience of my life."

The Characters:

• REMY:  a tour guide for Carrow House who knows its history better than anyone else.
• MARK SULLIGENT:  the man with a secret who's spearheading this two-week experiment.
• APRIL MAHON:  the seventeen-year-old owner of Carrow House with a passion for ghosts and hauntings.
• LUCILLE PRICE:  April's chaperone
• MARJORIE MCALLISTER:  a well-known and respected spirit medium
• BERNARD:  Marjorie's taciturn assistant
• TAJ SADANA:  ghost-hunter and tech guy
• PIERS:  tour participant
• EDGAR PORTER:  the serial killer whose ghost still stalks the halls of Carrow House

Carrow House:

Once an asylum for the sick, then a hotel for the rich, Carrow House has seen a lot of deaths over the years. And many of those spirits are still trapped within its walls. And it doesn't take much to waken them ... or the evil that haunts Carrow House.  An evil that is determined not to let Remy or anyone else in her group leave Carrow House alive. 

My thoughts:

I love a good ghost story, especially one that takes place in a haunted house, and The Carrow Haunt by Darcy Coates has all the elements I love:  good characters that are flawed but not frustratingly stupid, an eerie atmosphere, good scares, seances, bleeding walls, slamming doors, cold spots, a raging storm outside and some very creepy ghosts inside.  This novel is more supernatural mystery and suspense than horror, but I actually liked that.  It reminded me of all those classic ghost stories I've read and loved over the years. So here's to Darcy Coates and her awesome ghostly novel.

Happy Reading!

Shiver by Alex Nye

5 signs your house might be haunted:

flickering lights

pockets of extreme cold

strange creaks and murmurings in the hallway

footsteps when no one is there

ghostly laughter

In Shiver by Alex Nye, Samuel Cunningham and Fiona Morton discover a secret staircase behind the library fireplace that leads to a dead end in the tower of Dunadd House. Their passage not only disturbs the dust, but the two ghost-children hiding there. Eliza and John died in 1604. But now they're awake, and Eliza is feeling very much alive. Samuel and Fiona, along with Fiona's two older brothers, are determined to find out what's hiding at the end of the secret staircase, and why Eliza and John are haunting Dunadd House. But they might be treading on dangerous ground. Because...

"Ghosts are best left to themselves."

So why did I check this middle-grade fiction book out of the library? Because it's set in a haunted house in Scotland. And I love Scotland...and I also love haunted-house stories. But Shiver isn't just a ghost story. It's also a mystery. And there's a blizzard. And a hidden room containing buried secrets from the past. And an adventure. And Samuel and Fiona, and Fiona's brothers, Sebastian and Charles, are very fun characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's a well-written, satisfying ghost story. And the perfect October read.

Happy Reading!

Supernatural suspense...

All houses wherein men have lived and died

Are haunted houses...

--Longfellow

A Nell West and Michael Flint Mystery

Antiques dealer Nell West is rational and level-headed; she does not believe in the supernatural. So, even if she'd heard the rumors about Stilter House being haunted, she still would have gone there to appraise its contents. And since it's a school holiday, she takes along her nine-year-old daughter, Beth. They have fun exploring the old house and camping out by candlelight; and every thing seems fine until Nell begins hearing haunting music in the hall. Then Beth claims to have met a young boy named Esmond, a boy who doesn't speak but who plays the piano. Everything would still have been fine, except Esmond isn't the only ghost haunting this house.

Near the door something was moving. It was as if something was picking up the shadows and twisting them into an outline--as if long fleshless fingers were reaching down and gathering up the strings of darkness and decay to weave a human carapace...And then, like a bad connection finally sparking, the woman was there. The ravage-faced creature of rain  and darkness and ancient cobwebs.

Who is she and why is she haunting Stilter House? And what happened to Esmond so long ago? Nell and her friend, Michael Flint, are determined to find the answers.

I love a good ghost story, especially one that involves a haunted house. And Stilter House is full of secrets--secrets Nell and Michael unearth through old letters, diaries and court records. I liked the way they pieced together the facts of this mystery and discovered the truth. Very Wilkie Collins-esque. And I thought their ghostly encounters were suspenseful and chilling...just as a good ghost story should be. This is the third novel Sarah Rayne has written with these characters, but The Silence stands on its own, so you don't need to read them in order to enjoy this one.

Happy Reading!

"Fancy a night in a haunted house?"

Samantha Jephcott works with paranormal investigator, Massene Henderson. "Over the last year the two of them had fought vampires, ghouls, zombie Vikings, and prevented the destruction of the planet at least twice." This time they've been hired by Sir Anthony Calverton to investigate Dark Manor, a house that was built on the site of an ancient stone circle, constructed from the bricks of an insane asylum, and filled with macabre relics of past murders. A house that can't help but be haunted. They're joined by Dr. Helen Pritchard, a medical doctor, and her husband, Professor Alan Pritchard, a physicist, along with Calverton's granddaughter, Maddy, who claims to be a medium, and Jeremy Stokes, a television psychic. With this cast of characters, it doesn't take long for the spirits in this house to appear. Or for people to start to die.

I like ghost stories, especially ones set in a creepy haunted house, and this book has all the essential elements, but unfortunately it falls a little short. The ending got a bit too fantastical for me. (Although I have to give John Llewellyn Probert points for originality!) There were a few typos here and there, and a few other things that didn't quite add up. Despite its flaws, I still liked this book. Especially Samantha's and Henderson's humorous relationship. (In fact, I think the Syfy Channel should do a series around them and their paranormal adventures.) Sadly, I didn't find this particular book all that scary. Maybe the next haunted house will be better.

Happy Haunted Reading!

3 YA novels for readers of ANY age...

Amber House by Kelly Moore, Tucker Reed and Larkin Reed
First Line:  I was almost sixteen the first time my grandmother died.
My thoughts: Echoes of the past haunt Amber House like ghosts, and soon-to-be-sixteen Sarah Parsons is the only one in this time who can see them. Although sometimes it seems as if the past can see her, too. And if she can interact with the past, can she change it? And what will that do to her own future?
There are so many things that I love about this book: the secret doorways and tunnels of Amber House; Sarah's relationship with her younger autistic brother, Sam; and Jackson, the neighbor boy, who had visions of Sarah long before he ever met her. Sarah herself, smart and stubborn, is refreshingly real and easy to root for. Amber House is never dull. In fact, it is so well-written that even though I prefer stand-alone novels, I actually can't wait for its sequel, Neverwas, to come out.

School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins
First Line:  Killing a vampire is actually a lot easier than you'd think.
My thoughts:  At last, a teen book where the girl doesn't fall in love with the vampire.  What a refreshing change! This book is kind of a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural--only instead of the Winchester brothers, you have the Brannick women: Isolde and her mother, Aislinn. And the only thing that scares 16-year-old Izzy? Attending high school for the very first time.  (Ghosts and vampires are so much easier to deal with than teen-age boys!) So many things about this book made me laugh. It's definitely a fun (and fast) read. Izzy Brannick is such a great character; I hope Hawkins writes many more books about her and her otherworldly adventures.

Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan
First Line: I was born invisible.
My thoughts: I love the premise of this book: cursed by his own grandfather before he was born, Stephen has never been visible to another human being. Not even himself. He lives an invisible life, never interacting or connecting with anyone. But that all changes when Elizabeth moves in down the hall. Because Elizabeth can see him. And maybe she can break his curse. It's the bond that develops between Stephen and Elizabeth that I liked most about this book. What I didn't love is how the chapters alternate between Stephen's and Elizabeth's points of view. (And does every YA novel have to be written in first person?) Despite this, Invisibility gets points for creativity and is definitely a novel worth checking out.