Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates

 "Gallows Hill is cursed."

From the blurb:  It's been more than a decade since Margot Hull last saw her childhood home. And she was young enough when she was sent away that she barely remembers its dark passageways and secret corners. But now she's returned to bury her parents who died in her childhood home from mysterious circumstances. She's also inherited Gallows Hill and the winery that is her family's legacy...along with all the dark secrets that lie buried beneath the crumbling estate. Secrets she was never told.

My thoughts:  Margot should never have returned to Gallows Hill, not even for her parents' funeral. The name alone hints at its macabre past. And there are worse horrors hidden within. This book is seriously scary. From the ringing of the bells throughout the house, to the blood in the attic, to the reflection Margot keeps seeing in the mirror of her own corpse. And that's just the beginning! The house may be haunted, but what emerges from the tunnels beneath Gallows Hill is like a disturbing nightmare come to life. Coates does an amazing job of building suspense throughout the book, and creating an atmospheric and haunting setting. It gave me chills. And what an ending! I loved this one; it's a great October read.

Happy Reading!

Frightening fun!

Welcome to the First Annual Haunted Forest Halloween Tour!

"Nobody has ever been eaten on one of our tours, and nobody ever will!"

Four years ago, an entire forest sprouted up out of nowhere, engulfing the town of Cromay, New Mexico, and killing hundreds of people. Rescue teams went into the forest to search for survivors and never returned. What lives in the forest now is an array of fanged and fierce nightmares come to life, the kind of creatures cryptozoologists love to study and crazy tourists love to view. That's why H.F. Enterprises installed a track and built reinforced trams to transport tourists of all ages through the monster-filled forest. And their safety record is impeccable. Until the first Halloween tour enters the forest. That's when everything goes horribly wrong.

This horror novel has everything you could possible want:  freakshow monsters that want to chomp everyone in sight, characters to root for...and against, a dark and eerie forest, explosions, bloody battles, that timeless fight of good vs. evil, supernatural suspense, and some great one-liners. Great literature it's not, but it is entertaining and scary good fun. (Good nightmare material, too.) 

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!