Tag: ghost stories

Review 2643: #RIPXX! The House of Silence

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Marble knights walking in the night, a man coming back from the dead, a man who acquires a sweetheart in the graveyard, a haunted picture frame, killer vines, such are the fodder of E. Nesbit’s collection of 18 ghost stories. None of these stories are truly terrifying, but some of them are at least original.

There are a few that turn out not to really be ghost stories—for example, a salesman who uses a ghost story to get a better room—and I liked those better than most of the ones involving the supernatural, although I do like a nice, chilling story.

Several of the stories are about thwarted love affairs or unscrupulous rivals for a girl’s affections. Some have sad endings, but in others people get what they deserve.

This book is about on par with the volume of Victorian ghost stories I reviewed a few years ago, but uniformly better written and sometimes more subtle.

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Review 2578: Catherine the Ghost

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I took a break from reading A Short HIstory of Nearly Everything to read this novella. After putting it on my list, I had forgotten that it was based on Wuthering Heights. If you’ve read that book, you should be okay, but otherwise Catherine the Ghost may be hard to follow.

Like Wuthering Heights, Catherine the Ghost begins with the arrival to the house of Mr. Lockwood, who is stranded and spends the night in Catherine’s bedroom. The ghost Catherine demands to be let in.

The novella begins there but goes forward with glimpses into the past instead of the other way around. It focuses on Catherine’s haunting of Heathcliff and ends at about the same place as the original novel. The ghost is one narrator.

The other narrator is the other Catherine, Catherine the ghost’s daughter, who was tricked into marrying Linton, her cousin, the son of Heathcliff’s enemy, Hindley.

Koja’s style of writing is poetical and unusual, as she frequently uses sentence fragments. However, it is easy to follow. This is a haunting novella. I liked it a lot.

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Review 2521: The Winter Spirits

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I had hoped this book would arrive early enough before Christmas to fit it into my December schedule. It did not. However, early January is almost as good. For this book, because it includes stories from so many well-known current authors, I thought I’d give a little synopsis of each story.

“Host” by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Young Mary and her brother Abel have been moved out of the workhouse to Jacob’s Island to fend for themselves in Victorian London. Mr. and Mrs. Griffith have lost their daughter and have spent all their money on a spiritualist to contact her. Now she says there’s a way to bring their daughter back, but they need a host her same age.

“Inferno” by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

In 18th century Italy Jasper travels to a villa in the middle of a lake to flee his deceased wife’s brothers—out to punish him for how he treated her. He’s planning to meet friends there, but they are nowhere to be seen. Soon, he finds out why.

“The Old Play” by Andrew Michael Hurley

Morgan returns to an old theater every year to play the Beggar in the Old Play. It is a family tradition, but since WW II the Committee has changed the play to make it more “authentic.” This year, last-minute changes affect Morgan.

“A Double Thread” by Imogen Hermes Gowar

When a 19th century society woman takes refuge with her aunt in Penzance while her husband is on trial for burning one of his factories, her maid leaves. Her aunt recommends Nora Landry, a shy woman with no experience but a notable needlewoman. Although Nora is making her a beautiful dress, the woman treats her shamefully over a small incident and there is a death. But that’s not the end of it.

“The Salt Miracles” by Natasha Pulley

Flint goes to the island of St. Hilda because he’s heard that some pilgrims have disappeared. When he gets there, he learns of miracles among the pilgrims followed by disappearances, and he actually witnesses some. Could he really be glimpsing a man with antlers?

“Banished” by Elizabeth Macneal

An 18th century ghost whisperer arrives at the home of Lord Grange to help get rid of the ghost of his wife. Lord Grange says she is maniacal and vengeful, and she certainly seems to be so. But is there a reason for that? This story is the author’s fancy based on actual events.

“The Gargoyle” by Bridget Collins

At her publisher’s demand, a writer goes to a small town to work on her novels. Although her cottage is comfortable, she hears weird scrabbling noises at night. Soon, she gets unanticipated help with her draft.

“The Master of the House” by Stuart Turton

At the turn of the century, Henry Carrow is a widower left with his young son, Thomas, in whom he is not much interested. Thomas seems to be becoming rebellious, and he tells his father that the Master of the House is going to take him at midnight on Christmas Eve unless he intervenes. But of course Henry thinks he is fantasizing.

“Ada Lark” by Jess Kidd

Ada Lark is a small girl who works for the medium Madam Bellerose. To do her work, she must be shut into the base of the medium’s table, her arms raised above her head to operate the various mechanisms. Madam Bellerose can punish her by closing the lattice, thus cutting off her air. One day an old pal approaches Madam Bellerose with a scheme. If she can convince the bereaved Lady Bentham that her dead child wants her to marry him, he’ll give her enough money to live in comfort. But what will it mean for Ada if Madam Bellerose retires?

“Jenkin” by Catriona Ward

Maggie and Vera are orphaned young women circa 1950. Maggie wants the two of them to move to New York and learn to be secretaries, but Vera doesn’t want to go. Maggie hides the secret of Jenkin, a creature that appears to her whenever she lies, and she has several secrets, some of which come out when Vera is invited to stay with their aunt in Maine.

“Widow’s Walk” by Susan Stokes-Chapman

In the 18th century, Honoria is a renowned fan maker. Her husband has disappeared and the rumor is that he ran off with another woman. The Christmas ball is approaching, and Honoria is personally making a special fan for Amelia Whiting, a young woman she knew to be her husband’s lover. It is supposed to be made of ivory, but Honoria has found a good substitute.

“Carol of the Bells and Chains” by Laura Purcell

Abigail is the governess of three bratty and spoiled and one good child, who is unnoticed by her parents. After one especially frustrating afternoon, she tells the children the old folktale of Krampus.

_________________________

This is a rather mediocre collection of stories, most of which seem to be trying too hard to be Gothic. I only really liked Jess Kidd’s and Elizabeth Macneal’s stories. Many of the stories were predictable while others were too unlikely. None of them sent a chill down my spine.

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Review 2505: Novellas in November! Fever Dream

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Fever Dream was another book I found on Literary Hub’s 50 Best Contemporary Novels under 200 Pages list. It is mysterious and unsettling and qualifies for Novellas in November.

Amanda, a young woman, is in bed talking to a boy named David. Together, they are trying to reconstruct the story of what happened to Amanda. Amanda is telling David the story, prodded by his questions, but it is clear that David remembers more than Amanda does. The story starts out with David’s mother, Carla. It soon becomes clear that Amanda is dying.

I don’t want to tell much about this story because almost anything I say would interfere with the plot unfolding itself. Let me just say that the story is eerie and a ghost story, in its own way. And to watch out where you pick to go on vacation.

The novella is sparingly written, so sparingly that the lines were given extra space just to make it to 185 pages. It’s quite a creepy little book, combining superstition and ghosts with an unstated environmentalism.

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Review 2474: North Woods

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In early colonial days, a couple flees one of the colonies into the wilderness of Massachusetts. There, they settle in a valley.

A settler with a baby is kidnapped by natives. When she becomes ill with fever, they leave her with an old white woman, who cares for her. But when white men come after her and plan to kill the natives—the old woman’s friends—she murders them. Before this happens, one of the men gives the captured woman an apple, and she drops the seeds on the ground.

An apple tree grows.

After the French and Indian Wars, Major Charles Osgood gives up his uniform and decides to grow apples. His friends think he has lost his mind. He searches all over until a child leads him to an apple tree near a ruined cabin in the wilderness. The apple is marvelous. He builds a house and takes cuttings from the tree to make an orchard, producing an apple called Osgood’s Wonder.

So Daniel Mason goes on relating the history of this plot of ground, from one owner to another. People die, are murdered, are conned, become ghosts, run mad, the wilderness recedes and then returns, the house is ruined and rebuilt, added to, ruined, rebuilt. Each section is linked to others by characters, coincidences, and place. Some of the incidents are funny, some fates are sad, some characters get what they deserve. Tales are punctuated by songs written from the grave.

I can’t really convey how much I enjoyed reading this unusual novel. It’s steeped in the beauty of the forest. It somehow manages to involve you despite some quite short (some longer) stories of its characters. You get worried about the fates of apple and chestnut trees! I loved this one. It did exactly what a book is supposed to do, pulled me into a different world and made me reluctant to leave it.

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Review 2425: Murder Road

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If you like a good ghost story, there’s no one to beat Simone St. James. Her last two books were especially excellent.

It’s July 1995. April and her new husband Eddie are on their honeymoon on the way to a motel on Lake Michigan when they get lost. Something about the road they are on, Atticus Line, feels wrong. April sees a light blinking in the woods and then they see a figure in the road, a girl who seems to have something wrong with her. Her name is Rhonda Jean, and once they realize she’s bleeding, they rush her to the hospital in Coldlake Falls.

Rhonda Jean has been stabbed, and she dies in the hospital. April and Eddie are covered with blood, as is their car, and they suddenly realize they look like murderers. And that’s how the cops see them.

April and Eddie soon realize that they need to try to solve the murder themselves. They learn that there had been a series of murders on the Atticus Line, mostly of hitchhikers on the way to a beach, starting in 1976 with an unidentified woman. There is also a story of a ghost who haunts the road. Once you see her, you die. April sees her when they return to the road, and the ghost tries to pull Eddie from the car, but they don’t die. What does the ghost want?

As far as the plot goes, and sympathy for the main characters, this one is right up there with St. James’s best. Unfortunately for me, Michigan native, it turned into What It Gets Wrong about Michigan, especially Midland, one of the novel’s settings and my home town.

Never mind me. If you like ghost stories, you’re going to love this one. No need to continue reading. However, if you like accuracy . . .

First, it was the weather. This is minor, but the characters experience a series of really hot days. Sure, it can be hot in Michigan, but in the northern lower peninsula, which is where the book is set, it’s usually not that hot in July. Mornings are usually cool and nights cold. There’s a bit about a flannel shirt that Eddie brought along in case it was cold. He would know it would be cold. Of course, weather in 2024 could be different, but I looked up the weather in that area in July 1995. They had one day in the 90s and a low in the 80s. Most days were in the 60s or 70s. But again, this is minor.

Then she shocked me by saying Midland was in the south, almost to the Indiana border, proving she never even looked at a map. Midland, as its name suggests, is smack dab in the middle of the lower peninsula, maybe a bit east of the middle. It’s a five-hour drive from Ohio. Indiana is further away. The main characters are from Ann Arbor, which is almost two hours further south than Midland, so they wouldn’t make that mistake.

I’m no Midland booster—I got out of there as soon as I could—but St. James depicts it as a sad little town. It’s actually quite prosperous as the home of Dow Chemical, which has pumped a lot of money into it, and it has a large percentage of people with PhDs. The characters think they are in a sad downtown area when they go to the library, but they are not, and in fact never get there. The downtown of MIdland was quite vibrant in the 90s, much more so than when I left in the 80s. The library is actually on a long main street that is commercial at both ends but middle- to upper-class residential in the middle where the library is, with the botanical gardens behind it and the performing arts center next to it. April is surprised that the library is surrounded by greenery, but most of Midland is quite green, although it gets a little seedy a few long blocks away, closer to downtown. Finally, there is no bank across the street from the library.

Just a little more research, even if she couldn’t make a visit, would have got these facts right. It’s kind of interesting that she didn’t do it or make up a different town, as she did with the setting farther north.

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Review 2336: An English Ghost Story

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In an attempt to solve their family problems, the Naremores decide to look for a house outside the city. As soon as they see the Hollow, they love it. It is a large house with towers set in an apple orchard. The previous owner was Louise Magellan Teazle, the author of many children’s books. At the Hollow, all four Naremores feel a sense of well-being.

Although the family loves living at the Hollow, they are much like four islands. Steve is a successful business owner who believes he is constantly trying to rescue his wife Kirsty from ill-conceived business ventures instigated by her best friend, Veronica, whom he dislikes. The latest one cost him a lot of money, especially because Kirsty made Veronica a partner even though she invested no money—and Veronica is still racking up debts against the closed business. Steve spends most of his time in his office working.

Kirsty was a reader of Teazle’s Weezy series, so she’s the first one to realize that the house played a part in the books. She has even found the magic chest of drawers—which produces something new from the bottom drawer, a jumble from the middle drawer, and always the same thing from the top drawer. She misses Veronica and believes her family’s demands have kept her from succeeding at something of her own. Although she has taken on the traditional housewife role, most of the time it is hard to tell what she is doing.

Teenage Jordan is wrapped up in her first romance with her boyfriend, Rick. She spends most of her time in her room imagining showing Rick around the Hollow.

Ten-year-old Tim spends his time outside pretending to be a soldier patrolling the perimeter. No one seems to pay him any attention, but he is aware of the “locals” almost immediately.

All but Steve are aware on some level that there are other presences in the house and on the property. As these presences seem friendly, the family feels renewed, but when the family starts falling into old patterns, the house turns against them.

I am always looking for a good ghost story, but at some point this wasn’t it. It seemed promising. Newman did the buildup really well. However, when the horrors got going, they just seemed silly to me. I always find horrors that seem possible a lot scarier than things that are invented just to be scary. For me, the events during the haunting didn’t make sense, although there was logic in the overall idea.

Also, the Naremores out of the influence of the house are not very likable people. Steve gets more and more wrapped up with a macho sense that he’s taking care of his family—to the point where he ultimately seems insane. Kirsty is disdainful toward Steve and resents her family. Jordan is a fairly typical teenager wrapped up in herself, and Tim seems to have no personality at all. He is so obsessed with his game that he is truly boring.

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Review 2119: The House of Footsteps

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Simon Christie, in his brand new role as an art cataloger, takes his first job for a well-known auction house. He is supposed to evaluate the famous Mortlake collection, rumored to perhaps have even a Da Vinci.

When he arrives at the small village near the Mortlake house, Thistlecrook, he hears rumors about the unpredictable owner, Victor Mortlake, and about a history of violence on the property and deaths in the lake.

Victor Mortlake is unpredictable and the famous art collection is horrifying—images of ghastly acts of violence. Still, because of Simon’s ingratiating behavior, Mortlake seems to believe Simon understands something that he doesn’t.

Then Simon meets Amy in the library, an unexplained and unacknowledged presence in the house. Who is she? And of course he hears footsteps in the house at night.

This novel, set in the mid-1920s, seemed much like a Victorian gothic. I thought it would be the perfect book for me, but it was slow moving and hard to stick with. It is written mostly with description rather than dialogue, much like a Victorian novel. Further, by the end of the novel I still wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

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Review 1796: The Uninvited

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The movie The Uninvited has long been the Halloween movie of choice for me and my husband. It is vintage 1930’s with Ray Milland and a great ghost story. However, I had not read the book until now.

Roderick Fitzgerald and his sister Pamela have been fruitlessly looking for a house in the west country that they can afford when they come across Cliff End. Although it needs work, it is so beautiful that they are sure they can’t afford it. However, it has not been occupied for 15 years, and Commander Brook reluctantly agrees to their price. He does say, though, that there have been “occurrences.”

All is well at first, and the Fitzgeralds are happy fixing up their house, but eventually the occurrences begin—a light in a room that had been the nursery, a sighing sound, the scent of mimosa, and more terrifying, an enervating cold in the studio and the attempt of an apparition to form. The Fitzgeralds begin to learn the story behind the home—that it belonged to the Commander’s daughter, Mary Meredith, and her artist husband, that an artists model died there after attempting to kill Mary, whom most people treat like a saint, and that Mary died soon afterwards.

The Fitzgeralds soon meet Stella Meredith, the Commander’s granddaughter, and befriend her. She has yearned to visit the house, but after she does, the manifestations grow stronger. Soon, the Fitzgeralds believe they have a choice between making the manifestations disappear by understanding what they want or giving up the house.

Although this novel didn’t really make my hair stand on end, it is a good ghost story. The characters are interesting, and the descriptions of the Devon coast are striking. I enjoyed the book very much.

Dark Enchantment

The Unforeseen

The Uninhabited House

Review 1774: The Silent Companions

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In the mid-1800’s, a badly burned Elsie Bainbridge is confined to an asylum. She is said to be dangerous. She cannot speak and has not been able to tell what happened to her. Her doctor suggests that writing her version may save her from being executed.

In 1635, Josiah and Anne Bainbridge excitedly begin preparing for the arrival at their home, The Bridge, of King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria. Josiah decides, however, that their daughter Hetta will not participate in the festivities. Hetta was born with a deformed tongue, and Anne blames herself, because she took herbs to conceive when her doctors said she could not.

Elsie’s written account begins when she arrives at The Bridge to live there after her husband’s unexpected death. She finds the house decrepit and the people in the neighborhood unwelcoming. Then she and her companion, Sarah, find the silent companions, some wooden cut-out figures that appear lifelike.

This novel seemed as if it was going to be a good old creep fest. It was certainly a ghost story, but I prefer something—I was going to say that could actually happen, but that’s silly. I guess I prefer something more subtle without freakish gory events.

As far as the approach taken to the material is concerned, although all the chapters except the ones set in the asylum are supposed to be written, the later ones as Elsie’s account and the earlier as a diary, neither of them are convincing as such.

Although I make a final caveat that I don’t believe the doctor’s treatment reflects psychiatric treatment of the times, I am not saying I disliked this novel. I thought both stories were compelling, but not so much so that I didn’t think of these things while I was reading it.

The Poison Thread

This House Is Haunted

The Séance